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Unusual partners defuse ballot battle

Business, labor call all hands on deck as clock ticks

By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 11, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated October 11, 2008 at 12:25 a.m.

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Arriving at the Governor's Mansion last month, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce CEO Joe Blake took part in early sessions of the business-labor group but dropped out of the inner circle to distance himself from the controversy.

Photo by Javier Manzano / The Rocky

Arriving at the Governor's Mansion last month, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce CEO Joe Blake took part in early sessions of the business-labor group but dropped out of the inner circle to distance himself from the controversy.

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In a conference room more than a dozen floors up Denver's Tabor Center tower, Ted Trimpa consumed Rock Star energy drinks one after another last week as he hosted a meeting that dragged on for 10 hours.

It was crunch time for a group of business and labor leaders facing a crucial deadline the next day. They weren't going home until they agreed how to pull four union-backed measures from Colorado's ballot in return for a business pledge to donate time and money to help defeat three anti-labor initiatives.

Just a couple of weeks before, the Hogan & Hartson attorney helped set in motion what would become an unusual partnership. But the path was full of obstacles.

First came an all-hands gathering of various parties and elected officials. Then, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., asked a smaller group to come up with a way to defuse a ballot battle. It began last spring when a group of conservatives proposed Amendment 47, which would ban compulsory union fees for workers covered by collective bargaining contracts.

"I was just one person among many who helped put together a peaceful truce," Salazar said by cell phone this week. "It took a lot of work to figure out what kind of coalition and resources we needed."

Hopes for an agreement were dashed repeatedly, one time at a meeting held on a Sunday after a Broncos game. "I felt like we would keep working on it till the deadline came," Gov. Bill Ritter said Friday.

For a handful of prominent executives, raising money was just the start.

Denver Chamber CEO Joe Blake took part in the early sessions even though his organization couldn't be involved in fighting the trio of anti-union amendments. After some of his group's members got wind of his involvement, he dropped out of the inner circle to distance himself from the controversy.

"I didn't want any ambiguity," Blake said later.

With the help of Trimpa, CEOs Pat Hamill of Oakwood Homes and Walter Isenberg of Sage Hospitality took the lead for business in finding a way to reach a compromise. They were determined to raise money from the business community to help organized labor beat Amendments 47, 49 and 54.

"Running a 'no' campaign is always more expensive," said attorney Trimpa, who got involved in the effort at the suggestion of his client, software entrepreneur and philanthropist Tim Gill.

The labor movement spent heavily to put countermeasures to Amendment 47 before voters. Its leaders brought their own challenges to the talks.

Long known for a tough "no losses, only gains" stance in bargaining, Ernest Duran Jr. first wanted $3 million for the UFCW's "no" campaign.

By then, businesses already had arrived at a $5 million offer. But the money was meant to be split 50-50 with Protect Colorado's Future, an AFL-CIO-backed coalition representing the rest of the local labor movement.

That's about the time when financial markets headed south and Isenberg and Hamill revised the amount they thought they could raise: $3 million.

At that point, Protect Colorado's Future executive director, Jess Knox, decided "getting a commitment to a partnership had always been more important than the details."

But Duran, who has declined to be interviewed, began to get pressure from his membership to back away from any deal at all. In this case, it was some of his union members who objected to a partnership with the business community - at the expense of amendments designed to aid working people.

Duran's involvement was crucial, however, because one of the amendments he put on the ballot was the one businesses feared most - a requirement that employers pay the bulk of health care premiums for workers and their families.

Complicating matters, the Denver Chamber board had endorsed Amendment 49, a proposal that would make it harder for some unions to collect dues.

With just a few days to go, the various sides described a potential agreement as being on life support - all but dead.

On Monday morning, Ritter made calls to some national labor leaders, including the head of the UFCW International, to brief them on a stalemate.

A showdown at the polls seemed inevitable.

At the 11th hour, a handful of negotiators gathered again at Trimpa's law firm. Munching on cheddar cheese Goldfish crackers and deli sandwiches, they finally put together a final solution.

Duran would pull his amendments but accept no money, just the word of executives to speak against three anti-labor initiatives. The $3 million from business would be spent by the Colorado Businesses for Sensible Solutions committee to help Protect Colorado Future's defeat the three measures.

"At the end of the day, we were all on the same page," said Hamill, the executive most involved in the negotiation sessions.

With notarized letters in hand to remove all four labor-backed measures, the crew headed home to rest before a morning news conference.

The labor and business pact

* Labor and business interests agreed to work together to defeat seven competing amendments on Colorado's fall ballot.

The agreement involved scrapping four labor measures that would have required employers to pay the bulk of employee health care premiums, made it harder for companies to fire workers without a reason, imposed a tougher corporate fraud law and allowed injured workers to sue for more damages.

In return, business leaders pledged to fight anti-labor measures on the ballot:

* Amendment 47 would do away with compulsory union fees for workers covered by collective bargaining.

* Amendment 49 would ban governments from deducting union dues from employee paychecks.

* Amendment 54 would prohibit contractors with no-bid government contracts and unions representing public workers from contributing to political campaigns.

Who's who The cast of characters in the drama leading up to a historic partnership between labor and business:

Labor

* Jess Knox, executive director of Protect Colorado's Future, an AFL- CIO-backed coalition

* Ernest Duran Jr., president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7

Business

* Pat Hamill, CEO, Oakwood Homes; member of executive alliance Colorado Concern

* Walter Isenberg of Sage Hospitality and co-chairman of Colorado Concern

* Ted Trimpa, Hogan & Hartson attorney

Elected officials

* Sen. Ken Salazar played a key role, hosted meeting. His aide, Renny Fagan, was present at most meetings.

* Gov. Bill Ritter and chief of staff Jim Carpenter. Ritter hosted negotiations at the governor's mansion, made calls. Carpenter was at most meetings.

* U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter attended or took part in many meetings.

* Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper had a presence and had aides involved.

Comments

  • October 11, 2008

    1:57 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    richardtmyers writes:

    This is an informative article, but it doesn't help readers understand why the three remaining amendments are such important issues on the November ballot.

    Amendment 47 is misleading. Under federal law, employees already have the right not to join a union. They also have the right not to pay union dues, per se.

    By failing to acknowledge these facts, the proponents of Amendment 47 have written ballot language, and have publicized the measure in a way to deceive voters. There are a lot of angry working people who object to the idea that they can be forced into anything that is not of their own free will, and 47 backers mislead in order to get their votes.

    Now, there is one aspect of Amendment 47 that would change current law. The situation is as follows:

    Unions are required by law to represent employees in the bargaining unit, whether they are union members or not. In return for those services, employees may be required to pay a "fee in lieu of dues", or an agency fee. This is the bare-bones cost of services provided by the union. Amendment 47 would take away those fees, but would not release unions from their obligation to provide the services. Thus, Amendment 47 would require unions to provide something and get nothing in return. This is nothing less than a prescription for destroying unions.

    On Amendment 49, I'm going to take the side of local governments. Amendment 49 would stop local governments from deciding what paycheck deductions they would allow for their employees. Why shouldn't they be allowed that freedom?

    Amendment 54, the so-called "Clean Government" amendment, is really a free speech issue. No one is more passionate about free speech than newspapers, and the News, the Post, the Pueblo Chieftain, the Longmont Times-Call, the Grand Junction Sentinel, and the Loveland Reporter-Herald have all come out against Amendment 54. Without free speech, how can working people look after their livelihood? It seems to me that the only thing Amendment 54 will clean out is the bank accounts of those who are muzzled.

    richard myers
    IBEW retired

  • October 12, 2008

    6:38 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    These business leaders are corrupt and their new found labor union partners are too.

    Time to call all the ecodev leaders in Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Kansas City, Omaha, Salt Lake City, etc... and let them know that:

    Mr. Joe Blake and Mr. Tom Clark of the Denver Chamber of Commerce are against Right-to-Work....they are against this basic human right to choose, basic American freedoms.

    Blake and Clark = partnered with big Unions, the Union Bosses and their political bosses ... all in the name of their self dealing, insider dealing sole source contracting world.

    YES on 47, 49 and 54 to stop these corrupt 'well heeled' people.