(PAI) – By a 53%-39% margin, Americans support the key concept of the Employee Free Choice Act — making it easier for unions to organize – but 65% follow the issue very little or not at all, a new poll shows.

The survey, of 1,024 adults nationwide, conducted by the Gallup Organization March 14-15, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. The survey is important because it is independent and not commissioned by the AFL-CIO, whose polls show higher public support for the right to organize.

The Gallup survey is also important because while it shows support for the concept, it reveals the Employee Free Choice Act is still very much an inside-the-Beltway issue – and that labor has a big education campaign to do.

That’s because among the 12% of respondents who told the surveyors they follow the issue “very closely,” it loses by a 40%-58% margin. The largest support for unions is among the 39% who “are not following the issue at all,” the Gallup poll adds.

The Employee Free Choice Act would help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining. Its key section would make organizing easier by writing majority sign-up into labor law: Workers, not bosses, would choose whether to use that or a National Labor Relations Board-run election in deciding if the union will represent them. Majority signup is when the union collects election authorization cards from an NLRB-verified majority of workers.

“The current findings could bode well for the pro-union side of the issue as it ramps up the public-information component of its lobbying efforts, particularly at a time when corporate America has serious image problems. Americans appear to be a sympathetic audience for a basic argument behind the law if it is described simply as making it easier for unions to organize,” the Gallup survey said.

“At the same time, Americans have barely begun to pay attention to the issue. The 12% who are following it ‘very closely’ is exceptionally low relative to attention to other news issues Gallup measured over the last two decades…With arguments against card check” – business’ name for the bill – “yet to be fully aired and debated, it could be a troubling sign for unions that no more than 53% immediately support this fundamental aspect” of the legislation.

Gallup added that Democrats (70%) and independents (52%-41%) back making it easier to unionize. Republicans (40%) do not.