Insiders: Labor confab bats zero

Initiative backers refuse to retreat

By Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Gov. Bill Ritter's closed-door effort to get backers of a statewide right-to-work ballot initiative to stand down didn't go well, multiple sources told the Rocky Mountain News Tuesday.

And a spokesman for the initiative said he's got twice the number of signatures he needs for Thursday's filing deadline.

The sources said those in attendance left feeling like Ritter and initiative proponent Jonathan Coors had not gotten any closer to a compromise. The sources asked to remain anonymous because the governor had asked that the hourlong talk in his office Monday afternoon remain confidential.

Ritter's spokesman Evan Dreyer said Tuesday that the administration would continue to honor the agreement reached at the end of the meeting, not to discuss what was said.

However, he released a full list of those in attendance.

They were:

* Ritter;

* Coors;

* Joe Blake, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce;

* John Ikard, president and CEO of FirstBank Holding Company in Lakewood and this year's chamber chairman;

* former University of Denver Chancellor Dan Ritchie;

* Chuck Berry, president of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry;

* and "three or four" members of the Ritter administration.

Coors, the 28-year-old heir to the Coors beer empire, is a major force behind the ballot initiative, which would put an end to agreements between employers and workers that require employees to pay for union representation even if they don't belong to a union.

Current law allows workers to vote on such an arrangement. Labor groups contend that all workers who are covered by collective bargaining agreements should share the costs with union members if most employees share that view.

Union backers have answered with a raft of their own ballot initiatives that would make Colorado easier for labor to organize.

Ritter has called for a cease-fire, asking both sides to rescind their ballot questions. U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper - all Democrats - have been trying to help the governor do that.

Campaign officials showed no sign that proponents of the right-to-work measure have any plans to back down.

"At this point, as far as I know, the campaign is moving forward and we have a Thursday deadline to meet," said Kelley Harp, campaign spokesman for the right-to-work initiative.

Harp said 133,000 signatures have been collected, far more than the roughly 75,000 needed to qualify for the ballot.

"We are confident it will win in November," he said.

bargec@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5059; Business writer JoAnne Kelley contributed to this story.

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