The compromise struck this week between Mayor John Hickenlooper and Denver’s city council over what could have been a rather contentious worker retention measure makes good sense.
If a company wins a bid to provide services for the city of Denver, such as washing windows at the airport, it shouldn’t be forced to retain all of the previous contract-holder’s employees if that doesn’t make sense for the city or its taxpayers.
We’re glad Hickenlooper was able to reach an agreement with City Councilman Chris Nevitt, who had enough support to pass an ordinance that would have required those new contract companies to retain all of the existing employees for 90 days regardless.
We earlier opposed the measure, calling it bad government and bad business.
Nevitt said he had the eight votes he needed to pass it, but not the nine needed to override a mayoral veto.
The mayor agreed that if the council dropped the ordinance, he would issue an executive order that would do essentially what the ordinance would have done.
The exception, and this is key, is that Hickenlooper’s order allows the city to opt out of the order if a particular contract doesn’t seem in the best interest of the city.
The employees of a contractor also would be prevented from suing the city if they lost their jobs for any reason, according to The Post’s Christopher N. Osher.
The council killed the proposed ordinance in exchange for Hickenlooper’s order.
The mayor said he didn’t think the measure was a critical need but believed the compromise would prevent a divisive struggle that could have harmed other initiatives.
We think the measure could have inflated business costs, as it would have negated the benefits of competitive bidding.
And it was unnecessary.
Nevitt himself said that most companies already retain existing service workers when granted a new contract.
But business and labor groups seem mollified by the deal, brokered by the mayor’s director of legislative services, R.D. Sewald, and that’s also a plus, as the measure risked creating divisions that would have been counterproductive.
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and other business groups were rightfully upset about the measure, as company owners should be the ones making hiring decisions — not city government.
We wished the mayor had gotten in front of this proposed change more quickly. In his own words, Hickenlooper was non-committal when given an opportunity to voice reservations, and that may have been taken as tacit agreement on his part by Nevitt and others.
But Hickenlooper managed a reasonable compromise with the City Council that should be good for Denver.
We’re glad to see the process work itself out.
