What happens when the union becomes management? Just wanted to bring your attention to a couple of recent stories that highlight two different ironic approaches to their separate labor situations:

1. Take the hard line in staff bargaining negotiations: Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency (EIA) reports on the plight of the Ohio Education Association — whose employees today went on strike against the state teachers union
2. Contract picketing duty to non-union workers at minimum wage: Christine Hall of the Competitive Enterprise Institute highlights a new video of CEI’s Vincent Vernuccio crashing a carpenters’ union protest in Washington, D.C., only to find the picketers marching and chanting in the August humidity were non-union

Hey, you can’t make this stuff up. Great work as usual by EIA and CEI.

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I know I’m biased, but watching this video is 4 minutes well spent if you want to understand how some Colorado unions representing teachers and other school employees put money and power before common decency. Watch non-union Pueblo school employee Becky Robertson tell about the year she missed the September deadline to opt out of paying union fees because of family medical emergencies, and what happened when she asked for the money back:

Thank you, Colorado teachers unions (not to mention the school district negotiators that agree to make these deals). And yes, it’s entirely legal in Colorado. For more information on the school districts where non-union teachers and other employees have to go through pains each year to opt out of expensive union fees, and the deadlines for both union and non-union members to opt out (usually in August and/or September), check out the Independent Teachers website.

One of Colorado’s best and hardest-working people in new media has gone pro. Michael Sandoval, originally an innovative and successful blogger at Slapstick Politics and more recently managing editor of People’s Press Collective, is now on the Colorado 2010 election beat for National Review Online.

His first posting helps to get a national audience up to speed on our state’s U.S. Senate race. (By the way, thanks to Michael, for the incoming link.) Here’s guessing he’s not itching to provide similar treatment of Colorado’s roller-coaster gubernatorial campaign.

Anyway, over the next few months I look forward to good original reporting and more insightful analysis from NRO’s home-grown Colorado correspondent. And I encourage my readers to bookmark his page for important updates.

For what it’s worth, if you want a glimpse of the public mindset concerning 16 major institutions in American society, you should check out the new Gallup survey (H/T Mike Antonucci). The following are some salient observations on how favorably Americans view the 16 major institutions: (more…)

Americans for Tax Reform is out with its annual Index of Worker Freedom this week. The idea is to look on a state-by-state basis to determine the extent of employee individual rights and freedoms in workplaces based on the laws and policies of their respective states.

ATR looks at whether a state has Right-to-Work laws, paycheck protection, what the share of public and private sector union membership is, etc. In December 2007, when the Index was first released, Colorado received an A-minus (MP3).

This year? (more…)

From National Review Online today:

Carole Jean Badertscher was a California nurse who just wanted to go to work and take care of her patients — but the SEIU was determined not to let that happen. The union’s contract with Badertscher’s employer, the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, had expired, and the union had called a strike in response. Badertscher and other nurses, unwilling to abandon their patients for the sake of a stronger SEIU hand in contract negotiations, resigned from the union and went to work. In turn, she was threatened by the union bosses, who promised to have her prosecuted under California’s antique professional-strikebreaker statute, which was long ago pre-empted by federal law. Badertscher and other nurses were told that they would be fined and could be thrown in jail for months.

But there was more at stake in the case for the SEIU than the right to bully nurses in the Pomona Valley. The SEIU local had also informed hospital employees that they were legally required to keep paying union dues…. (more…)

My good friend Amanda from Liberty on the Rocks is at it again, this time asking our appointed U.S. Senator Michael Bennet where he stands on the union card check issue:

Michael Bennet has been stuck in indecision on the union card check issue almost since the day he was appointed to office a year and a half ago. Maybe the junior senator figured he doesn’t have to answer the question because he cast a backdoor vote for card check via the Craig Becker nomination back in February — but still losing some Big Labor backing to his primary rival Andrew Romanoff.

At least by that time next year we have good reason to hope Bennet won’t have to worry any more about constituents pestering him for his opinion on such issues. Leaving behind public office for private life has a way of adding to one’s solitude.

Ben DeGrow is a Contributing Author at People’s Press Collective, Your Source for Colorado Politics.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the Colorado Education Association (CEA) — the state’s largest teachers union — is not exactly likely to endorse a Republican candidate in a statewide election. Last week the union sent out an email to its members that began:

About 20 Association members, representing 40,000 fellow members, recently interviewed candidates for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat. These members decided that CEA should wait until the August 10 Primary Election to recommend a U.S. Senate candidate to our members.

The process these members used was to invite all the declared candidates in both major political parties to complete written questionnaires about public education issues and appear for personal interviews. The interview team invited Sen. Michael Bennet (D), the incumbent; Andrew Romanoff (D); Ken Buck (R); and Jane Norton (R). Bennet and Romanoff participated fully in our questionnaire-interview process, but the Republican candidates declined to do so.

Guided by this process, the interview team declared that both Democratic candidates are strong supporters of public education and our Association’s positions on education issues – and that our Association will wait until August 10 and then recommend the candidate who wins the Democratic Primary.

I contacted the Jane Norton campaign to see what they had heard from the CEA and what their response was. They didn’t remember receiving a questionnaire, but said they “were asked to attend a PAC interview.” The only reason I decided to write this up was the colorfully crafted response of Norton spokesman Josh Penry: (more…)

The Denver Post editorial board is on track today with a piece calling on Colorado’s sell-out U.S. Senators to come out and oppose a terrible piece of special interest payback legislation known as the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act:

Insiders say Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is championing the measure, has as many as 62 votes. That tally includes Udall and Bennet.

(more…)

Coming off this weekend’s big Republican State Assembly, we have heard both leading Republican candidates for governor — Dan Maes and Scott McInnis — declare the repeal of Bill Ritter’s union executive order. I think we all get the point of how the policy is a raw deal for Colorado taxpayers. But what about state employees themselves?

Enter Dave Ohmart, with his latest report:

In a recent incident in Pueblo, Colorado WINS prevented Sgt. Jeff Hotchkiss, of the Department of Corrections, from participating in a vote that would have affected his work schedule. A few union members, very few, voted to make the correction officers’ work schedule 12 hours per day. The sergeant, and pretty much all other officers, were not allowed to participate in the vote. WINS told Jeff that if he wanted to vote, he had to join their organization and pay (now) 1.25% of his gross salary in dues.

Sgt. Hotchkiss filed a discrimination suit against the department. Tossed around by the bureaucracy, department heads were unsure how to proceed. They eventually held a tier II grievance, but the Sergeant never filed a grievance. He filed charges on discrimination, stating that he was a state employee discriminated against by the “partnership” in the vote.

ColoradoWINS refuses to answer questions about the event. They will not provide the names of WINS members or the number of members who participated in the vote. Even the Department of Corrections is restrictive when it comes to providing this information. Sgt. Hotchkiss is still waiting for a response…

Unintended consequences unleashed. And as Ohmart points out, Democrat gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper “has made no commitment” on the issue. We taxpayers have no reason to expect anything less. But what about state employees?

Update, 5/8: Colorado LOSES has a great idea about what to do with HB 1181. If Republicans can’t kill it, the least they should do is offer an amendment to ensure transparency of state employee union finances. In the waning days of the legislative session, is anyone up to the challenge?

(H/T Complete Colorado) The Denver Post‘s Tim Hoover reports today:

Days before the legislature adjourns, some Democrats are pushing a proposal that would guarantee unions could still collect dues from state employees — even if the next governor is not union-friendly.

The effort comes in the form of an amendment to House Bill 1181, a mostly technical bill dealing with policies of the Department of Personnel and Administration. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, added an amendment in committee Wednesday that essentially would cement into law Gov. Bill Ritter’s 2007 executive order that allows unions to deduct membership fees from a state worker’s check, if the employee consents.

Besides the policy history and ramifications, which the story largely gets right, the HB 1181 union buy-off just screams something at me. What is it, you ask? Statehouse Democrats recognize they already have pushed the Eject button on their monopoly State Capitol power and in the waning days of the legislative session are now pushing the Panic button. From their perspective, the time to help entrench union power in state government is now — before they lose their own levers of power.

The Democrats see the political storm clouds coming. They are preparing to lose control of one or both houses of the state legislature, and maybe even the governor’s office. Of course, that doesn’t mean this fall’s election results are some kind of inevitably. Instead, now is the time for conservatives to keep their eyes on the ball and shrewdly seize the opportunities presented them.

I’ve been busy of late, but I’m planning to update my predictions of the state house and senate races soon. And for those who have been asking, my colleagues and I are working out the last technical glitches and preparing to launch a new Survey of Colorado’s Political Temperature for the month of May. Thank you for your patience: Stay tuned….

Our incumbent U.S. Senator Michael Bennet stunned some in the political world with the announcement that he would seek to petition onto the ballot in addition to go through the Democratic Party’s assembly process. Fellow RMAer Don Johnson hypothesizes about Bennet’s strategery, based on the luxury of his heavily-bankrolled campaign.

But should we be surprised at such an extra-cautious strategy from the junior Senator who last year boldly blurted that he would vote for heavily unpopular Obama Care even if it cost him his appointed job?

No, not really. Michael Bennet after all is an elected official known for more than a year of legendary indecision on the union card-check bill (unless you count his vote for the Craig Becker NLRB appointment).

Bottom line: The Andrew Romanoff-Michael Bennet primary figures to get more interesting before Colorado Democrats decide between the unpopular, handpicked Appointed One and the once rising star now shunned by the party establishment.

This article was originally posted at Ed News Colorado.

Sure, the Colorado Education Association loves to increase funding for K-12 schools and retain member jobs. But sometimes, its pleas for school funding simply don’t add up. Yesterday’s CEA blog entry “Amazon: play fair, support school funding” is just such an example:

In other words, Amazon firing its affiliates does nothing to impact the fact that Amazon.com is still required to collect sales tax or, at a minimum alert their customers to this requirement under state law. The giant retailer is using its political weight to protest losing its tax-free status and having to compete on par with other Colorado retailers.

Why should you care? Because sales tax revenues fund public schools. A portion of all sales tax revenue goes into the State Education fund, the first source for nearly all K-12 public education programs, from the state’s share of Total Program to funding for full-day kindergarten. (more…)

Is the United States ready for a new labor model, one more grounded in freedom of association and individual liberty? That’s the central thrust of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s new book — Sweeping the Shop Floor — for which I was honored to be a contributor.

EFF labor policy analyst Rachel Culbertson joined me and my Independence Institute colleague Mike Krause for a conversation to whet your appetite for the book. Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to the 12-minute iVoices podcast:

For more detail on the book’s argument about how we can give workers more freedom in designing a labor model for the 21st Century and how it might work in Colorado public education and other government agencies, check out Ed Is Watching.

A good reminder that not only is Big Labor anything but monolithic but also that the Democrats potentially face a very competitive primary for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has endorsed the Appointed One, Michael Bennet.

While rival Andrew Romanoff has won backing from the Teamsters and UFCW, Bennet at least finally has gained something for putting his neck out to try to ram Obama Care through Congress.

Interestingly, The Atlantic (edited by Michael Bennet’s brother) reports the same story about the SEIU endorsement and then selectively notes: (more…)

It really stinks to be the Appointed One these days. As if trailing all potential Republican rivals in the polls (including Jane Norton by double digits) wasn’t bad enough for junior U.S. Senator Michael Bennet.

Then Bennet sticks out his neck, kowtows to Barack Obama to cast a losing vote for Craig Becker and back-door union card-check, only to get this news shortly thereafter: (more…)

A couple weeks ago I pointed out the historic statistical fact that government employees now make up a raw majority of all unionized workers in the USA.

In addition, Colorado’s union membership and density (which includes workers covered by a union contract, regardless of whether they join as members or not) are at historic lows for the past quarter century, and thus presumably for many decades before that as well. Only 7 percent of Colorado workers are union members, and 8.3 percent are covered by a union contract.

Now Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson, the good folks who run UnionStats.com, have pored through Labor Department data and broken down state-level data between public and private sector employment. Did Colorado follow the national trend of shrinking union influence in the private sector but growing union influence in the public sector? (more…)

It’s Friday, a fun time for Colorado Republicans to zing Gov. Bill Ritter for declaring February 12 “Colorado Loves California Day.” I get the humor of all the possibilities. It was last year about this time I made the same point.

But I want to take a different tack, and point out one small reason to love California: Larry Sand and the California Teachers Empowerment Network (CTEN) — which very recently was featured in Townhall magazine for its success in letting Golden State teachers know about their various membership options.

Yes, Colorado loves California in this regard, because we too through the Independence Institute have the Independent Teachers website, which lets teachers in our own backyard know about their membership options. Expanding teacher rights, informing teacher choice: This we can celebrate.

Update, 2:45 PM: Politico picks up on the story, too, noting that Bennet’s vote “could have significant repercussions for his election campaign.”

A strong sign that Colorado’s Appointed One, junior U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, is feeling the primary heat from Andrew Romanoff. Kowtowing to President Obama, the SEIU and Big Labor: Bennet was one of the 52 Democratic votes to confirm Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

The good news? Becker’s confirmation was defeated. The man is an SEIU attorney with avowedly radical, anti-individual rights views that would trample under foot the rights of business owners and workers who would rather not toe the line for labor leaders.

A vote for Craig Becker was a vote for backdoor union card check, for depriving workers of the secret ballot in union workplace elections. Even Democrats Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln saw the move for what it was, and joined Republicans in the successful filibuster.

But not Michael Bennet. His vote to confirm Craig Becker may leave him in a less vulnerable place for the primary election, but in a clearly indefensible place for a general election matchup. Colorado wants an independent vote in the U.S. Senate, not a rubber-stamp for the radical agendas of the Obama administration. If Bennet is hoping nobody would notice, he’s out of luck.

Ever since Governor Bill Ritter signed the executive order laying out a welcome mat to unionize state government, I’ve wondered if and when the Colorado WINS labor organizing coalition would lobby for the Democratic majority in state government to entrench their status through legislation.

Given the state of the budget and the tons of political capital Democrats are spilling to push through their series of tax hikes — one of which is even opposed by Pueblo labor interests — prospects for comprehensive union legislation have faded dramatically.

But Colorado WINS has other means to extend its reach, and grow its dues-paying membership base, inside Colorado government. As Dave Ohmart of Colorado LOSES points out, reluctant state employees are being cajoled into joining in order to have “a voice in decisions about their work environment.” So states a complaint filed by Sgt. Jeff Hotchkiss of the Pueblo correctional facility. Is such activity in violation of the terms of Ritter’s executive order?

A Colorado LOSES survey shows that at best, state employees have a mixed opinion of WINS. And that while many didn’t “give a crap” back in the summer of 2008, many more seem ready to oust WINS of its exclusive bargaining rights. Stay tuned….