In the annals of big lies, it's hard to top the tobacco companies' insistence that smoking (a) did not cause lung cancer and (b) was inexorably linked to America's rugged individualism.

Then along came the campaign to kill the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would make it easier for workers to form unions and harder for companies to intimidate and fire them if they try. The law would reverse decades of impotence on the part of the National Labor Relations Board, which has been reduced to a toothless body that employers barely bother to acknowledge anymore.

The assault against the free choice act rivals the tobacco campaign for sheer chutzpah by insisting that union busting (a) does not erode the middle class and (b) is inexorably linked to business's deep regard for the sacred "freedom" of American workers. Which might be true if you're talking about the freedom to be paid less for working more with no health insurance, pension or job security, but otherwise is a real laugh riot.

So let's begin by stripping this matter down to its basics: Unions = employee input into compensation, benefits and working conditions. No unions = employees at the mercy of companies, which might be benevolent but also might -- how to phrase this? -- not be.

The rest is commentary. Here's mine.

If you'd like to be scared witless by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's fear-mongering, you'll have plenty of opportunities. In the midst of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, it is spending millions on ads and lobbyists to defeat this bill -- far more than labor is to support it. One wonders how much of the campaign is being paid for by taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts.

There are several aspects of the free choice act, but I'll focus on the business world's touching defense of the "secret ballot," a red herring if there ever was one.

Currently, there are two ways to pursue unionization.

Employees seeking a union start by passing out cards to co-workers, who sign them if they want one, too. The cards are not shown to the company. If enough "yes" votes are received, the NLRB (in theory, anyway) supervises an election. If 50 percent plus one of those voting say yes, the union wins.

The other method is majority sign-up, or "card check." Workers sign similar cards saying they want a union. But instead of then holding a second referendum, the cards themselves serve as ballots. If 50 percent plus one of all employees who would be in the bargaining unit -- not just those voting -- say they want the union, the union wins. That actually makes the second method -- the one that the companies want to block -- more representative of the will of the workplace.

The free choice act would let workers decide which process to follow. Currently, that power rests solely with the companies. They almost always want an election, and here's why. Between the card signing and the voting, they have unfettered access to their employees. They often use this time to get workers alone, lecture them on the evils of unionism, grill them on their sentiments and demand to know how other people are voting.

The AFL-CIO says that in 51 percent of union drives, companies threaten to close plants rather than allow them to unionize -- a threat carried out 1 percent of the time. Companies also fire union activists on trumped-up charges before they get a chance to cast the "secret ballot" that the anti-card-check campaign holds so sacrosanct. Meanwhile, employers block unions from rightful access to workers.

Such intimidation is illegal, but the NLRB is too weak to stop it.

This isn't a theoretical scenario. According to the AFL-CIO, employees are fired in one fourth of private-sector union drives; 78 percent of companies require supervisors to deliver anti-union messages to workers; and even after successful organizing efforts, 44 percent of the time workers still can't get a contract. (The free choice act would remove some of the barriers to contracts as well, although the terms are up for discussion.)

Why would workers go through all of this?

Perhaps because 79 percent of union workers have job-provided health insurance, compared to 52 percent of non-union workers. Or because 77 percent of union workers have defined-benefit pension plans compared to 20 percent of non-union workers. Or because 57 percent of union workers have paid personal leave compared to 38 percent of nonunion workers. Or because median weekly earnings for union workers are $886 compared to $691 for nonunion workers.

But even though unionization is a real advantage, only 12 percent of U.S. workers are currently represented by a union.

Unions aren't perfect. Some have failed to recognize modern realities and have held onto traditional practices that hurt the businesses that employ them. But unions also are capable of working creatively with management to preserve jobs and industries. Those are the unions that will survive into the future and lift their members from the working poor to the middle class -- if they get the chance to form in the first place.

Unions are not a cure-all for our faltering middle class. But they are a cure-a-lot. And they remain the last bastion against worker exploitation of every stripe. No wonder American business is doing everything in its power to make them fail.

And if you still think the corporate campaign sanctifying the "secret ballot" isn't a smokescreen, I've got a "cigarettes are not addictive" bumper sticker to sell you.