Following a hearing spanning nearly four hours and dozens of witnesses, the Democratic senators of the Colorado Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee passed Senate Bill 25-005 on a party-line vote.
The Worker Protection Collective Bargaining Bill would make it easier for workers in Colorado to unionize, as the bill removes the state’s second election requirement that was put in place more than eight decades ago by the Colorado Labor Peace Act.
The second union election in Colorado covers the union-security clause, and it sets a 75% threshold to pass, compared to the simple majority required in the first election. That requirement is set by federal law. Colorado is the only state in the country with a second election requirement.
The bill is a hotly anticipated one, with several of the state’s Democrats telegraphing their intent to bring the bill before the session began.
The bill has garnered significant support from the state’s Democratic legislators, with the majority of the party’s caucuses in both chambers signed on as sponsors. It has also drawn significant attention from lobbyists, both inside and outside of Colorado. According to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website, as of Jan. 29, nearly 300 lobbyists had registered a position on the bill. Many of those organizations showed up with representatives at the committee hearing.
Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, one of the bill’s prime sponsors, told the committee in his introductory remarks that eliminating the second election for workers looking to gain stronger protections is the most effective way to support Colorado’s working class.
“As record corporate profits soar, it’s crucial to level the playing field and empower workers to negotiate for better pay, health care and retirement benefits and job security,” Rodriguez said. “Strengthening workers’ voices ensures that they share in the prosperity that they helped create. Passing Senate Bill 5 will help us do that.”
Sen. Jessie Danielson, chair of the committee and another prime sponsor of the bill, said that SB25-005 eliminates a section of law that was intended to undermine the voice and power of workers in their workplace.
“Hailed as a compromise, adding a second election for workers to even be able to negotiate a union security clause has resulted in Colorado being the lowest union density state of non-right-to-work states,” Danielson said. “That was the intent of this so-called compromise, it’s not working for workers, it never has.”
While the bill will broadly apply to private sector companies and workers, it does have a notable exception, government workers.
Testimony in support of the bill came from a variety of sources, from union organizers to the second most powerful union official in the country, who is associated with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Fred Redmond, the AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, appeared in front of the committee to show his organization’s support for the bill.
“I can unequivocally say that only anti-union states have laws like Colorado’s,” Redmond said. “The laws of this state are actively hostile to Coloradans’ right to choose a union and freely negotiate for better pay and workplace safety, and in urgent need of reform.”
Redmond described the second election requirement and the 75% threshold as outdated and fundamentally unfair.
“Colorado workers should not be held to a higher standard than their politicians and ballot initiatives,” Redmond said. “If a simple majority is good enough to elect Colorado’s leaders and decide critical statewide policies, it should be good enough for workers.”
Liza Nielsen, a former Starbucks barista and a local union organizer, told the committee about her work to form the first unionized Starbucks in Colorado three and a half years ago. She said that despite the formation of a union, her coworkers were still waiting on a fair contract from Starbucks and that they continued to face resistance and retaliation from Starbucks.
“We organized because we were tired of being undervalued, we were tired of understaffing, low wages, poor treatment from management and a lack of respect for our basic rights as workers,” Nielsen said.
Opposition to the bill was also multi-faceted, and it included workers, small business owners and a broad swath of industry groups.
Kenny Minton, a chef at Coperta, told the committee that he’d worked in the restaurant industry for more than a decade. He said that he understood the intent of the bill, but that it would hurt the flexibility of the restaurant industry.
“Removing a second vote in the unionization process would mean many of the staff I work with would not easily be able to have a say in whether or not Coperta unionizes, due to their tight schedules,” Minton said. “I also question who this bill really helps, apart from union executives earning more dues, more quickly.”
Tony Milo, the president and CEO of the Colorado Contractors Association, said the members of his organization feel it’s important that all employees have a chance to vote before having their paychecks garnished with union dues.
“If this bill were to pass, it creates a scenario where a handful of workers could seal the fate for all of the other workers in the unit,” Milo said. “And we feel that that’s a dangerous place to be. The Labor Peace Act has served Colorado for a long time, and we feel that it should stay intact for those reasons.”
Before the vote on the bill, Republican Sen. Larry Liston said that if the Labor Peace Act is pulled, he did get the sense that a lot of companies would no longer consider Colorado as a place to bring their businesses.
“We’re in competition with these states like California and Texas, which is booming, and South Carolina and Florida,” Liston said. “So go ahead and eviscerate the Labor Peace Act. It may not be perfect, I agree, maybe there can be some tweaks and some changes. But I think if we do away with the Labor Peace Act, there will be a lot of people that will rue the day, because there will be companies and employers who will say, ‘We’re going elsewhere.’”
The vote was as split as the testimony. Danielson alongside fellow Democratic Sens. Iman Jodeh, Faith Winter and Nick Hinrichsen voted to move the bill forward, and Liston with other Republican Sens. Scott Bright and Lisa Frizell voted no.
The bill’s next step will be in the Senate Appropriations Committee, but, at the time of publication, a hearing date has not been set.