"Third Strike" For Ft. Collins Unions

Face The State Staff Report

FORT COLLINS - The City Clerk is reporting that Fort Collins voters yesterday struck down a collective bargaining proposal by a margin of nearly three-to-one. The results from Monday's special election mark the third time in the last five years that unions have failed in their electoral efforts to unionize public workers here.

The Fraternal Order of Police and the Communication Workers of America sought to impose collective bargaining and binding arbitration on the city's 800 employees, but just 5,780 votes of the 19,624 total votes cast went in their favor. More than 29 percent of the city's nearly 67,000 voters came out for the Monday election.

"Hopefully the union bosses will learn that it's three strikes and you're out in Fort Collins," said Andrew Boucher, a Fort Collins political consultant and opponent of the measure. "The citizens have spoken, and once again they've said no to big labor taking control of their taxpayer dollars. Governor Ritter should take note: the people of Colorado do not support public employee unions." In 2007, Ritter, a Democrat, signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining for state employees.

Previously, in both 2004 and 2006, unions had made similar requests to city voters. In 2004, the FOP proposed a measure that would have allowed the city's police force collective bargaining and binding arbitration rights. The measure passed by 335 votes, but was successfully challenged in court because it violated the city's charter to allow an unelected third party arbitrator to make decisions that could impact spending. In 2006, the FOP launched a $100,000 campaign that again asked voters to approve binding arbitration. In that election, voters denied the request by a 2-to-1 margin.

Also hindering union efforts on Monday: The Ft. Collins City Council and the city's chamber of commerce both opposed the measure. In addition, the Larimer County commissioners have previously sparred with the Teamsters over use of the county payroll system for automatic union deductions, fueling debate over the role of organized labor in the public sector in Northern Colorado.