Face the State

Face The State Staff Report

FTS' Brad Jones discusses this story
on 1310 KFKA's Amy Oliver Show [Streaming Audio]

DENVER - Colorado WINS, a local labor coalition attempting to organize public employees, is being accused by state workers of using aggressive tactics, strong-arm recruiting techniques, and of wrongly barring the media from state property.

An executive order, signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, last November, empowered unions to serve as “exclusive representatives” of state employees for the purposes of forming “employee partnerships.” Days after the order, a coalition of three major unions – CAPE-SEIU, AFSCME, and the American Federation of Teachers – announced a cooperative agreement to organize state workers under the name “Colorado WINS.”

Colorado WINS prioritiesFTS File Documents

After hearing from state employees that Colorado WINS is aggressively trying to organize an election, Face The State attempted to attend an on-site meeting between the union and state employees. Face The State had cleared its attendance with Dawn Lee, the media contact at Colorado WINS. Then minutes before the meeting, Lee contacted FTS to say that the government building where it was being held had restricted access and she was unable to clear the attendance of a FTS staff writer without performing a background check, for which there was not enough time.

In response, FTS contacted Julie Postlethwait, the public information officer for the Department of Personnel, to confirm Lee's claim. Postlethwait said that FTS's presence at the meeting was not a problem, yet when FTS staff writer, Rachel Boxer, arrived to cover the meeting, she was denied access at the door. After Boxer identified herself by name, a DPA employee told her she was not allowed into the meeting and needed to leave the building "immediately."

According to Postlethwait, Colorado WINS had directed DPA staff to deny FTS access to its public meeting – an action that directly conflicted with the department's orders. Postlethwait apologized to FTS for the breakdown in communication, and said that the reporter should have been let into the meeting.

Petition signatures from 30 percent of employees in a department or occupational group are needed to organize an election for union representation. To this date, Colorado WINS has yet to submit any petitions to the labor department.

There are mounting complaints from state employees that the union is making a hard-line pitch for an election. Jimmie Cook, operations and maintenance manager at the state’s mental health facility in Pueblo, said that in the early days after the executive order, union organizers acted as though “they had free rein from the governor.” He said some of his employees reported incidents of being “accosted” by Colorado WINS representatives in the workplace parking lot. “Some went ahead and signed the petition just to get rid of them,” said Cook. He noted that a directive from the facility’s executive director has since halted the activity.

Colorado WINS is sending out mailers that tout the union’s ability to improve worker compensation. “There’s only one way to improve health care benefits and prevent cost increases from cutting into our pay raises—and that’s to form our own employee organization with Colorado WINS to directly negotiate better health care benefits,” reads one mailer.

According to Cook, many workers have received repeated phone calls, and in some cases personal visits, at home.

Cook says there has been some favorable response from employees in Pueblo, but other state employees say they have not seen significant interest in union representation. Colorado WINS has been holding informational meetings in various state offices. One DPA employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from union officials, observed that interest from his department has been very low – with only two or three in attendance.

Robert Culwell, a Treasury Department employee, said one of the 10 Colorado WINS mailers he received especially upset him. The form with his name and job title pre-printed had a space to sign his name for a petition to hold a union election. He said he declined.“I feel like my compensation is more than fair, and I’m not impressed by demanding more from taxpayers,” Culwell said.

Culwell believes the union’s aggressive tactics indicate an expectation that they will be able to extract state-deducted payments from employees. Ritter's order does not prohibit the collection of forced dues or agency fees from state workers represented by a “partnership agreement.”

“Without the forced collection of dues, the union’s excitement makes no sense,” Culwell said. “They’re interested in the same things that all groups are interested in: making money.”

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, whose office keeps track of all requests for legal advice concerning the governor’s “employee partnerships,” says he has had no indication that another such election is close to occurring.