Labor, business reach pact

Join forces to fight 'right-to-work' ballot measure

By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Brian Lehmann / The Rocky

Gov. Bill Ritter, center left, and Daniel Ritchie, chairman of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, join business and labor leaders at a news conference Thursday to announce an effort to defeat three anti-union ballot measures.

Colorado labor and business leaders announced a joint effort aimed at defeating three contentious anti-union measures on November's ballot, an unprecedented agreement that marked the culmination of weeks of intense negotiations among unlikely allies.

In return for the business community's pledge to campaign against a "right-to-work" measure and two other amendments targeting unions, the organized labor community agreed to withdraw four ballot initiatives that businesses had feared would harm the state's economy.

"We're here today as citizens of Colorado to do the right thing for our state," Walter Isenberg, a Denver business executive closely involved in the talks, said at a news conference Thursday.

Business leaders such as Isenberg, who heads a group of prominent local executives called Colorado Concern, promised to raise $3 million for the fight against the three amendments, including the so-called "right-to-work" amendment that would ban mandatory union fees for workers.

Unions already have raised about four times that much money to pay for their "vote no" campaigns.

That businesses would supply any money to help unions in their initiative fight was controversial from the time the news of a possible deal first surfaced.

"Some cynics have falsely claimed that this partnership represents a ransom or buyout, but it was neither," said Daniel Ritchie, a Colorado Concern board member and chairman of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Executives to speak out

Key to cementing the partnership: Executives also have agreed to speak out against the measures. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 President Ernest Duran Jr. issued a statement calling that aspect "the most important component."

The details were hashed out late Wednesday evening at the Tabor Center offices of Hogan & Hartson. Ted Trimpa, a partner in the law firm, played the lead role in bringing the sides together to avert what could have been an even bigger battle at the polls next month.

The fight began when conservatives, including brewery descendant Jonathan Coors and Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, teamed up to put the "right- to-work" measure before voters this fall.

The patriarch of the brewing family appeared at Thursday's news conference to reaffirm his opposition to changing Colorado's labor laws, which already require a second election to form the type of workplace arrangement the younger Coors opposes.

"The Colorado Labor Peace Act has served us all very well," said Bill Coors, the 92-year-old grandson of brewery founder Adolph Coors. "I don't see why is it necessary to fix something" that isn't broken.

A spokesman for the "right- to-work" campaign reiterated that the initiative was launched in response to Gov. Bill Ritter's initial support of labor law changes as well as his executive order allowing state workers to unionize.

"Amendment 47 didn't start this fight," said Kelley Harp of A Better Colorado, which is running the push to make Colorado the 23rd "right-to-work" state that outlaws any all-union agreements between employers and employees.

Labor groups responded with their own ballot proposals in hopes of using them as leverage to get Coors and Frazier to back down. When efforts to get them to withdraw their proposal failed repeatedly, unions searched for another strategy.

"When labor is attacked, I don't blame them for responding," said Trimpa, who called the first meeting last month with executives, labor advocates and elected officials. "What we needed to do was find some common ground between business and labor to at least minimize the ballot fight."

Close to deadline

The groups delivered letters to the Colorado Secretary of State's Office asking for the measures to be withdrawn, only hours before a 5 p.m. deadline.

"When you create an unprecedented coalition, it takes an unprecedented amount of time," said Jess Knox, head of the Protect Colorado's Future union coalition and a key negotiator for the labor community.

The agreement will allow unions to spend all their campaign resources fighting three potentially damaging ballot measures aimed at weakening labor activity in the state.

The measures that will not be put to a vote are Amendments 53, 55, 56 and 57. They included mandatory employee health care premiums, a safe workplace proposal, a just cause measure that would have limited employers' ability to fire workers, and a corporate fraud initiative that would have made executives criminally liable for wrongdoing.

The initiatives will still appear on the state ballot but votes will not be tallied.

"I can't possibly express how relieved we should all be," Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said. "We can get back to solving problems."

Hickenlooper called the labor-backed initiatives "four poison pills" that posed risks to businesses across Colorado.

Proposals dropped:

* Amendment 53: A corporate fraud initiative that would have made an executive criminally liable for fraudulent activity.

* Amendment 55: A ban on firing employees without a specific reason or "just cause."

* Amendment 56: A proposed requirement that employers with 20 or more employees pay for 80 percent of an individual's health care.

* Amendment 57: A measure that would have allowed injured employees to seek additional damages in court beyond workers compensation.

Unions and business will together fight:

* Amendment 47: A "right-to-work" amendment that would do away with the current practice of allowing workers to vote on whether they want an "all-union" agreement that requires employees to pay dues to cover the cost of being represented by a union that negotiates wages and other benefits.

* Amendment 49: A measure that would bar governments in Colorado from taking union dues directly out of workers' paychecks. Prohibit automatic deductions for special interest groups and unions from public payrolls, such as those for state and county government workers, as well as cities and special districts.

* Amendment 54: A proposed ban on sole-source government contractors contributing to political candidates. Opponents have said that the measure takes aim at unions, which hold exclusive-rights bargaining contracts with some governments.

• October 3, 2008

  10:07 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Diff writes:

  SO... what happened to all the comments already posted?!?..
  For good measure - here is mine again!

  No matter which side of these issues you are on...
  "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention"

  Once it is on the ballot these and any other matters should be VOTED ON!
  I just don't get how a bunch of suits - meeting in a high powered lawyers office, can just agree and then have removed an amendment referendum that was properly certified to be placed on the state wide ballot?
  This seem like an out and out end around the democratic process!

  How can the Governor and the legislature and the Secretary of State allow this just because these parties - NEVER ELECTED to represent me or any one in State government matters BTW - Agreed to it!

  This seems like another case to support - Vote EM ALL out!
  Or maybe it is even time for some recall and impeachment investigations!

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