Existing law also protects workers from vindictive employers. Since the ultimate decision of whether workers will be represented by union contract will be up to all employees in a secret ballot election, employers will not be able to punish those employees they think went against them because the secret ballot protects the identities of those who voted for the union.

Whether or not to be represented by a union is a momentous decision that affects not only current workers but future workers of the company. Once the union has been selected to be the sole bargaining agent, it remains so indefinitely, even after all the workers involved in the selection are long gone. The law does provide a mechanism to decertify a union, but the process is long and difficult.

And the decision to choose a union binds even those employees who don't want to join in non-right-to-work states, since even non-members must pay a portion of dues -- or agency fees as they're often called -- if they're represented by a union contract.

Fewer and fewer workers are choosing unions to represent them in collective bargaining primarily because they see little value in it. Workers represented by union contracts must pay dues amounting to hundreds of dollars a year, which in some cases do not even result in pay and benefit increases to offset the costs of union membership.

What's worse, union dues end up financing political campaigns -- without the express consent of the members -- as well as lobbying, organizing new members, and paying for huge union bureaucracies with fat paychecks for the unions' own leaders and staff. Of course, these activities have little to do with why workers join unions in the first place, but they do add to the power and leverage unions have over workers' lives, even those who don't happen to be members.

A wise man once said "no lasting gain has ever come from compulsion." He was Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American labor movement. Too bad today's union leaders won't heed his words.