Colorado Governor Caves to Corporate Interests

by Mike Hall, Feb 12, 2007

UPDATE—Earlier today (see below), we told you about how Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. (D) caved in to corporate pressure when he vetoed a bill that would have eliminated the requirement that workers who voted to join a union must vote again before they could even begin bargaining with the employer for a union-security clause.

Want to see who was applying the pressure? The usual suspects. Click here to see the two dozen corporations and other business that lobbied against the bill. Colorado Confidential posted the list—compiled from lobbying records from the secretary of state’s office. Not that it hasn’t happened before, but in Colorado another politician broke one more campaign promise last week.

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Caving in to pressure from the state’s corporate interests, Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. (D) vetoed a bill he had told the state’s unions he would sign. The bill would have eliminated a requirement in the state’s so-called Labor Peace Act that required workers who voted to join a union to vote again before they could even begin bargaining with the employer for a union-security clause.

A union-security clause doesn’t force anyone to join the union. Rather, it requires that all workers, members and nonmembers, pay representational costs.

Says Colorado AFL-CIO President Steve Adams:

We are obviously extremely disappointed that Gov. Ritter felt it necessary to break a campaign promise under pressure from big business. We hope this is not a harbinger for what lies in store for the working men and women in this state.

In his veto message, Ritter admitted he told the state’s unions he supported eliminating the second vote.

During the campaign, two labor organizations asked me in written questionnaires if I would support an amendment to the Colorado Labor Peace Act that eliminates the second organizing election ratifying an all-union agreement. I indicated that I would, believing that requiring a second super-majority election seems, on its face, undemocratic. It also injects government into what should be a private negotiating process between employer and employee.

The second election requires 75 percent of those voting or a majority of all those eligible to vote-—not just a majority of those who cast ballots-—to approve putting a union-security clause on the bargaining table. The vetoed legislation would not have required the employer to accept a security clause.

Ritter said that while he agreed with the bill in “substance,” he believed the process was flawed, the rhetoric “overheated” and there was no effort by either side to “compromise.”

Be that as it may, either you believe in keeping your promise or you don’t. Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it?