DENVER—Five ballot initiatives have been introduced by a labor union, including one that would require employers to give workers annual cost-of-living increases and provide employees with health insurance.
Others filed Monday by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 would deny tax breaks and incentives to companies that relocate jobs outside Colorado, require businesses to pay more in property taxes and allow injured workers to sue employers outside the workers’ compensation system.
Union leaders said they filed the initiatives because business groups are pushing a ballot initiatives that would ask voters to make Colorado a “right-to-work” state, stipulating that joining a union or paying union fees could not be a condition of employment.
“We saw that if right to work is something voters approve in November, eventually, inevitably, workers’ rights are going to suffer,” said Manny Gonzales, a spokesman for the food workers union.
Business groups vowed to fight the initiatives.
“The business community doesn’t feel like this was a fight that it initiated by any means whatsoever,” said Dan Pilcher, a spokesman for the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, which supports the right-to-work proposal.
Labor supported legislation last year to repeal a requirement that there be a supermajority vote of employees to form a union, a measure Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed.
In November, Ritter issued an executive order that gave state employees a form of collective bargaining. Although the order gives state workers the right to collectively negotiate, they can’t force agreements on the governor and legislature that would require higher appropriations.
