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Workers could gain health insurance, pensions under Employee Free Choice Act

If the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law, approximately 3.5 million more people in the U.S. would have employer-based health insurance and 2.8 million more people would have employer-based pensions, according to a new report issued by a public policy organization. The estimates are based on the projection that passage of the Act would increase the union density rate in the U.S. by 10 percentage points.

Adding union members will increase the number of workers with health insurance because union members have demonstrated greater ability to secure health care benefits, the report said. After full implementation, the report estimates that passage of the EFCA could lead to 7.6 percent of currently uninsured Americans gaining health insurance.

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a co-sponsor of the bill, and Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, spoke in support of the EFCA at a conference call with reporters held April 30 by the Institute for America’s Future and Americans United for Change to announce the release of “The Employee Free Choice Act Impact on Health Care and Pension Benefits,” prepared by Eric Lotke and Alex Carter for the Institute for America’s Future. Lotke also spoke in support of the proposed legislation, along with Michael Crawford of the Child and Family Policy Center in Des Moines, Iowa and Dan Holub, director of the University of Iowa Labor Center.

EFCA provisions. Among other things, the EFCA (H.R. 800) would require the National Labor Relations Board to certify a labor organization as the exclusive representative of employees, without holding a secret ballot election, when a majority of employees in an appropriate bargaining unit have indicated their support for the organization by signing valid authorization cards. The bill would also provide for mandatory arbitration if the employer and union have not reached agreement on a contract within 120 days of certification. The decision of an arbitration panel would be in effect for up to two years.

Canadian experience. The report’s estimates of increased health care and pension benefits coverage were extrapolated from a comparison of U.S. and Canadian experiences with union certification methods conducted in 2004 by Professor Susan Johnson of Wilfrid Laurier and McMaster Universities.

Johnson examined union density rates in Canadian provinces, some of which require an election to certify a union while others allow certification by card check. She found that mandatory elections reduced the certification success rate by approximately nine percentage points below what it would be using a card check method. According to the report, her study concluded that approximately 20 percent of the difference in union density between the U.S. and Canada related to certification procedures. Based on Johnson’s study, the report conservatively estimates that full implementation of the EFCA would increase union density in the U.S. by approximately 10 percentage points.

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