Study: Majority Sign-Up Works, Without Coercion, for Thousands of Workers in Illinois

by Seth Michaels, May 4, 2009

A new study shines an important light on what the process for forming a union could look like under the Employee Free Choice Act—and cuts through misleading, baseless corporate spin claiming the majority sign-up process exposes workers to coercion or intimidation.

“A Study of Illinois’ Majority Interest Petition Provision,” authored by Robert Bruno, a professor of labor policy at the University of Illinois, is based on Bruno’s in-depth analysis of every majority sign-up petition filed in Illinois since the passage of a 2003 law allowing workers in state, local and educational institutions the right to choose to form unions through majority sign-up. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers around the country would be able to choose majority sign-up as a process to bargain for a better life, so the experience of Illinois workers is a real-world test that offers critical data to the debate over Employee Free Choice.

Bruno concludes: 

The results of the study unambiguously revealed that the majority sign-up provision was used extensively without hint of union or employer abuse. 

In brief, from 2003-2009, 21,197 public-sector workers employed in state, county, municipal and educational institutions voluntarily joined a union. Most importantly, contrary to business claims, in nearly eight hundred petition cases, there was not a single confirmed incidence of union coercion.

Bruno studied the results of Illinois’ majority sign-up law over more than five years, looking at accountants, cooks, carpenters, nurses and many other workers at the state, county and municipal level. More than 799 approved majority sign-up petitions, with a grand total of one complaint filed alleging union coercion—a complaint found to be groundless. Not a single petition, successful or unsuccessful, was withdrawn or dismissed due to union misconduct. Compare that with the nearly 30,000 instances of employer violations of workers’ rights in 2007 alone, and it’s obvious how false corporate complaints about majority sign-up are.

The study, Bruno says, shows majority sign-up to be

a reliable mechanism to bring workplace democracy to workers in all corners of the state’s economy. 

Hundreds of thousands of workers have successfully used majority sign-up to form a union and bargain—it’s a decades-old, functioning process that gave workers like Peter Braunston and Asela Espiritu the chance to bargain for a better life. The myth of union coercion is a powerful weapon in the hands of the corporate interests who want to keep their control over the process, but Bruno’s study shows that this tired argument just isn’t valid. 

Bruno’s study is the first in a series that will examine majority sign-up provisions in states around the country. You can read the full report here.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)