The Colorado legislature passed the Industrial Relations Act in 1915 in response to the Ludlow Massacre, giving every worker in the state the right to strike. Then-Gov. George Carlson’s conclusion that state government needed to become a “positive and vital agency . . . to stand between employer and employee and compel fair dealing between them” supported the central principle to make the state an interested party to labor disputes.
The right to strike is part of Colorado’s labor history. It was paid for with the lives of the impoverished miners, women and children who were massacred by Colorado’s National Guard in response to the miner’s strike for the right to organize, better wages and working conditions. This struggle for fairness, dignity and respect continues today — albeit not in the coalfields of Colorado but instead in the halls of government. This is why state employees’ organizing for a voice at work is important to making government a more efficient employer and, ultimately, more accountable for the services it provides.
While they will lose a right they were given as a result of the largest armed insurrection in American labor history, a select group of state employees will not enjoy the rights of other Colorado workers, including important elements of a real collective bargaining law or binding arbitration.
State employees have never invoked their power to strike. What’s more, it is unlikely that most of them even knew they had the legal right to do so.
The reality is that nobody likes to strike. The Industrial Relations Act was intended to create a structure that supported and encouraged more labor peace, not less, by protecting the interests of the state, the public and employees.
House Bill 1189 eliminates the right to strike only for state personnel system employees and was supported by the majority of legislators, the governor, and Colorado WIN Partners without compromise. A reasonable amendment was suggested by the Colorado Public Employee Alliance-CWA. We, along with a number of unions and other legislators, supported this amendment that would have tied the prohibition to the life of the governor’s executive order on partnerships. A sunset date of January 2011 would have allowed time to implement and assess partnerships and the legislature could have then determined whether to extend the sunset date or take some other action at that time. After all, an executive order can be overturned at the whim of an incoming governor, but legislation is far more difficult to change.
Is it ethically or morally right to eliminate a legal right for anyone without their knowledge or input? Did state employees authorize any union to help lobby the elimination of a core, fundamental right that is enjoyed by others in state government and throughout Colorado? Whether they used it or not, the right belonged to them — not the governor, legislators, or any union.
Cherry-picking these employees for exemption from the provisions of the Industrial Relations Act returns us to pre-Ludlow days, when the only state intervention was the National Guard, not the director of the Department of Labor. Although HB 1189 was lobbied heavily by the governor’s office and Colorado WIN Partners, there are those of us who stand firm in our belief that there is an ethical and moral obligation to speak out in defense of workers’ rights and that state employees deserve the same legal protection as all other employees.
It is ironic that, while the governor is criticized for giving state employees a “voice” by authorizing statewide organizing, one of the trade-offs would be a “top-down” approach to making decisions for them, even before the first partnership agreement is written.
