'Right-to-work' impact in question

Number directly affected has fallen, analysis indicates

By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

As Colorado's battle over a "right-to-work" initiative escalates, state labor data analyzed by the Rocky Mountain News suggest that the number of people directly affected by the controversy has dwindled in recent years.

The frequency of elections to form all-union workplaces - a practice that would be outlawed under a November ballot initiative - has decreased sharply from labor's heyday to just a handful in each of the past five years, according to three decades' worth of statistics obtained from the state's labor division.

At the same time, many of the votes to create all-union pacts show workers overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, back the concept voluntarily. Under the state's current labor law, a second, secret-ballot vote is required to approve all-union arrangements - the ones that compel all workers to pay fees if they are covered by a collective-bargaining contract.

"What this data indicates is the 'right-to-work' issue in Colorado is a triumph of ideology over reality," said Harley Shaiken, a University of California at Berkeley professor who specializes in labor issues. "Given this second-election law, it's a nuclear option that doesn't really seem to be justified even from the perspective of its proponents."

Adds Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper: "It's become symbolic."

The Colorado Division of Labor, which oversees the second- election process, only recently transcribed decades of handwritten data on union vote results onto computer spreadsheets. Staff members had turned up files filled with index cards covering elections dating to 1977.

In that era, unions conducted several dozen elections a year. In each of the past five years, only six or seven of the elections have taken place.

"There has been a significant decline in the number of elections," noted Michael McArdle, director of the Division of Labor since 2004.

What the data don't provide is a complete picture of how many all-union arrangements remain in place throughout the state.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Colorado workers reporting themselves as union members stood at 191,000, or 8.7 percent of the work force, at the end of last year. The number of workers covered by union contracts - whether they belong to that union or not - stood at 202,000, about 9.2 percent of the state's work force.

While those numbers reflect slight gains from the year earlier, Colorado's union membership continues to trail the national average of 12 percent. And the national numbers have declined steadily from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year the government began collecting comparable figures.

Still, a growing sentiment that unions have been making inroads both in their organizing and political clout has helped drive an effort by conservative business interests to persuade Colorado voters to OK a "right-to-work" measure. Part of the impetus: Last year's attempt by the state legislature to eliminate the second election altogether, a move ultimately vetoed by Gov. Bill Ritter after business interests objected.

Since then, many business groups have become vocal advocates of the longstanding law, especially when labor groups began to fight back with competing proposals employers say would impose extra costs on businesses.

"Our hybrid system has worked for a long time," said John Brackney, president of the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.

The two-step process was imposed by Colorado's 1943 Labor Peace Act. After workers vote to form a union, another election requires that at least 75 percent of the votes cast be in favor of an all-union workplace.

In five of the six winning elections last year, 100 percent of the workers who voted cast their ballots in favor of requiring all eligible workers to pay dues or fees for union representation.

In one instance last year, an 88.9 percent vote carried the day at the Colorado Ballet Co. In that case, employees represented by the American Guild of Musical Artists cast votes 24-3 in favor of an all-union workplace.

That troubles "right-to-work" supporters who maintain that each worker should have a choice of whether to financially support a union.

"The Labor Peace Act is unique and offers some protection, but it doesn't offer complete protection," said Benjamin DeGrow, an analyst at the Independence Institute. "Anything that best protects the individual worker's right to decide what they want is the right sort of policy."

The "freedom-of-choice" argument promoted by the "right-to- work" advocates falls flat with some longtime labor observers. "The folks who want 'right-to- work' understand it just simply undermines the ability for unions to finance what they do," said Roland Zullo of the University of Michigan Labor Studies Center. "It's not about giving people the right to choose."

Zullo noted that workers in the states without "right-to-work" laws can opt not to pay the portion of fees that go toward political activities.

If the measure winds up on the ballot this fall, labor groups hope Colorado voters will leave the decision over requiring union fees to employees.

"I don't think they can make a better decision than the employees themselves," said Julie Spears, business representative with the Office and Professional Employees Union.