Anyone with an interest in seeing the Employee Free Choice Act pass—heck, anyone who cares about the American middle class—should read a study published last week by the Economic Policy Institute and American Rights at Work.

Titled “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” the study lays out the case that, in the last two decades, private-sector employer opposition to workers seeking a union has intensified.

According to the study, “It has become standard practice for workers to be subjected by corporations to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for supporting a union.”

Here are a few statistics about the shameful and illegal employer practices from the report:

• 63 percent of employers interrogate workers in mandatory one-on-one meetings with their supervisors about support for the union;

• 54 percent of employers threaten workers in such meetings;

• 57 percent of employers threaten to close the worksite;

• 47 percent of employers threaten to cut wages and benefits; and

• 34 percent of employers fire workers.

  According to a New York Times story on the report, the study “was based on a random sample of 1,004 unionization elections from early 1999 to late 2003 and relied on a review of National Labor Relations Board cases and documents, as well as surveys of 562 lead organizers.”