


Colorado's state worker unions have big plans to take advantage of Gov. Bill Ritter's executive order establishing "employee partnership agreements."
The governor quietly released his order on Nov. 2. Just four days later, the unions entered into their own Colorado Partnership Agreement declaring solidarity of intent to organize as many of the state's 31,500 civil service employees as they can under the umbrella of a new Colorado Workers for Innovations and New Solutions (WINS).
WINS includes the Service Employees International Union (which also embraces the old Colorado Association of Public Employees), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers. Yes, the state employs teachers for, among other things, prison and youth corrections educational programs.
Under the Ritter order, the unions need only 30 percent of each potential collective bargaining unit to sign petitions calling for a union representation election. If they try to organize the entire state civil service work force, they would need only 9,450 of the 31,500 employees to sign up.
Whatever the size of the unit, only 50 percent plus one of those actually voting in the election would be needed to recognize the union as the exclusive bargaining agent for ALL employees in the unit - union members or not.
Union dues would be collected by state payroll deductions only from union members. Under terms of the governor’s order, non-members could not be coerced into paying union dues or agency fees.
This union-organizing process is a big first step for the union leaders who secretly negotiated with the governor. (To be technically accurate, Gov. Ritter uses "partnership" in place of the union's "collective bargaining unit" and "exclusive representation" in place of the union's preferred “exclusive bargaining agent.”)
Predictably, Ritter's fellow Democrats generally support this cause, while Republicans mostly object to it. By making it an executive order, the governor gave political cover to Democratic legislators who now can avoid the messy business of debating and voting on the record for a pro-union bill in the next session, which comes in a partisan election year.
Partisan debate has erupted nonetheless. The Democratic governor said his order is not collective bargaining because it bans employee strikes and binding arbitration. Conversely, Republican Attorney General John Suthers cited a 1992 Supreme Court decision, based on a 1915 Industrial Relations Act, giving state employees some rights to strike.
It's true the governor's order penalizes state strikers by revoking the union agreement that they obviously would violate by striking. In reality, however, most unions strike only after a contract has expired and they're at an impasse in negotiations. So the Ritter-Suthers conflict may be a difference without much of a distinction.
Meanwhile, Republican activist Jon Caldara is preparing a 2008 ballot initiative that would outlaw state payroll deductions for union dues. Former GOP Gov. Bill Owens had revoked union payroll deductions after he took office, but they were reinstated when Ritter replaced him this year.
Whether it's called employee partnerships or collective bargaining, state worker unions hope to recruit thousands of new members (they currently count about 5,000 members out of the potential pool of 31,500 civil service workers). In union negotiations, as in politics, there's definite power in numbers.
(chieftain.com)