The process of constructing good public policy should not be held hostage to intellectual dishonesty.

Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act raise the specter of a loss of employee voice if workers are permitted to unionize their workplaces by choosing to express their majority will through signing membership cards or a petition. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among other anti-union groups, has fraudulently charged that the act would eliminate the "secret ballot" and expose employee to "union intimidation." But the proposed bill not only does not eliminate the ballot option or subject workers to abuse; it restores respect for the principle of a free, unfettered decision-making process.

Under current federal labor law a majority of workers can successfully elect a union by signing authorization cards only if the employer agrees to honor the workers' vote. Imagine a civic election where a Democratic poll watcher had the unilateral power to tell a Republican voter under what terms her vote could be cast.

Granting the employer the unilateral power to disregard the choice made by a majority of workers and to determine how workers must be unionized is no less an offensive act of disenfranchisement as our civic election example. The proposed law would rectify the inequity by obligating the employer to respect the majority will of the workers regardless of whether it is expressed though a ballot or petition process.

Business groups have also cynically claimed that without a ballot union organizers will force employees to choose against their will. Now putting aside for a moment that it is the employer and not the union representative who has the power to fire and discipline the employees, the data on employee interference is overwhelming. In at least 14 states, public sector employers have the legal obligation to recognize a union formed thorough a petition process.

A study that I directed covering Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Oregon revealed that from 2003-2009 about 35,000 public sector workers from teachers to plumbers have been extended democratic rights in the workplace through a state authorized "member interest petition" process. In Illinois alone, there have been about 1,200 majority petition cases, and there has been zero confirmed incidences of union "intimidation, fraud or coercion." Claims of union abuse are no more than scare tactics; they should not be the basis upon which public policy is built.

It is simply intellectually dishonest to portray this new workers' rights legislation as not promoting "free choice." Contrary to claims that the act would strip the right of workers to vote in a union election, this bill restores workers' choice to join a union and bargain with their employer.

Public policy honestly arrived at requires that if a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union.

Robert Bruno is Director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The opinion expressed in this column is the writer's and not necessarily that of The Times.