Colorad Labor Blog

Most Republicans in the Colorado House of Representatives have joined the gang of right wing, anti-worker zealots led by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is at the forefront of a national assault on the nation’s middle class.

Some 26 GOP House members sponsored a bill (HB 1320) in the waning days of the 2011 legislative session that would have prohibited collective bargaining by state employees.

The fact there is no collective bargaining now among state employees was apparently of no concern to the legislators, including Frank McNulty, speaker of the House. They wanted to send a message to the working men and women of this state: They intend to come after your wages, hours and working conditions.

So, although HB 1320 died before a final vote could be taken in the legislature, it should scare hell out of every worker, union and nonunion alike, in this state. Because unions set wage standards for all workers, nonunion workers are also prime targets of the war on workers.

This is the first overt action taken by Colorado Republicans in the ongoing nationwide campaign to destroy, not only the labor movement, but also the middle class, which it helped to create. It is hard to understand why the 26 Colorado representatives decided at this time to jump on Governor Walker’s bus, which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Polling in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Maine shows the GOP is suffering a tremendous erosion of support from independents and nominal Democrats that they enjoyed in the 2010 election. And, lest Colorado Republicans forget, a right-to-work (for less) initiative was defeated in Colorado in 2008 by an overwhelming margin.

So far, of the14 states that have tried this year to pass right-to-work (for less) laws — which sap labor’s strength in collective bargaining for workers’ wages, hours and working conditions — only New Hampshire has come close to succeeding.

Public opinion has shifted in favor of collective bargaining rights as unions took center stage in many state capitols. A Gallup poll in April showed almost half of Americans agree with workers and their unions. Only 39 percent agree with the governors who attacked working people.

In Wisconsin, six of the most vulnerable Republican senators will face a recall election on July 12. After Governor Walker and the GOP-controlled Senate voted to abolish collective bargaining in the state, union members quickly gathered enough signatures to put the recall elections on the ballot.

Even though they may have overreached after their massive election victory in 2010, it doesn’t appear Republicans will soon retreat from their war on workers. Their corporate contributors have for years sought to impose Third World conditions on the American workforce. There is no reason to believe they will ever abandon that goal.

That’s why they have targeted the unions. Unions are the protector of the middle class. When the unions are defeated, the middle class ceases to exist. To all those nonunion workers who think they have no dog in this fight; think again.

Get smart. Fight back.

For awhile the Republicans, because of their huge 2010 election victories in congress, state legislatures and governors’ offices, were pretty damn cocky about their chances to unseat President Obama in 2012.

Now, however, Republicans appear worried, especially with polls indicating that the GOP is on the wrong side of an ongoing fight with the country’s trade unions. Wisconsin unions have collected almost half the signatures required to hold a recall election for eight Republican state senators.

And they have acquired them in only one-fourth of the time allotted. Apparently the Republicans have kicked the proverbial sleeping dog — rank-and-file union members who had been posing as Rip Van Winkle until Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker booted them in the butt.

It might seem odd, but nevertheless true, that some Democrats are uptight, too, given labor’s breath of new life. The Scott Walker episode in Wisconsin could be a defining moment for both the labor movement and the Democratic Party.

If workers can stay as focused for the next two years as they have recently in opposing Republican union busting efforts, then the election of 2012 will be the rebirth of a diminishing labor movement. And if the Democratic Party holds the example of the Wisconsin 14 as the standard to which all of their candidates aspire, then the party will again become the party of the middle class.

Democrats bear a share of the blame for the vicious war on middle class workers being conducted primarily in the Midwest by the Republicans. If Democrats had stayed true to their middle class base, they would not have been so thoroughly beaten in the 2010 election.

Government statistics show that for the past 30 years workers have not received a fair share of the wealth they helped create, and it is not totally the fault of Republicans.

Unfortunately, over those years, some Democrats have taken the unions for granted, gladly accepting labor’s campaign money and giving little in return. These are the so-called New Democrats who pay lip service to bread-and-butter labor issues, while kissing up to the corporate bosses for campaign contributions.

“You can get these guys’ votes once in awhile on a labor issue, but sometimes you have to pound them over the head to do it. On bigger issues, like EFCA and NAFTA, they constantly look for places to hide,” said a union lobbyist based in Washington, D.C.

“That’s what playing footsie with the corporate donors does to this type of Democrat,” he said. “It makes them wishy-washy, divides their loyalties. They don’t want to offend the business guys. It’s a weasel’s approach to politics.”

Even on occasions when they controlled both executive and legislative branches of government, Democrats failed to reform antiquated federal labor laws that are exceedingly biased in management’s favor. This is a major reason organized labor today represents less than 12 percent of the workforce, down from 25 percent in the 1970s.

Those who have declared war on workers —the rightwing conservatives and their wealthy patrons– are determined to destroy the standard of living of all American workers, both union and nonunion. Their goal is a Third World workforce in the United States, which they have been working toward for many years.

Whether or not America’s middle class wins the war on workers depends largely on the unions. Labor created the middle class, and will not abandon it. From the size and intensity of the pro-union supporters in recent rallies, it appears the labor movement has only begun to fight.

And we’re waiting impatiently for Democrats in all states —not just those in Wisconsin and other embattled states who have been valiant– to join the battle.

Editorial writers at the Denver Post just can’t get it; they don’t understand the concept of collective bargaining.

We have tried to explain it to them two or three times in the past year, but they either can’t or won’t grasp the idea. For example:

On Sunday, Feb. 27, the Post, for the second time in about five weeks, urged Governor Hickenlooper to rescind an executive order issued by former Governor Bill Ritter. The executive order allows state workers to be represented by a union that can show it represents a sizable segment of workers in a department.

As we pointed out last month this representation isn’t accompanied by any collective bargaining right, which is a factor required for an employee-employer relationship to be a bona fide labor-management relationship. And, without the right to bargain collectively, a union cannot negotiate a legally binding agreement covering wages, hours and working conditions.

Ritter’s executive order doesn’t even give the unions “limited” bargaining rights. as the Post claims. It simply allows employees of certain departments to express a collective opinion on workplace issues if they wish to do so. Workers have no right to negotiate anything. They can however, make suggestions.

“Rescinding the order not only would send an important and decisive message to business leaders, and to labor, it could save Colorado from more financial trouble in the future,” says the Post in its editorial.

“While there’s no extra money in state coffers to argue over now,” the Post adds, “when the economy recovers, the state’s newly organized workforce eventually will ask for the cash.”

The Post believes that “echoes rumbling from Madison and elsewhere ought to goad Hickenlooper into rethinking his position.”

What is happening in Madison has absolutely no resemblance to what is happening in Colorado. In Colorado, state employees are not allowed to engage in collective bargaining.
Colorado unions can ask for the moon if they wish, but without real collective bargaining, the state is not required to negotiate for anything, including wages, hours, working conditions, which include work rules.

“We’ve argued before that Hickenlooper should rescind the order, but he shows no intention of doing so,” says the Post. “How is it possible the politically savvy governor has gone so tone deaf?”

That’s an easy one for the governor, who obviously is savvier than the Post editorialists.

Undoubtedly, he understands the scope of the executive order and realizes it does not constitute anything close to collective bargaining.

We’d advise the Post editorial writers to do their homework.

It was nice to see that a sizable group of Democratic legislators were viewing the workers’ rights rally Tuesday from the exterior second floor balcony of the Capitol.

That was really the first public indication that Colorado Democratic lawmakers had any interest in the plight of union workers in Wisconsin, even though that dispute has been ongoing for nearly two weeks.

Where were all the Democrats? Senate President Brandon Schaffer was there and a handful of other Democrats were probably in the crowd. Congressman Ed Perlmutter showed up but didn’t speak.

It was not, by any means, a forceful show of political support for working men and women.

I thought there would be a huge number of politicians demanding to speak at the rally. Maybe they weren’t asked. I don’t know. House Democrats said they were not permitted by the Republican majority leadership from leaving the house floor during the rally.

It’s hard to believe that, with a one-member majority in the House, the Republicans could prevent anybody from doing anything.
Perhaps the Democrats didn’t want to go outside on a beautiful winter day in Colorado. Or maybe they didn’t want to mingle with the Great Unwashed.

I’ll tell you this, though, if this rally had occurred 25 years ago, Democrats and even some Republicans would have walked off the floor and demanded to speak to the workers.

Legislators such as Eldon Cooper, a UAW official who later became president of the Colorado AFL-CIO; Dick Soash, a Democrat who represented a lot of miners in the northwest part of the state; Dave Wattenberg, a Republican from Walden; Ken Chlouber, a Republican who had been a union miner at Leadville, and a host of others would have been either at the podium or in the crowd showing support for the workers.

But at least some of our state lawmakers have taken a stand for working men and women. Not so with the Colorado congressional delegation. Where is Diana DeGette when we need her?

Neither of our two stalwart U.S. senators–Mark Udall and Michael Bennet—has expressed an opinion on the union busting campaigns in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan and Montana.

On the day after the rally, Bennet sent out a press release on a speech he made in Boulder. Udall’s last press release informed us he was co-sponsoring a bill that would change permitting rules for ski areas on Forest Service Land.

My, oh my, what courage.

We can only hope that, as the war on workers in Wisconsin and other states evolves, a little of the courage exhibited by the 14 Wisconsin state senators will rub off on their Colorado counterparts.

They grow big ones in Wisconsin.

As for Colorado, ah, well, you know. . .