Colorad Labor Blog

Fed up!

gunner — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:04:05 +0000

To be perfectly honest, I am getting a bit fed up with the media’s infatuation with gay marriage and guns. To me, television 2013 is threatening to get even more boring than television 2012 when we endured about a year of inane political campaign commercials. After a tiny respite, I am once again ready to start tossing shoes at the

Labor wins were vital in 2010, 2012 elections

gunner — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:30:37 +0000

There are only three free collective bargaining states from Kansas City to the West Coast—Colorado, Montana and New Mexico. The remainder of the mountain west states—Arizona, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming—are so-called “right-to-work” states. Because unions set wage and benefit standards for all American workers, these three lesser-populated free bargaining states are very important to the American labor movement. Their importance

EFCA would be boon to sick economy

James Hansen — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 02:51:04 +0000

All of those nonunion workers who constantly rant against organized labor should instead thank their lucky stars for their union counterparts. If it weren’t for the union workers, nonunion working men and women would be making considerably less wages. It is a fact that in states where unions are strong, wages of all workers—union and nonunion—are higher. For example, in

A liberal, and proud of it

James Hansen — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 03:11:57 +0000

I am what I am. I am a liberal and I don’t want to be called a “progressive.” The liberal political viewpoint has been an honorable component in political discourse for many years. I refuse to bow to the pressure of right-wing radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh who have made liberal a pejorative term by laying the blame for

Labor must protect future of America’s workforce

gunner — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:07:35 +0000

Michigan wasn’t always like it is today. You could trust Michigan politicians 40 years ago — even the Republicans. The governor then was William Milliken, a moderate Republican who served for 12 years, and was always endorsed by Michigan Teamsters and many of the unions of the AFL-CIO. Before he became governor, Milliken served as lieutenant governor under Governor George

An old cure for voter suppression

James Hansen — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:16:46 +0000

Voter suppression is not a new phenomenon. Attempts to prevent citizens from voting have been made for decades, mostly by Republicans since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Before that, most efforts to discourage voters from voting occurred in the South where Democrats, often called “Dixiecrats,” because they differed on racial issues with members of their party living in states outside the South. Southern states, controlled by the so-called Dixiecrats, enacted Jim Crow laws, which, among other restrictions, required payment of poll taxes before one could vote. Here in Colorado, early in the 1960s, voter suppression efforts were only slightly more sophisticated. The Republicans would send two or three, almost always white, party regulars, dressed in suits and ties, to polling places usually located in Hispanic or African-American neighborhoods.

Don’t blame us when capitalism goes to pot

James Hansen — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:15:41 +0000

If capitalism ever dies in the United States--as many believe it will—it won’t be caused by labor unions, liberals, environmentalists, civil rights activists or just plain do-gooders. Rather, the death of capitalism will be the fault of the corporations themselves -- especially the multinationals--that are reaping record profits while paying their workers less every year. They get away with this because unions -- which set wage standards for all workers, union and nonunion—are being slowly hammered into submission by the constant, aggressive attack from rightwing zealots seeking annihilation of the labor movement. Unions now represent less than 12 percent of the nation’s workers, split about 50-50 between the public and private sectors. In the 1950s, 35 percent of all U.S. workers were represented by unions. In those days, wages were increasing and the union haters whined about the so-called “wage-price spiral.” Citizens United has made it legal for any outside group to contribute corporate money to support candidates through a Super Pac--which must disclose the identity of its donors--and/or to so-called “social welfare groups” whose donors can remain anonymous.

I am a NIMBY when it comes to Walmart

James Hansen — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:12:28 +0000

I have an office in a building near I-70 and Harlan Street in northwest Denver, close to where a new family will soon be moving. The new family’s building is under construction just southwest of my office. I don’t intend to rush over to welcome them to the neighborhood when they move in. The Walmart family will be moving into the massive new big box building. I don’t like them, never have and never will. I’ve never set foot in a Walmart. They could sell television sets for a dollar, and I wouldn’t cross the street to buy one. My new neighbor makes me wish there were such things as gated industrial areas. When it comes to Walmart, I am a NIMBY (Not in my Back Yard).

R2W dog, pony show no hit at Capitol

James Hansen — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 01:18:02 +0000

They brought their dog and pony show to the Colorado Capitol in February but it wasn’t much of a hit at the box office.

Members of the right to work gang came to the statehouse with briefcases filled with the same kind of misinformation they have presented to legislators almost every year since 1988. They had expected their suited presence to draw a sharp contrast with the appearance of the union “thugs” who would be opposing Senate Bill 100, AKA right to work (for less).

No such luck.

This time, the gang’s opponents—Colorado unions--didn’t even offer a response. As Senator Lois Tochtrop, chairman of the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee, pointed out, the right-to-work (for less) issue was decisively defeated at the polls in 2008, and nothing has appeared to change since then.

The right to work supporters knew they had no chance of passing their bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Tom Neville (R-Littleton). They were seeking to produce some good theater for the press and some grist for their base’s mill. But they failed miserably. The committee voted against the bill 4 to 2.

Beware the 2012 legislative session

James Hansen — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:14:45 +0000

Colorado's union leaders should be prepared f0r a barrage of anti-worker legislation to be introduced in the 2012 session of the state legislature, which begins on January 11.

After all, 2012 is an election year and that is prime time for posturing by both Democrats and Republicans. With a divided legislature in Colorado it is doubtful that legislation seriously offensive to either party's base will be passed.

But one has to be careful.

Lawmakers from both parties will be introducing all sorts of goofy proposals to prove to their bases they are doing something for the cause — and the campaign contributions.

And in election years, strange things sometimes happen. Some Democrats in swing districts might decide it's in their best interest to vote like Republicans. Less likely, but possible nonetheless, a few Republicans might vote with Democrats.

An indication of what might face Colorado workers in the 2012 legislature came late in the 2011 session when 26 House Republicans enlisted in the war against workers by introducing a proposal that would have prohibited collective bargaining by state employees, even though Colorado State employees don't have collective bargaining rights.

They didn’t care; they wanted to send a message to state workers, the same message that Governors Scott Walker in Wisconsin and John Kasich in Ohio tried to send to workers in their states last year: We don't care about workers' rights; we're out to gut their wages, hours and working conditions.

Ohio vote was a strong message

James Hansen — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:28:36 +0000

Labor unions all over the country should be energized after the big win yesterday in Ohio where voters overwhelmingly rejected a law that stripped public sector unions of collective bargaining rights.

Ohio Governor John Kasich signed Senate Bill 5 into law last March after it was passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. The bill was Kasich's scapegoat for pushing an extreme anti-worker agenda that favors the richest 1 percent at the expense of the remaining 99 percent of the nation's population.

The repeal of Senate Bill 5 by a vote of the people was a huge win for working men and women. It proved to doubters that organized labor still has the ability to come alive and effectively perform in the political arena.

Radio whiners should occupy Cherry Hills

James Hansen — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:06:30 +0000

How much fun is it to listen to right-wing radio pundits — such as gasbags Rush Limbaugh, Mike Rosen and Dan Caplis — whine about the protesters at Occupy Denver in Civic Center Park?

Hey, guys, don't complain. Do your own protest. Gather a thousand or so of your millionaire/billionaire pals and stage your own occupation. You could call it the "one percent movement" and have it at Cherry Hills Country Club or some other fancy place. You’d be among friends there and they wouldn't snitch on you to the cops for trespassing.

And you wouldn't have to mingle with the Great Unwashed in downtown Denver.

It's always the same old story with the righties: The protesters are all "long-haired, college kids" or "lazy, anti-American, refugees from the '60s who ought take a bath and go find a real job," even though — thanks to George W. Bush — there are no real jobs to find.

But what really pisses them off is that the protesters are criticizing America's glorious capitalistic system, which, it seems to me, is a bit off track at the moment.

Hoffa right on Tea Party pols

James Hansen — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:31:26 +0000

Hooray for Jim Hoffa.

He told it like it is earlier this month when he called Tea Party Republicans "sons of bitches" on CNN. What better describes politicians who seek to destroy the labor movement, which has done more to build and protect the middle class than any other American institution?

In contrast to organized labor, the Tea Party, a newcomer to the political scene, has done nothing for the commonwealth. Rather, it has embarked on a campaign, financed by the Koch brothers and other rightwing billionaires, to destroy the nation's social fabric.

These Tea Party yahoos are in the forefront of the war on working men and women, leading the race to the bottom, to a Third World workforce for the United States. They support shipping good paying jobs to other countries. In their perfect world, we would have a national right-to-work law. Workers would be paid slave wages, benefits would be nonexistent and working conditions would be abominable.

Our public education system would be eviscerated. Rich kids would be educated in private schools, mostly funded with taxpayer money, while poor kids would attend dilapidated, underfunded public schools. Our police officers and firefighters would be overworked and underpaid and there would be no regulation to prevent corporate crime, which has become epidemic in the past 20 years.

It was predictable, of course, that Fox News and a multitude of right-wing nutcakes on the Internet -- such as Andrew Breitbart -- would take umbrage at the Teamster leader's remarks.

Teamsters were described as "thugs" and Hoffa as a "union boss" who was attempting to incite violence against the Tea Party. The Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer said Hoffa's comments were "disgraceful."

The labor movement is the ‘responsibility movement’

James Hansen — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:27:29 +0000

Gov. Hickenlooper commented last week that President Obama would have a hard time winning in Colorado in 2012. He cited dissatisfaction among voters over the high unemployment rate. Republicans were so delighted, they almost wet themselves. John Andrews, former Colorado state senate president, was among the giddy. If a Republican defeats Obama in 2012, Andrews wrote in the Denver Post,

Waiting for a rough ride

James Hansen — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:19:07 +0000

I have been around the political scene for more years than I can remember, and I can’t recall a time when there was more polarization. I also can’t remember a time when the personal wealth—such as it is—of the nation’s middle class was more at risk. When I began writing this piece, Moody’s had just issued a warning that the

Watch the ‘blue dog’ Democrats on Medicare

James Hansen — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:53:01 +0000

Keep your eye on the Democrats during the ongoing debate over the future of Medicare. Some of the so-called “blue dog” Democrats have already indicated they might consider certain aspects of the Republican plan advanced by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan’s plan would replace Medicare with a phony voucher plan that would only benefit the insurance companies while severely

Colorado legislators join forces with anti-worker zealots

James Hansen — Thu, 12 May 2011 01:48:37 +0000

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

Time for rank-and-file to join the fight

James Hansen — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:24:04 +0000

The vicious attack on workers being carried out in states throughout the country is a hard lesson for America’s rank-and-file union members about the dangers of putting anti-worker candidates in control of state governments. The lesson: Trade unionists flirt with disaster when they fail to vote in their own best interest. In November, voters in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana,

GOP uneasy; Dems reluctant in vicious war on workers

James Hansen — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:50:26 +0000

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.

Will the Post ever get it?

James Hansen — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 19:35:03 +0000

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.

Where are the Colorado Democrats?

James Hansen — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:29:32 +0000

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.

Wisconsin a good lesson for workers who vote against their own interests

James Hansen — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:37:41 +0000

The state of Wisconsin is providing a good lesson for America’s rank-and-file union members about the dangers of putting anti-worker candidates in control of both the legislative and executive branches of state government. The lesson: That trade unionists flirt with disaster when they fail to vote in their own best interest. In November, Wisconsin voters elected an anti-labor governor and put both houses of the state legislature in control of Republican lawmakers with similar attitudes toward working men and women. Many of the new legislators were Tea Party members, some of whom are in the forefront of the attack on labor. Wisconsin has always been a good union state, with a high density of union members in the workplace. Obviously, many of them voted for candidates who promised them everything but the good wages, hours, working conditions, benefits and job security offered by their union jobs. And now they are doing what union leaders said they would do if they were elected: They are embarking on a campaign to destroy unions. Several governors in other states have joined the chorus in recent weeks by announcing that public sector union members will be targets for states facing huge budget deficits. For the most part, these deficits are caused by a national economy that has not yet fully recovered from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. They are not the fault of state workers.

From the union busters: SCREW YOU, WORKING MEN AND WOMEN!

James Hansen — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:26:39 +0000

There are attacks on labor now underway nationwide that could effectively impose Third World wages, hours and working conditions on American workers, both union and nonunion. These attacks are primarily aimed at destroying the nation’s union movement, but all working men and women would be affected because unions set wage standards for all workers. Conservative and not so conservative politicians are zeroing in on both private and public employee unions. Private sector unions are under extreme attack because of the major election victories by anti worker candidates in the 2010 election. Public employee unions loom as huge targets for many states that are plagued by budget deficits, which are products of the nation’s struggling economy. The National Right-to-Work Committee is expected to lead a concerted effort to either pass right-to-work laws in state legislatures or to place the issue on various state ballots in the 2012 election. The New York Times has reported that right-to-work will be introduced this year into legislatures in Indiana, Missouri, Maine and possibly seven other states, including Montana.

Hick appointee ‘scares’ Republicans

James Hansen — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:53:31 +0000

Governor-elect Hickenlooper’s somewhat surprising choice of Ellen Golombek as director of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment prompted the expected response from Republican legislators. Mike Kopp, Republican senate minority leader, and Dick Wadhams, Republican Party chairman who presided over the Dan Maes campaign fiasco, were quick to whine about how a single cabinet member could do serious harm to the business community in Colorado. In a press release, Kopp said the “appointment (of Golombek) to the Department of Labor may certainly take some of the air out of the bipartisan atmosphere he (Hickenlooper) has promised as governor.” “It is certainly not the direction a pro-business moderate Democrat would head, said Wadhams, according to the Denver Post. Kopp characterized Golombek as a progressive activist, which she is. He also called her a “union boss,” which-- given her petite stature--presents an inaccurate caricature. “Union leader” is a better fit. Republicans oppose Golombek’s appointment because she is a labor person, plain and simple...

Steve Vairma, top area Teamster, running for VP on Hoffa slate

James Hansen — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:24:14 +0000

Steve Vairma, the top Teamsters Union official in seven Rocky Mountain states, has agreed to be a vice presidential candidate on James P. Hoffa’s slate of candidates for the union’s international executive board. This is good news for some 40,000 Teamsters in the seven Rocky Mountain states who have not had direct representation on the executive board of the union since 2005. Hoffa, two-term general president of the union, and 27 other members of his slate will be candidates in the union’s election in November next year. The slate will be nominated in July in Las Vegas. Two candidates have announced that they will oppose Hoffa, and one of them also has a slate of candidates running with him.