DENVER—Workers forced into lockouts during labor disputes would be able to collect unemployment benefits next year under a measure backed by a House committee Wednesday.
Only workers locked out by companies seeking to coerce them to accept a contract offer would be eligible under the bill (House Bill 1170). Anyone locked out because they are coordinating with striking workers elsewhere to win concessions wouldn’t be eligible.
The House Business Affairs & Labor Committee backed the amended bill in a 6-5 party-line vote, sending it to the full House for debate. All Democrats voted for it and all Republicans against it.
Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, proposed the main changes adopted by the committee because he said neither businesses nor workers should use lockouts as a bargaining tactic. But he said he didn’t satisfy either business or labor.
“I’ve been told with this bill I may have unemployed myself,” Rice said.
Colorado allowed workers to collect unemployment during lockouts until 1999, when the law was changed to say no benefits would be paid if a lockout was “defensive” to prevent vandalism or other problems.
Labor officials say that has made it impossible for locked-out workers to get benefits because it’s easy for companies to claim a defensive lockout and difficult for unions to disprove them.
Colorado’s last lockout occurred in 1996 when King Soopers employees went on strike and Safeway workers were locked out.
Workers at the two supermarket chains have just begun contract negotiations, and company representatives told lawmakers this was the wrong time to change the law because it could lead to a costly labor dispute.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union pushed for the bill and wants it to take effect this year. With lockouts as an option, union lawyer Crisanta Duran said companies now have no incentive to bargain.
Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, said the state shouldn’t expand unemployment benefits with so many out-of-work people already collecting unemployment.
Fiscal analysts estimate a six-week week lockout of 1,000 employees would cost the state’s unemployment fund $780,000.
