DENVER—Colorado’s new state employees union is already claiming victories for members, including a campaign to prevent furloughs and find alternatives to budget cuts, and selecting a 30-member negotiating team to begin addressing health care, compensation and workplace conditions.
On Tuesday, the union will begin talks with a team of state negotiators over their requests for the next fiscal year beginning July 1.
Gov. Bill Ritter, who has had a rocky relationship with unions since taking office two years ago, told members of the union coalition—called Colorado WINS, or Workers for Innovation and New Solutions—that they were instrumental in avoiding furloughs or layoffs in the current budget as the state struggled to cut $600 million over the next four months.
Ritter said his administration will do everything possible to help workers with health care and working conditions, but he warned that the current economic slump could last for years and the state has been forced to freeze salaries and eliminate performance bonuses.
“Anything that costs new money will be very difficult to get through,” he told about 100 union members gathered near the Capitol to lobby legislators.
Ritter angered unions when vetoed a bill in 2007 that would have made it easier for them to form closed shops, even though he had promised to support it. He said business leaders should have had more of a voice in the debate before it passed and objected to the process, not the bill.
He angered business leaders six months later when he signed an executive order authorizing “partnership agreements” that will make better use of workers’ abilities and allow them to meet with management to discuss concerns.
Ritter insisted the order doesn’t allow collective bargaining and doesn’t require employees to join a union or force them to pay dues if they decide against joining. Ballots were sent out last year to a majority of the state’s 32,000 workers who qualified, and about 1,900 have signed up, according to union officials.
The Colorado Association of Public Employees, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers formed the Colorado Wins coalition four days after Ritter’s order and launched a furious recruitment campaign.
On Wednesday, union members complained to the governor that state agencies have been inconsistent in allowing the union to recruit members, with some agencies allowing recruiters to canvass workers in lunchrooms and others barring them from the building.
Tom Bovee, who works for Attorney General John Suthers, said Suthers has ruled that he’s not covered by Ritter’s executive order because he’s an elected official and wouldn’t allow recruiting.
Mitch Ackerman, director of Colorado WINS, said organizing rules should be uniform statewide.
Union organizers have also angered some state employees, who complained they were pushy and tried to coerce employees into joining the union.
David Ohmart, an employee at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, said he formed a group to counter the union drive, which he called Colorado LOSES, and he has been under intense pressure to back off. He said his recruiting signs have been vandalized and the state has refused to allow him to use state e-mail accounts, even though the union has monthly access.
Ohmart said about 200 employees have contacted him asking him how to resist union pressure.
Ohmart said employees are wasting their money paying the unions because their wages and benefits are set by the Legislature and the state already has a grievance procedure. He said the union can raise millions of dollars without having to account for how it is spent.
“This is all about the money,” he said.
Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument, who attended the meeting, said she was surprised at the tone of the meeting, including union worker demands for better working conditions and wages. She said Ritter has unnecessarily opened state government up to potential challenges from its work force.
“There are a lot of people who would love to work for the state who are not employed,” she said.
