Bill would allow unions to form without a secret ballot.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINTS By John Sweeney and Pat Riggs-Henson For The Register-Guard

It shouldn't take a hero to form a union, or a superhuman effort to feed your family, pay the rent, go to the doctor or look forward to a secure retirement.

But increasingly, America is at a tipping point, and working families are about to tumble over the edge. Despite growth in productivity and profits, wages have not kept pace with families' rising costs for everything from housing to education. Too many working people lack health insurance and retirement benefits. While the rich have gotten more so, the rest of America has been left far behind.

A recent analysis of Internal Revenue Service data found that the top 300,000 U.S. earners now make as much for their labors as all of the bottom 150 million of their fellow citizens combined. That's wrong. And it's part of why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

With the support of U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio and all other Oregon House Democrats, the Employee Free Choice Act has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is now pending in the U.S. Senate - so far, with only the support of Sen. Ron Wyden.

Despite efforts from Oregonians across the state, Sen. Gordon Smith has still not revealed his position on the act. We need Smith to support Oregon's working families.

We need this act, and here's why:

A union card is the best ticket to the middle class. Union workers earn an average of 30 percent more than workers without a union. They are far more likely to have health insurance and retirement benefits.

But today, it is next to impossible for workers to form unions. Under current law, corporations routinely force workers into a confrontational, delay-ridden process that blocks workers from organizing.

Academic studies show that one in four private sector employers fire at least one worker during a union organizing campaign. Three-quarters of employers make workers endure one-on-one meetings in which they are urged by their direct bosses to oppose the union.

These kind of scare tactics taint the election process. By the time employees vote in a National Labor Relations Board-sponsored election, the environment has been so poisoned that free and fair choice isn't an option.

Such techniques have become more sophisticated - and profitable. A billion-dollar industry of high-priced `union avoidance' lawyers and consultants has just opened a big new office in Portland. And while many of the tactics that employers use are illegal, current law is too weak to stop them.

The Employee Free Choice Act would level the playing field for workers in three ways. It would strengthen penalties for companies that coerce or intimidate employees, establish mediation and binding arbitration when the employer and workers cannot agree on a first contract, and enable employees to form unions when a majority sign cards authorizing a union to represent them.

If workers choose to have a government-sponsored election, they still can do so. The legislation does not change that process. It simply gives workers, not employers, the power to decide how they will choose to form a union.

Majority sign-up long has been recognized and enforced by the National Labor Relations Board, Oregon's Employment Relations Board, state and federal courts, and Congress. It has been approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. Many thousands of workers, including those at Cingular and Kaiser-Permanente, have won unions through this system.

The problem with traditional union elections is a key reason for the decline in the percentage of men and women who benefit from working with a union contract. This is bad news for all of us, because income is down for Oregon's working families.

The median annual salary of workers in Oregon is now just more than $33,684. That's less than it was five years ago. We must work together to reverse that trend.

John Sweeney is president of the 10 million-member AFL-CIO. Pat Riggs-Henson is the executive secretary-treasurer of the Lane County Central Labor Council.