WASHINGTON (Map, News) - In a largely party-line vote, the House approved legislation Thursday, 241-185, to allow union workers to conduct organizing votes by public ballot.

Titled the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill dramatically improves unions’ chances of getting the necessary number of votes among a company’s workers to form a union. Republican opponents argue it also gives union bosses much greater leeway to coerce workers into forming a union.

“We simply cannot ignore the economic disparity that exists in our nation between workers and top executives,” Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said.

The disparity is “grotesque,” added the Maryland Democrat. “It’s well past time that the Congress took seriously its responsibility to examine and address the rampant anxiety” felt by workers.

Republicans, who dubbed the bill the Worker Intimidation Act, called it the worst sort of socialist demagoguery and accused the new Democratic majority of paying off top union officials by approving their most highly sought legislation.

“This bill today is not about protecting American workers,” scoffed Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “It’s about upsetting the balance between labor and management.”

Under the legislation, union organizers may forgo a private ballot election, where their chances of success are historically low. Instead, union officials can hold public elections where they meet with employees and ask each one to sign a card of support.

That practice was ruled invalid by the Supreme Court in 1974 because, the court determined, secret ballots were so much more reliable for determining majority support.

“The real issue here is not taking care of workers,” Boehner said. “It’s taking care of union bosses.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has called the legislation “the most important improvement in labor law in many decades.”

Just before final passage Thursday, Republicans tried forcing changes that would require unions to certify that workers in the United States illegally had not participated in the elections.

Rep. George Miller said it was a cynical attempt to make unions enforce the immigration laws that the federal government has failed to enforce.

“If you take it so seriously, then enforce the law,” he shouted at Republicans across the aisle, who controlled the chamber during the past 12 years.

Democrats quashed the Republican effort on a near party-line vote.

Despite Thursday’s House approval, the bill’s future remains uncertain because it faces stiff opposition in the Senate and President Bush has vowed to veto it if it reaches his desk.

churt@dcexaminer.com