In early October, two members of Congress introduced legislation that would give workers the right to a union, without the oppressive drawn-out process that it has become under U.S. labor law, through, among other things, card-check organizing.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., introduced the Workplace Democracy Act (WDA), which would make it easier for workers to join a union. It’s not that similar attempts have not been made in the past, but this time, one of the legislators happens to be running for president as a Democrat. Bernie Sanders, the candidate, in the WDA, has taken a strong position in support of America’s working men and women.

Many in politics express support of workers and, especially, the middle class, but they stop short of endorsing the easiest way for workers to maintain their standard of living or improve it, and that is forming a union in the workplace. Politicians always say they want to improve the economy and want to create millions of jobs, but they routinely acquiesce to the demands of Corporate America.

The legislation introduced by Sanders and Pocan would allow the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify the union, when a simple majority of the workers in that workplace sign union membership cards. The union gives workers power in the workplace and freedom to negotiate the conditions of their employment, including pay scales, paid leave, health insurance, and pensions. It’s one of the fairest ways of reducing the income gap in the U.S. and is a precursor to democracy in the society and economy, in general. Without democracy in the workplace, there is no democracy anywhere.

Taking a look at the opinion of the representatives of big business, one sees that they are trying to protect their position at the top of our economic heap, the 1 percent and its minions. Clearly, they will do anything possible to accumulate more wealth and maintain their power over workers. That power is the key to their further enrichment. So, what do they say about unions? Simply, that they are just bad for the nation and for the economy.

They are against any power for workers. They don’t come right out and say that. What they do say is that they are against unions, as if unions are not the instrument of the workers. Unions give power to workers and, through that power, workers are able to raise the living standard of all workers and that cuts into the profits of the mega-corporations that have come to exert their power over the U.S. economy and other economies around the world.

And, the corporations will do anything to keep workers from forming unions, including encouraging politicians who blatantly carry their water, such as Senator Bob Corker, who became directly involved in the anti-union campaign at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee. That was not what was envisioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when his administration promoted the National Labor Relations Act, which gave workers the right to form unions for the first time.

Before that, the best that the 1 percent (and there was a 1 percent that existed at the time and probably going back a hundred years before that) could do to describe unions was that they were a “conspiracy” to restrain trade and impede the building of wealth among the richest. This corporate opinion of working people existed, in one fashion or another, since the founding of the nation. It was only in the second half of the 20th Century that keeping workers from forming unions became a profession. Law firms specializing in union busting sprang up like mushrooms in a damp lawn, and it became an industry. And, union-busting consultants sprouted like weeds in an abandoned field, making their millions along the way.

The danger of unions, in the eyes of Corporate America, is that all workers might see the value of solidarity in joining a union and, if that happened, perhaps all workers might want to join a union. Such a dangerous move would change the complexion of the workplace, the economy, and even, the politics of the nation. The people might have some say in the direction of the country. So far, though, corporate interests have won the day and the status quo remains. Workers, especially low wage workers, are awakening and they are organizing without formally joining a union, but that’s the next step.

That’s where the Workplace Democracy Act comes in. It would:

• Provide card check organizing, depriving employers of their coercive tactics of bullying the workers by threatening to close, move, or downscale,

• Guarantee the right to a first contract. Even once organized, the employer tactic of stalling the union effort to death has defeated the workers’ organizing efforts. The law would guarantee a first contract, if an agreement is not reached in 45 days.

• Strengthen and expand the authority of the NLRB. Until now, the routine tactic of stalling and threatening and union busting has brought no penalty or a small penalty. Corporations just consider small fines a cost of doing business.

• Repeals the prohibitions of strikes, boycotts, and “hot cargo” clauses in contracts. Hot cargo clauses allowed workers to refuse to handle goods produced by companies whose workers were on strike. Many of the rights of workers to act in concert were withdrawn by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

• Prohibit preemption of federal labor law by the states. For example, states could not destroy unions by passing so-called right-to-work laws.

• Establish the National Public Employment Relations Commission to ensure that public sector employees of states, territories, possessions or political subdivisions thereof, are guaranteed the right to collective bargaining, to binding arbitration, and to strike.

• Provide for workers to serve as trustees on pension plans, which cover their retirement.

• Extend U.S. labor law coverage to companies operating in any country with which the U.S. has formed a “free trade” agreement, by allowing actions to be brought against the company in the U.S. or the foreign country.

These are the main points in the Sanders-Pocan WDA, but the implications are much broader for legal action against the power and force of the oligarchs who control much of the world’s economy. They do to the U.S. economy and its workers what they do to those of scores of other countries, where they are solidly embedded in those economies and even their politics.

The WDA is one of the few instances in which American politicians recently have addressed the oppressive conditions set upon workers by the Taft-Hartley Act, which was approved by Congress over the veto of President Harry Truman, giving an indication of the tenor of the country as it was about to plunge into the “red scare” of the 1950s. The opposition of big business at that time to anything that smacked of worker rights was part of the hysteria over “reds” in government and business. We are in a similar time.

What is remarkable about the WDA is not what it contains (although much of it would be considered blasphemy against Corporate America), but that it addresses rights of workers that were anticipated a century ago. In some instances, those rights were won and lost and, in most cases, it was the promise of worker rights that were never achieved.

One thing is certain: You have not seen much about the WDA in your local press, or in the mass media. And, you won’t. If a broad spectrum of workers is to become aware of the WDA, it will be through word of mouth. Workers need to get a copy of the bill and see who is co-sponsoring it (if any politicians are). Get a copy through the senators and members of the House of Representatives, copy it, and hand it out to co-workers, family members, and neighbors. Better yet, contact a union organizer and ask about the Workplace Democracy Act. And, join the union.