In a bitterly divided government, like the one we have now, you hear that phrase a lot: the bill passed on party lines. That was the case yesterday as Senate Bill 22-230 passed out of the Colorado Senate Business, Labor, and Technology committee on party lines. Three democrats for it. Two republicans against it.
So it goes at the Colorado General Assembly when you have one-party – Democrat party – rule. Without opposition, you get unneeded, unwanted, extreme legislation. SB22-230 is just that.
Following along with THIS ARTICLE in the Denver Gazette, SB22-230 is a bill allowing county employees to join unions and set up collective bargaining units. Here’s the problem – County employees have that right today. No legislation is needed. Nowhere in Colorado Revised Statute does it say that employees cannot set up collective bargaining units.
So why are we getting it? My speculation: because it is an election year and the Democrats must prove to the union bosses that they are “an authentic partner.” More on that in a minute.
SB22-230 has been talked about for two years. Problem is, the only people who want it are the union bosses themselves. Republicans don’t want it. I hear democrats don’t want it. However, Democrats do want the labor union’s campaign dollars back in their coffers, so, viola, collective bargaining bill.
In the beginning, SB22-230 had everyone in it. Higher education. K-12 education. Special districts. Municipalities. Counties. You know, all the public sector employees, because nothing says accountability to the taxpayer like a union boss at a collective bargaining table.
Magically, and thanks to the strength of their respective lobbyists, special districts, higher ed, K-12, and municipalities were all stripped away from the bill, leaving counties to be spanked by an administration that has decidedly an anti-county attitude about it this session. We didn’t fall in line on a couple of pieces of legislation that the Guv decidedly wanted, so this feels like retribution. That’s my personal opinion, of course.
From the above-linked Gazette article…
House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, who has been the driving force for the bill, acknowledged that county employees can already join unions. But she told Colorado Politics Monday that the state needs to affirm that county workers have the right through state law. Right now, it’s up to each individual leadership in a county to decide if employees have the right to do this, she said.
So Esgar herself says that this bill is not needed. Indeed, four Colorado Counties – Adams, Pueblo, Summit, and Las Animas – already have collective bargaining. But in her belief, the “state needs to affirm that county workers have the right through state law.” I beg to differ. No, you don’t. County governments are the original local governments. Counties were counties before the state was the state and we don’t need the state’s permission to bargain with our kind employees.
This bill is simply a nod to union bosses, making it much easier for these bosses to insert themselves between County Commissioners and the amazing people who work at the county – and, of course, take their union dues and fund democrat politicians from that state-simplified insertion.
If passed, SB22-230 would be the largest unfunded mandate ever passed on to counties from the state legislature. Unfunded mandates are when the state tells us we must do something and then provides no money to do that which they mandate. Colorado Counties, Inc., or CCI (an organization in which Weld County actively participates and in which I serve as Vice Chair of the General Government Steering Committee), represents 61 of Colorado’s 64 counties, is at an oppose position on the legislation.
It’s important to note: CCI is the only statewide organization that represents counties. They are a valid 501C3, have an Executive Director and multiple staff members, and truly lobbies and works on behalf of counties. While Esgar had an early meeting with CCI, to my knowledge, the organization was never given the courtesy of dialoguing with Esgar or the bills other two prime sponsors, Senate President Steve Fenberg and Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno. From the above linked Gazette article…
Esgar acknowledged that another organization, Counties & Commissioners Working Together, has negotiated the bill with the sponsors. CCAT claims to be a nonpartisan entity, but out of its 13 executive board and governing board members, all but two are Democrats and only one is a Republican.
The article has it wrong – it’s actually Counties and Commissioners Acting Together, or CCAT, is not a statewide organization, only representing 21 of Colorado’s 64 counties, frankly, the liberal ones. CCAT is not a formal business entity, rather, a coalition of counties who pay a lobbyist.
When considering and writing legislation, legislators should go through a “stakeholder process,” in which they make an effort to actively engage persons or entities effected by their proposed legislation. I find it interesting that, when going through the stakeholder process with the only entity impacted by SB22-230 – counties – House Majority Leader Esgar went to the limited and very liberal CCAT rather than the broader and statewide CCI.
Esgar is from Pueblo County. She did not even seek the opinion of her own County Commissioners. Pueblo County is formally at an oppose position on this legislation. Esgar’s actions indicate she was seeking the input of the harmonious echo chamber of liberal CCAT – she knew she would be told what she wanted to hear and she would then be able to say, “she worked and negotiated with counties.”
It’s disingenuous.
Weld County employees don’t work in a sweat shop or a coal mine. County jobs are good jobs, and our employees’ compensation is well above regularly surveyed averages. Our benefits package is second-to-none. We offer employees an on-site medical clinic and incredible wellness programs. Our retirement program is nothing short of amazing – it is 120% funded based on a 5.9% assumed earned return rate. It puts PERA to shame. (Which isn’t hard…)
Don Warden, Weld’s vaunted Director of Finance and Administration, estimates Collective bargaining will cost Weld County $30 million annually. (Read Don’s multi-page rationale HERE. I suspect Don did more research than the bill’s sponsors.) A $30 million reduction could result in a layoff of 314 employees, or 17% of our total workforce.
We care for our employees, so layoffs are unthinkable. So, we would have to increase our property tax by $30 million – which would mean a 17% increase to all county taxpayers. That’ll never pass – I wouldn’t vote for it!
So, we must cut all local, discretionary programs including planning/building inspections, weed control, animal control, Extension agents, 4-H, the county fair, parks and trails, our unique-in-the-nation Bright Futures scholarship program, community agency grants, economic development, juvenile diversion, victim advocate services, work release, and senior coordinators. All these cuts would result in a savings of just $15.9 million.
So, we’d have to layoff some of our valuable employees, too. Just so the Colorado Democrat Party can be an “authentic partner” to labor union bosses, as detailed in a June 20, 2021, article in the Colorado Sun.
One of the primary roles of a county commissioner is to act as a fiduciary for taxpayers, overseeing how their dollars are expended in the efficient provision of services by county government. My fellow commissioners and I represent the consent of the governed in county financial matters. Collective bargaining would usurp the will and consent of the voters by severely limiting the ability of the Weld Board of County Commissioners to manage one of the county’s largest expenditures – labor.
The sponsors have provided no evidence that such a massive shift in public employment policy is warranted or necessary. This is a solution in search of a problem, one that will cause counties and our citizens great financial harm. It is nothing more than election-year politics at their finest.
Let’s take a look at THIS article from the Colorado Sun. All you have to do is read the headline and the subhead to know what’s truly up…
Colorado AFL-CIO will withhold donations to Democratic campaign committees through May 2022, saying unions have been “excluded.”
“We need the Colorado Democratic Party to treat us like authentic partners,” Colorado AFL-CIO Executive Director Dennis Dougherty wrote in a letter to fellow labor leaders.
Unions should rightfully be excluded from government. Their main goal is to drive up labor expenses that TAXPAYERS pay for. Here it is, April 2022, and the complicit democrats who will ram this bill down the throat of the Colorado taxpayer will again open up the spigot of campaign donations to deomcrat candidates. This bill is political payback, a vieled attack on TABOR, and a sound effort to make Republicans the permanent minority in Colorado.
With unions and democrats, it truly is the circle of life: Democrats force collective bargaining in the public/governmental sector (the ONLY growth sector for labor unions). Public sector employees have unon dues taken from their checks (via a county employee that you pay for) and shipped directly to the union bosses. Then the union bosses write the donation checks to the democat candidates. It’s nauseating and it is being attempted by Colorado SB22-230.
Hey AFL-CIO, does that make Colorado Democrats an “authentic partner?”
When presenting this gawdawful bill, Majority Leader Moreno repeatedly referred to Counties and “just agents of the state.” By statute, that is partly true. Counties implement the programs – bad or good – that the legislators create. But we’re so much more…
- We’re the Sheriff’s deputy responding to a disturbance in the dead of night.
- We’re the childwelfare worker protecting a child from an abuser in a domestically violent environment.
- We’re the victims’ advocate working in the D.A.’s office, consoling a victim of crime on the worst day of their life.
- We’re a snow plow driver pulling a stranded motorist out of a snow drift in the middle of a bomb cyclone.
- We’re the road and bridge worker working a double shift to replace a flooded out bridge so a farmer can get their crop out of the field and to market.
Sorry, Senator Moreno, we’re so much more than agents of the state. Our county employees are the “government closest to home” and care for their neighbors and my constituents more than any union boss could understand. We take care of those people – it’ our obligation and it is an honor to do so – and we don’t need any union or any state government to interfere with that relationship.
