Organized labor and business groups are facing off in an increasingly intense battle over legislation that would make it easier to organize unions, as labor seeks to bolster its dwindling ranks and propel its agenda for working Americans.

    The Employee Free Choice Act - which would require employers to recognize unions once a majority of workers sign cards of support - would be perhaps the most significant change in federal labor law in six decades. Currently, employers can demand that workers hold secret-ballot elections on whether to organize; labor organizers say that method allows companies to pressure workers through a formal campaign.

    The union proposal is strongly endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and a bevy of congressional Democrats, who see it as a way to increase the clout of workers who have been losing economic ground over the past three decades. The effort is fueled by an estimated $300 million political war chest and a massive grass-roots mobilization effort.

    Thea M. Lee, policy director of the AFL-CIO, said the proposed legislation would return some leverage to workers.

    "The destruction of unions and the attack on unions have been a major contributor to the growing income inequality in the country and erosion of the middle class," Lee said. "We look at the financial crisis, and it certainly seems to us that you can't build a thriving consumer economy on debt and low wages."

    Fierce opposition to the measure has emerged from a coalition of business groups, which describe the proposed legislation as a power grab by struggling unions, whose membership has dropped from 20 percent of all workers to 12 percent in the past 25 years. The groups also say the measure would result in workers being pressured into joining unions.

    "It changes the balance of power that is struck in labor law," said Richard Berman, a labor lawyer and executive director of the Employee Freedom Action Committee, a nonprofit organization that officials said has raised $25 million to oppose the measure. The proposal is also opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and a long roster of congressional Republicans.

    The so-called card-check proposal passed the House in early 2007 but was defeated in the Senate by a GOP filibuster. In any event, the bill faced a certain veto from President Bush.

    Now, however, the battle is surfacing anew ahead of the elections, and both sides are investing more than ever in making their respective cases, with television ads and grass-roots organizing. Opponents of the measure are focusing their efforts on states with competitive Senate races - including Minnesota, Maine, Mississippi and Colorado - on the theory that even if Obama becomes president, they can continue to block the union effort in the Senate.

    "In 2007, it was almost an artificial exercise that no one figured would pass," said Steven J. Law, general counsel of the chamber. "Now all of a sudden there is a realization that there may be a president in the White House who would sign it. And there is a growing realization that this is just one of a long list of bills that would be coming that could completely change the labor-management relationship in this country."

    Besides saying it would be a boon to unions, opponents charge that the "card check" system is fundamentally undemocratic. They say that if workers do not have access to a private ballot, they easily can be coerced into supporting union organizing efforts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has raised $30 million to derail the proposal.

    Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, normally an ally of organized labor, has been featured in campaigns against the effort. McGovern has called the proposal a "disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor."

    Aside from the card-check proposal, organized labor leaders say they plan to soon pursue measures that would result in expanded paid leave and health-care benefits, which small-business advocates say could cripple some struggling firms. With allies in Congress and the White House, union officials would also likely push for tougher workplace safety laws and enforcement, tighter restrictions on trade agreements and increases in the minimum wage.

    "This issue has caught fire on the ground in a way that exceeded my expectations," Law said. "Small businesses have been prodded by what they see as a resurgent organized labor movement with an aggressive policy agenda."

    Though unions have been weakened in recent decades, they have become more focused in their political advocacy and demands, business leaders say. One example is the walkout by 27,000 union members against Boeing, which began in early September. The biggest sticking point was whether Boeing would limit the amount of work that it sends to outside contractors.

    "That did not used to be a major demand in union negotiations," Berman said. "There are some seismic shifts going on in the relationship between management and labor."

    Underlying the union push is a decline in inflation-adjusted wages that has gripped most working Americans over the past eight years, even as a shrinking percentage of workers receive benefits such as paid sick leave, paid vacation and retirement coverage.

    "We see the Employee Free Choice Act as part of a broader-based economic reform agenda that would basically reverse the decline in wages, health-care coverage and pension coverage" that U.S. workers have experienced since the 1970s, said Greg Denier, communications director for Change to Win, a union coalition.

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