BLAKE: Another labor jam for Ritter?

The Rocky

Published January 29, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size

More Opinion Columns & Blogs

Another major union-backed bill is about to be launched at the Statehouse. If it passes the House and Senate, it would once again put Gov. Bill Ritter in a bind.

The measure would authorize police officers, firefighters and sheriff's deputies to engage in collective bargaining with the departments that hired them, regardless of what local voters might have to say on the subject.

Nothing in state law makes collective bargaining by public safety employees illegal now. It is an issue that the legislature has ignored for decades, on grounds that it should be left up to city and county governments and their voters.

Indeed, 10 cities have already authorized collective bargaining in their charters, including Denver, Aurora, Pueblo, Greeley and Englewood.

But lobbying one city after another is hard work and often not successful. Fort Collins voters recently rejected a collective bargaining proposal, with 70 percent voting no.

Getting a bill passed by the legislature amounts to "one-stop shopping," said Kevin Bommer, who is lobbying against the bill for the Colorado Municipal League. It would permit unions to try to organize public safety departments directly, without voter authorization.

"It is an obvious intrusion of the state into the employment practices of local governments," said the latest edition of the CML's Statehouse Report. What's more, it would drive up city and county costs in a recession that is already "crippling" local economies.

Sponsoring Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, claimed wages and benefits wouldn't be as important in collective bargaining as "safety issues."

Police and firefighter lobbyist Randy Atkinson agreed. Safety equipment and staffing levels are more important than wages, which are usually determined by surveys of neighboring departments.

He pointed out there is a no-strike clause in the bill. If the departments and the city or county can't agree on a contract, the dispute would go to a "advisory fact-finder" who would make a recommendation. If either side rejected the recommendation, local voters would choose between the final offers made by both sides in a special election paid for by the rejecting party.

Atkinson maintained that Ritter earlier pledged support of such a bill at a firefighters' meeting.

But that was then. Mary Kay Hogan, the governor's lobbyist, said this week that Ritter "would probably not be looking too favorably" at a bill that didn't also have the support of the municipal league and Colorado Counties Inc. "He would sure rather they (the unions) work it out" with both groups, she said.

But a compromise bill is unlikely, since local governments prefer the status quo.

Expected to join them in opposing the bill are business lobbyists, who fear each new bill promoting collective bargaining will lead to another.

Ritter no doubt hopes the bill won't make it to his desk. He doesn't want a repeat of House Bill 1072 of 2007, which would have repealed a key element of Colorado's Labor Peace Act: A second, secret-ballot vote requiring a supermajority to create a union shop. He'd promised to support such a bill when campaigning the year before, but ended up vetoing it under heavy pressure from business.

But the battle over collective bargaining won't end even if the bill dies or the governor vetoes it.

Pending in Congress is a bill, introduced Jan. 9, which would authorize collective bargaining for local public safety employees. It is similar to a measure that swept through the House last year, 314-97, but got stalled in the Senate.

This year, with an even stronger Democratic majority in both chambers, it is expected to become law. Even Republicans hesitate to vote against police and fire departments.

But the National League of Cities and its allies are likely to challenge the measure in court on grounds it violates the 10th Amendment, which leaves to the states powers not given to Congress by the Constitution.

Peter Blake is a former Rocky Mountain News political columnist. He can be reached at pblake0705@comcast.net.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News