A group of Democratic legislators hopes to upend Colorado’s 81-year-old Labor Peace Act governing workforce unionization, saying Tuesday that they will introduce a bill to end its requirement for a second election before union negotiators can collect fees from workers.
Leaders of major business groups immediately pushed back on the proposal, warning that it will lead to erection of unnecessary barriers between employers and workers and will damage the state’s ability to be competitive for company expansions even further. Early announced opponents include the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, Colorado Competitive Council, Colorado Concern and Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Passed in 1943, the LPA is a unique compromise between the 26 states that have right-to-work laws preventing mandatory union membership and 23 states that require workers at unionized companies to pay fees to the unions that negotiate on their behalf. Workers here can unionize with a majority vote but must pass a second vote with 75% approval to permit union security, which allows organized labor to deduct fees from their checks to help fund union work and bargaining activities.
The “Worker Protection Act,” which Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez vowed to introduce during the first week of the 2025 legislative session that begins on Jan. 8, would remove the requirement for a second election. Sen. Jessie Danielson, Assistant House Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon and Rep. Javier Mabrey also will cosponsor the bill, and other Democrats at Tuesday’s news conference included Attorney General Phil Weiser, Secretary of State Jenna Griswold, Treasurer Dave Young and a half-dozen more legislators.
What the change would do
Eliminating the mandatory second election will make it easier for workers to unionize and will provide union leaders the resources they need to represent employees during collective bargaining, supporters said. And if Colorado can boost the 6.9% of its private workforce that is unionized now, it will lead to higher pay and higher benefits for a greater number of working-class residents, they said.
Colorado state Rep. Jennifer Bacon speaks in favor of a bill to change the Labor Peace Act on Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, what we’re talking about is removing a procedural speed bump,” said Bacon, comparing the requirement for a second election to states giving everyone the right to vote but then requiring them to pass a test before they could cast a ballot. “If a group of people knows what they need to thrive … why would we get in the way in the will of the people in a country that was founded on that principle?”
But while bill backers called the current law anti-union and anti-worker, business leaders said it’s been a boon to Colorado’s economy by creating a middle ground between states often divided into camps of pro-union and anti-union. Rachel Beck, executive director of the Colorado Competitive Council, said the first question that many representatives for companies considering expansion or relocation to the state ask economic-development officials surrounds the law, and their reactions are positive.
This move to nix the second election comes as Colorado is falling in national business-friendliness rankings as its costs of living, doing business and purchasing housing now rank in the highest quartile, Colorado Chamber President/CEO Loren Furman said. And it’s come quickly and without negotiations with employers, despite major business groups having worked with unions to defeat legislative efforts over the past decade that sought to make Colorado a right-to-work state, she added.
Is current law “middle ground” or anti-union?
“We don’t want to pass laws that continue to deteriorate our competitiveness compared to other states,” Furman said, pointing to a 2023 survey showing that many employers already are looking more to other states when considering expansion. “It’s a major piece of public policy that was developed as a middle ground between business and labor.”
Loren Furman is president and CEO of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.
Much of the coming debate is likely to center around whether Colorado would benefit by having a larger percentage of its private-sector workforce being unionized, which is the goal of bill backers.
Sophie Mariam, labor policy analyst for the Colorado Fiscal Institute, noted in a study released Tuesday that U.S. workers covered by unions earn an average 10.2% more in wages than non-union employees in the same industries with similar titles and experience. Eliminating the second election and making it easier to unionize could raise the average pay of all private-sector workers by $2,300 a year — a $5.7 billion boost to the economy, she argued.
Beck, however, pointed to a study done by former Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. CEO Tom Clark during the last battle over the Labor Peace Act — in 2007, when then-Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed potential changes — showing the law is uniquely helpful to Colorado. He found in examining three previous recessions that right-to-work states entered into economic downturns quicker and union states took longer to recover, while Colorado ranked with the better-performing states in both of those comparisons.
Proponents: Employers “bully workers” into voting against unions
Beck said too that workers wouldn’t be able to keep all that money cited in CFI’s study, since some of it would go to union organizers through fees mandated by the union-security process that now would come with a first vote. And Furman argued that creation of more unions would put up walls between management and workers at a time when employers seek to understand the needs of their talent — and that artificially inflated labor costs could reduce benefits or company innovation.
Dennis Dougherty, executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO, noted that a first-election provision for union security wouldn’t compel employers to agree to collective-bargaining demands. But it would provide resources to union leaders to enable them to work for the members that they represent, he said in an interview.
Colorado Senate Majority Leader speaks at a news conference Tuesday while backed by numerous union members.
Proponents of the proposal criticized corporations for their treatment of employers at the news conference. Rodriguez said they are making record profits at the same time they try to “bully workers” into rejecting unionization. Mariam said decline in union representation over the past 40 years has been a major factor in increasing the racial wealth gap.
Union bill a litmus test for Capitol Democrats?
But with Democrats holding a 23-12 edge in the Colorado Senate for the upcoming session and an apparent 43-22 edge in the House (as two seats that Republicans appear to have flipped still must go to recounts), Mabrey in particular called on Democrats to do their duty to help unions that support them.
After an election in working-class voters in several states supported President-elect Donald Trump and helped spur the Republican to victory, Mabrey said Democrats must “be on the side of working people and not on the side of the billionaire class.” He noted that Democrats need no Republican help to pass the Worker Protection Act and intimated that the bill will be a sort of litmus test on whether unions can continue to trust Democrats at the Capitol who control the House, Senate and governor’s office.
“In Colorado, the Democratic Party has a trifecta. Whether or not this passes is totally in the hands of the Democratic Party,” he said to a crowd of more than 100 people including representatives of the Teamsters, AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and United Food Commercial Workers. “So, I ask my colleagues: Which side are you on, Colorado Democrats? This is our chance to put up or shut up.”
Union members cheer state Rep. Javier Mabrey during a news conference on proposed changes to the Colorado Labor Peace Act on Tuesday.
Business argument will revolve around competitiveness
It’s likely that Mabrey aimed his remarks at the more moderate Senate Democratic caucus, which in recent years has killed or watered down a number of bills opposed by business, including his 2023 measure to allow local governments to implement rent-control laws. But it’s also notable that the only statewide elected official who was not present at the news conference was Gov. Jared Polis, who Democrats and labor leaders rallied against after he vetoed two labor priority bills following the 2024 session.
Furman noted that nothing now stops workers from organizing, and she said she will highlight that to legislators while also arguing that the current law helps to create more jobs for workers by making the state more competitive. Beck said she’ll note to legislators that Colorado law already gives all workers access to paid family leave, retirement accounts and a highly rated workers’ compensation system, begging the question of what greater benefits increased unionization could bring.
“The thing I hear from employers on unionization is that they want to have a more direct relationship with their employees,” Beck said. “They feel that unions can add a layer and an us-versus-them mentality.”