With the seating of a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives this week, the slim prospects for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act became a virtual impossibility.

EFCA was designed to provide a way for workers to organize unions without the likelihood of a full-blown assault on their efforts by their employers and representatives (mostly lawyers) of their �union avoidance� consultants. These are the union-busters who created a new �industry� in the wake of the 1980 presidential election.

It�s an industry that produces nothing, but destroys much, especially the hope of American workers that they might have some control over their working lives. The Republicans in Congress, on the other hand, have proclaimed the end of American civilization, as we know it, if such a law were passed.

EFCA would, indeed, make it easier for workers to form unions, by allowing the workers to declare their intent to have a union by simply signing cards that indicate that they want a union. When a majority of workers signed cards, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) would certify the majority and negotiations for a first contract would commence. If the workers wanted a secret ballot election, the NLRB would conduct one.

GOP opponents of EFCA have failed to mention this last bit of information about the bill, because they want to sanctimoniously proclaim their concern for the workers� right to a secret ballot election, as part of the �sacred trust� that comes to us directly from the U.S. Constitution. It�s strange that they are little concerned about workers at any other time - not their safe and healthy working conditions, not their pay and benefits, and certainly not their health care after they have been used up and cast off, as has happened with greater and greater frequency in recent decades.

Rather, GOP leaders across the country refer to things like EFCA as �job killers.� They are very concerned about the effects on American businesses, large and small. They seem to have no clue that unionization has to do with more than just pay and benefits.

For many workers, participation in a union is the first contact with the democratic process that they have had. They actually have something to say about their working conditions, including safety and health. If America had ever reached beyond the infantile stage of social development, unions would be seen as the most basic of healthy and robust action by citizens in a free country. From their unions, workers continue their civic involvement in the electoral processes of the nation. Perhaps, for the GOP, that�s the rub.

In 2011, the Republicans have selected the phrase �job killer� as the operative description for any legislation that is designed to help workers. Any opposition to Corporate America�s creating jobs in other countries will be considered a �job killer.� EFCA or any other legislation that might help workers form unions would be a �job killer.� Extension of unemployment benefits would be a �job killer.� Health care reform (such as it is) is a �job killer� and must be eliminated. Even the Occupational Safety and Health Act (such as it is) is a �job killer� and must be severely restrained in its regulatory power.

There are many other issues that the GOP will consider to be �job killers,� but EFCA has been singled out as one of the most potentially damaging. Selection of the phrase �job killer,� however, fits in with Republican talking points: the economy (it�s in precarious shape because of government regulation), foreign trade (there�s not enough of it), elimination of the Department of Education (too intrusive in state business and too expensive), reduce or eliminate Medicaid and Medicare (they�re too expensive).

All of this is happening while the official unemployment rate is 9.8 percent and the real unemployment rate is probably double that, while 15 million are looking for work (in industries that have left the country and won�t be coming back), and while millions of families are out of their homes because of the mortgage fiasco.

Banks, insurance companies, and �derivatives� schemes are responsible and American workers have bailed them out to the tune of $700 billion and more. Republicans had little to say when the banks and insurance companies were bailed out. There were a few complaints, but they were generally for cover when they went home to face unemployed constituents. Democrats, it should be noted, also carry their share of the blame for much of the fiasco.

While Republican leaders were busily protecting those in Corporate America who fill their campaign coffers and provide trips to warm locales, their rank-and-file constituents were struggling and worrying when the ax would fall on their own jobs - not an insignificant concern, by any means.

A quick look at how people in America are faring and at how unevenly the pain has been shared (and, you ain�t seen nothing, yet) shows that the rich have done very well. The following are just a few of the top 1 percent who have benefited from the largesse of wage earning taxpayers.

Thomas Montag, CEO of Bank of America, was paid $29,930,431 in total compensation in 2009; John Havens, CEO of Citigroup Inc., was paid $11,276,454 in total compensation in 2009; Walid Chammah, CEO of Morgan Stanley, was paid $10,021,969 in 2009; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was paid $9,862,657 in 2009; James Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, was paid $9,274,494, and John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, was paid $21,340,547 in 2009.

These few Daddy Warbucks characters - from the thousands who deserve exposure - are listed here, not because some of them made the equivalent of $10,000 an hour while millions of workers are living on that much for six months on unemployment benefits, but because their banks were beneficiaries of some of the $700 billion bailout. They never skipped a beat. Some of their colleagues took the heat of some not very scathing congressional hearings, but that wore off and things got back to normal quickly and their perks and bonuses were returned in a flash. They had their lavish lives saved by taxpayers and their children and grandchildren, who still will be paying for years to come.

Republicans and many Democrats are not squawking about this legalized thievery, but they can find fault with extending unemployment benefits to hopelessly displaced workers whose paltry benefits barely pay the $1,200 mortgage. This class of folks may have said �thank you� to American workers, but not so you could hear it.

Instead, they are fighting through their lobbyists and their dinners with congressional leaders against any �re-regulation� of the country�s financial system. Amazingly, they want to be set up to do the same thing over again. After all, if they�re �too big to fail,� the people will bail them out again, so who needs regulation?

Now that they have buried EFCA for the moment, the right-wingers believe that they don�t have to worry much about workers giving Corporate America a hard time. After all, they have five workers scrambling for every job available (even the ones that pay $9 an hour in this service economy).

Workers should visit every representative and senator in their home districts in the thousands throughout 2011, and they need to go in large groups. There are many questions they should be required to answer, but there are a few fundamental ones that require answers now: Why are you cutting programs that benefit working women and men and their families? How and when are you going to bring back the manufacturing and industrial jobs that you encouraged Corporate America to ship to low-wage countries? Why do you promote policies that destroy the standard of living of American workers?

No one else is going to do it. Educate yourselves about the issues, check their schedules, and go to their offices, again and again, until you get candid and honest answers. Only when they see that what they do in Congress is widely known will they begin to act on behalf of all Americans, not just those with lots of money to fill their campaign coffers.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.