A recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), the leading benefits research organization in the United States, has documented the vast advantage that union members enjoy in access to health benefits, over workers who are not union members.

This study, released in October 2009, parallels studies showing that union members also enjoy a large advantage in access to defined benefit pensions, and comes at a time when access to health care is at the forefront of our national political debate.

The EBRI study found that while only 58% of non-union workers secure health benefits through their employers, 83% of union workers do so. That represents a 42% advantage in access to heath care for union workers.

And while the magnitude of the union advantage varies between occupations and industries, by far the largest union advantage exists in the construction, agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining industries. In those industries union workers have an 82% greater likelihood of health benefits in the work place than do non-union workers.

The findings of the EBRI study have important implications for the national political debate over both health care and labor law reform.

The health care debate has been driven largely by the fact that tens of millions of Americans are unable to secure health insurance of any kind. And, it is the cost of treating these millions of uninsured that drives up the cost of the insurance for those who have it.

To solve this problem the debate has, in large part, focused on whether expanding coverage requires a public option or can be accomplished exclusively through private insurance. But, regardless of the outcome of that debate, the EBRI study clearly shows that greater access to union representation will automatically provide greater access to health insurance.

And there is a bill awaiting Congressional action that will provide greater access to union representation --- the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA will make it easier for workers to secure union representation by eliminating the bureaucratic roadblocks that are imposed by current law.

As shown by the EBRI study, if EFCA becomes law it will enable millions more workers to obtain health benefits in the work place through union representation.

Those politicians in the health care debate that oppose government intrusion into the private insurance market should embrace EFCA because it is a free market solution. EFCA does not require, but merely facilitates, the ability of workers to obtain private health insurance at their place of work, thereby expanding coverage without any government intrusion whatsoever.

Unfortunately, too many of the politicians opposing health care reform as unwarranted government intrusion in free enterprise, view union representation as just as great an intrusion --- if not greater. To them it is workers rights versus business rights and, in their world, business must win every time.

And that is why these legislative debates are so important: so that workers can clearly see exactly who is on their side.