<P> Unions are currently advocating new federal legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), that would allow workers to elect union representation by simply signing a support card (card check). The current process established by federal law requires at least 30% of employees to sign cards for the union, then wait 45 to 90 days for a federal official to conduct a secret ballot election in which a simple majority of the employees must vote for the union in order to obligate the employer to bargain . </P> <P> Unions report that, under the present system, many employers use the 45 - to 90 - day period to conduct anti-union campaigns . Some opponents of this legislation fear that removing secret balloting from the process will lead to the intimidation and coercion of workers on behalf of the unions . During the 2008 elections, the Employee Free Choice Act had widespread support of many legislators in the House and Senate, and of the President . Since then, support for the "card check" provisions of the EFCA subsided substantially . </P> <P> Union membership had been declining in the US since 1954, and since 1967, as union membership rates decreased, middle class incomes shrank correspondingly . In 2007, the labor department reported the first increase in union memberships in 25 years and the largest increase since 1979 . Most of the recent gains in union membership have been in the service sector while the number of unionized employees in the manufacturing sector has declined . Most of the gains in the service sector have come in West Coast states like California where union membership is now at 16.7% compared with a national average of about 12.1% . Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private - sector union membership . </P> <P> At the apex of union density in the 1940s, only about 9.8% of public employees were represented by unions, while 33.9% of private, non-agricultural workers had such representation . In this decade, those proportions have essentially reversed, with 36% of public workers being represented by unions while private sector union density had plummeted to around 7% . The US Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent survey indicates that union membership in the US has risen to 12.4% of all workers, from 12.1% in 2007 . For a short period, private sector union membership rebounded, increasing from 7.5% in 2007 to 7.6% in 2008 . However, that trend has since reversed . In 2013 there were 14.5 million members in the U.S., compared with 17.7 million in 1983 . In 2013, the percentage of workers belonging to a union was 11.3%, compared to 20.1% in 1983 . The rate for the private sector was 6.7%, and for the public sector 35.3% . </P>

In the u.s. manufacturing sector unionized jobs have
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