Although fewer and fewer workers are choosing to join unions these days, the right to unionize private-sector workplaces should be protected -- so long as it is done in accordance with the law and without threats or violence against workers who do not wish to join a union.

It is not appropriate, however that the National Labor Relations Board plans to require companies to start putting up posters providing details on how employees can unionize their workplaces. Not posting those notices would be labeled an "unfair labor practice."

Companies should, of course, be forbidden to violate the rights of workers who are lawfully attempting to form a union. Legal action should be taken against such interference.

But workers who wish to unionize should do so in collaboration with the labor union they want to represent them -- and an employer should not be forced to spell out that process on bulletin boards or elsewhere.

This new rule by the NLRB is wrong, but sadly it is not surprising. The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have been pushing various measures to give Big Labor an advantage in its attempts to unionize workplaces. They have sought, for instance, to in effect destroy secret-ballot unionization votes and substitute a voting method that would allow coercion of workers by labor activists.

Companies should not put up undue roadblocks to unionization, but Washington should not unfairly promote unions, either.