The Canadian experience with changes in union card-check rules provides an excellent basis for predicting the likely impact in the United States, should the Employee Free Choice Act pass. Prior to 1976, Canada employed a union certification process similar to the one envisioned in the card check act. After 1976, Canada began allowing its provinces to choose between card check procedures and secret ballots, like the current U.S. system. Currently half of Canada’s provinces and the majority of its workers become union-certified under a secret ballot process. Half of Canada’s provinces and a minority of its workers become union-certified under a card check process. Johnson (2004) suggests that roughly 20 percent of the difference between U.S. and Canadian unionization rates is attributable to the difference in union certification processes. In 2007, the difference between the nations’ unionization rate was around 18.2 percent. Twenty percent of that difference is 3.64 percentage points. If card-check certification has a similar impact in the United States as in Canada, the U.S. union density would rise from 12.1 percent to 15.74 percent, solely on the basis of the law and not on the basis of people’s preferences for unionization.

These figures lead Anna Layne-Farrar, a director at LECG Consulting to estimate that, “passing the [card check act] would likely increase the U. S. unemployment rate and decrease U.S. job creation substantially. [For] every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through card checks… the following year’s unemployment rate is predicted to rise by 1 percentage point and job creation is predicted to fall by around 1.5 million jobs.” (Layne-Farrar: 1)

She goes on to write that if the card check act were to increase the U.S. unionization rate from 12 percent to 15 percent, then unemployment would rise by an additional 1.5 million within the year. (Layne-Farrar, 2009)