Colorado's labor/management sideshow to convention

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May 20, 8:25 PM

by Robert Schwab, Denver Literary Examiner

 

 

I’ve been missing in action, or missing by inaction, over the last two weeks, so forgive me if I play a little catch up.

Starting with Saturday’s mark of 100 days until the opening gavel of the convention, it seems the news media is intent on turning out a headline a day devoted to whatever is happening or not happening regarding the Democratic love fest in August.

Like the Associated Press story that moved two days before the 100-days mark that urgently reported there “doesn’t look like much is happening” outside the Pepsi Center, where the convention will be held Aug. 25-28.

That absence of activity was perhaps more a function of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche being bounced early from their respective league playoffs than evidence of a lack of developments related to the convention.

The AP story noted that major construction to convert the center to a red-white-and-blue political convention hall won’t start until July 7 when the Democratic National Convention Committee will take over the building to prep it for the Monday through Thursday meeting.

You would expect the carpenters, electricians, stage hands and laborers who will do that work will be card-carrying union members, because the stage hands have already raised the issue of non-union labor being the regular hired-hands at the center. In raising the issue, they won a commitment that will give hundreds of jobs at the center to fellow union members.

By that time, too, we should know whether union officials across the state have been able to obtain enough signatures on petitions to place a handful of union-backed proposals as initiatives on the November ballot, primarily to balance a right-wing supported right-to-work initiative that conservatives long have dreamed might deliver a mortal blow to union power and influence in Colorado.

The union-supported initiatives among other things would hold a CEO responsible for the criminal behavior of his or her employees on behalf of the company, and also require companies to publicly provide a reason for an employee’s dismissal.

The right-to-work initiative is being promoted by conservative business interests largely in response to Gov. Bill Ritter’s sympathetic Democratic ear to labor, which, coming from the rollicking Governor’s Mansion nowadays, is a distinct change of perspective from the empty house of former Republican Gov. Bill Owens for eight long years.

But the business interests who supported Owens’ push for Referendum C to  keep Colorado from falling into bankruptcy,  and those who supported FastTracks, which is the largest public construction project in the metro area since Denver International Airport, and those who backed Ritter’s election over Republican Bob Beauprez, who didn’t promise much more than Owens delivered, are perplexed over the competing labor and right-to-work initiatives.

They know that positioning both sides of the labor/management argument on a presidential election ballot is going to draw out many voters who will only listen to the loudest knee-jerk arguments made in negative campaign ads funded by whoever can raise the most dollars to endlessly repeat the ads on local television.

None of those business people particularly want to strengthen labor’s hand in the state, but they also realize that Colorado labor is no figurative John Henry pile driver working on the railroad.  Current state law renders Colorado labor to an always-struggling position and even the kind ear of a Democratic governor isn’t going to change that.

Business really has nothing to fear but an uneducated voter. The impacts of passage of any of the initiatives will be evident only after a time equivalent to the decade it took to realize that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiative (TABOR) was in reality a government busting saber-toothed tiger that lunched on spending that could improve the state and make it a better place to live, not on a surfeit of taxes.

Bellowing has always been part of any national political convention, and now that the Denver shout-outs are less than 100 days away, I suspect Colorado’s dueling labor/management issues will claim a  share of attention from the delegates.

Will Colorado emerge with a union-busting or union-friendly reputation? That, too, probably depends on who can bellow louder: the pot-bellied blue collar worker or the pot-bellied office manager.

That’s one sideshow of the circus that should be fun to watch.

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