Three U.S. businesses joined forces to offer an alternative to the controversial Employee Free Choice Act. Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp., and Whole Foods Market Inc. have proposed legislation that preserves the secret ballot in union organizing drives. (The Employee Free Choice Act, on the other hand, permits workers to unionize based on card-check.) The business-backed alternative seeks to drop the Employee Free Choice Act's proposed arbitration requirements for union contracts, as well as allow employers to demand secret ballot elections. The proposal also sets a time line for said elections and guarantees unions equal access to employees. Executives at Costco stated that the proposal in neither anti-union, nor anti-business.
See "Firms offer alternate plan on unions", The Boston Globe, March 22, 2009