In the effort to "expose the lies and distortions" being spread about the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor advocacy group, American Rights at Work (ARAW), announced last week the launch of a new ad campaign on behalf of the bill.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a bill that would strengthen the right of US workers to join labor unions by easing federal red tape on the process, hold employers who violate labor laws accountable, and give workers the choice to use either a secret ballot or a card check process for union certification.

The bill passed with a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives in 2007, but was blocked by a Senate Republican filibuster. President Obama campaigned on a promise to sign the bill into law.

The ARAW says the corporate opposition to the bill has spent millions in its own ad campaign to deceive the American public about what the bill would do. According to an ARAW press statement, 'the Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot in union elections. It simply gives workers, not their bosses, the choice in how they decide to form a union so they can earn better wages, health care, and a secure retirement.'

Media reports late last month revealed that Bank of America, after receiving about $25 billion in taxpayer dollars as part of the Wall Street bailout, hosted a conference for educating employers on how to help block the bill in Congress. Supporters of the bill suggested that Bank of America used taxpayer dollars to conspire against American workers.

“Big Business has focused its PR attacks falsely claiming that the legislation would eliminate secret ballot elections,” says American Rights at Work Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell. “No matter how much they spend or how many lies they spread about the secret ballot, they can’t make it true. The truth is, opponents of the bill have an agenda to stop workers from earning better wages and health care.”

See an ad by ARAW below: