Progressives put Colorado’s decades-old labor peace treaty at risk
By Jon Caldara
We have been at peace for 80 years. Think of that. It has been long peace, sometimes an uneasy peace. But the peace in Colorado has been kept through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and Gulf Wars.
Sadly, that peace is coming to an end.
The history? After decades of violent and often deadly conflict in the early 1900s, business owners and striking workers found a compromise, a peace treaty. Colorado’s Labor Peace Act was signed into law in 1943, guaranteeing workers the right to unionize and collectively bargain if workers vote twice to do so.
The first vote is to unionize and needs a simple majority. The second vote requires a supermajority vote of 75% for “security agreements,” meaning to force union dues be paid by all workers, even the up to 25% who didn’t want to join.
Of course, the 75% requirement makes it harder to collectively bargain and force money from union members, an obvious benefit for business owners. But it also protects workers.
Believe it or not, some workers don’t want to be forced to join an organization against their will; some don’t want to hand over their hard-earned money to a political group they might disagree with.
And yes, unions are political organizations. They endorse, contribute to, and mobilize for candidates and ballot issues. They lobby lawmakers and bring court actions. You know, just like the NRA.
To force a person to associate with, and pay for, something they disagree with is forced speech, forced association. It’s a violation of the values we hold so sacrosanct we protect them with the First Amendment.
The great spiritual leader Groucho Marx said, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” But what if Groucho still had to pay for the club membership he refused? Well, then he’d be working for a Colorado company where 75% of his co-workers voted to take his money.
While not perfect, the 75% vote requirement acts as a proxy to protect those employees who don’t want to unionize.
If progressives in the state legislature remove that 75% requirement, that compromise which kept the peace for eight decades, there will be a counteraction to protect individuals who, like Groucho, don’t want to join.
That protection will be right to work. Over half the states have “right-to-work” laws, 26 in fact, which protect an individual’s right not to join a union and not pay union dues against his will.
Colorado is not one of those 26 states, and that’s caused a fair amount of hassle to me over my many years running Independence Institute. You see, I regularly meet up with colleagues from around the country, and they bust my chops.
For a quarter of a century now they nag me about right to work and why Colorado doesn’t have it like most of the rest of the country. “Come on Caldara, you put questions on the Colorado ballot all the time, like your income tax rate cuts. When are you going to bring that square state of yours into the 21st century with a right to work initiative. We’ll help!”
Then I must explain the peace treaty that has lasted the better part of a century, our Labor Peace Act, and how I don’t want to be the one to break that fragile peace.
Since my crowd mostly grew up in their mother’s basements, I talk in metaphors they can understand. The United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire have had a tense, but workable, peace in Colorado for 80 years.
Between the Federation and the Klingons lies the buffer of the neutral zone. And if I brought forward a right-to-work ballot initiative, well that would be an incursion into the neutral zone. The Klingons would surely retaliate by attempting to blow up the peace treaty by removing the 75% vote requirement.
I’m not going to start that intergalactic war.
But if the Klingons raid the neutral zone and break the treaty first, well, the Federation will have no choice but to unleash right to work to protect workers right to association, or not to associate at all.
And unleash the dogs of war.
By the way, businesses don’t relocate to war zones.
