Employers who exercise absolute control over their workplace never want to share power—even though they're legally obligated to do so, if workers so choose. So when a majority of workers say they want a union, managers often will spend millions to threaten every American worker's democratic right to representation by clouding the truth and intimidating employees. According to Cornell University Prof. Kate Bronfenbrenner and the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations:

• Ninety-two percent of employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent require immediate supervisors to attend training sessions on how to attack unions; and 79 percent have supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee.
• Seventy-five percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.

Often, knowing ahead of time to expect such unlawful and unethical tactics from management can prepare workers to stay the course during tough organizing drives. Despite these hurdles, when workers come together to resist threats and intimidation from management, they win a powerful voice on the job—a voice that gives them real control over their workplace.

Some states have passed anti-union laws—so-called “right to work” (really, right to work for less) provisions—that limit the voice of union members, but these laws cannot keep you from joining a union or talking to others about the advantages of a union.

Learn more about right-to-work-for-less laws.