Face the State

Governor seeks alternative to legislative process for pushing union mandates
Face the State Staff Report

DENVER – Face the State has obtained documents showing that Gov. Bill Ritter may be bypassing the legislative process in his effort to implement collective bargaining mandates on state employees.

He would do so through the use of what's called an executive order, a policy edict put in place by the Governor's office which guides the operation of executive-branch government entities.

The development comes in the aftermath of an admission by Ritter last month that he was part of a long-standing, back room collaboration between state Democrats and union leaders to introduce collective bargaining legislation where the coalition questionably referred to such mandates as "employee partnerships."

In the latest documents obtained by Face the State, it is clear that policy analysts inside Ritter’s office solicited the advice of staff at the National Governor’s Association to identify states that have “authorized state employee collective bargaining by executive order.” That group’s response included research by the National Council of State Legislators indicating at least 12 states have - at some time - made efforts to impliment collective bargaining mandates on all or some public employees. In one example, more than 30,000 public employees in Maryland were subject to collective bargaining powers under a 1996 executive order, a policy codified into law in 1999.

Ritter's staff also enlisted the help of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union in identifying options for handling “impasse resolution,” or the process the state and unions would enter should contract negotiations fail.

That e-mail exchange is dated Aug. 24, four days after Ritter was first served with Face the State’s open-records request for communications with labor unions. Such attention to the technical details of a potential deal suggest his staff are further along in the development of a potential policy than publicly reported.

Ritter and Democrat legislators have fielded intense criticism from the media and GOP lawmakers over plans to introduce “employee partnership” legislation, revealed by Face the State’s earlier open-records request. Senate minority leader Andy McElhany, R-Colo. Springs. and Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, called the plan “disastrous.”

That plan was set to be introduced earlier this year by legislative leaders, including Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald who is running for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 2nd congressional district. The “empowerment package,” as she called it was put off for a year after Ritter, under intense pressure from the business community, vetoed House Bill 1072, a measure making it easier for employees to force closed “union shop” contracts. The collective bargaining legislation was not made public at the time because a bill was never formally introduced.

Ritter has worked to keep details of that plan out of the public eye. In response to Face the State's repeated requests for the disclosure of redacted documents excluded from earlier open-records requests, he has filed with the Denver District Court to obtain permission to keep detailed legislative drafts secret. The Rocky Mountain News editorialized against this secrecy, citing the public's right to know.

Ritter has already demonstrated a willingness to use executive orders to strengthen Colorado labor unions’ organizing power. In one of the first official acts of his tenure, he signed executive order D-006-07, rescinding a previous executive order by former Gov. Bill Owens that prohibited unions from forcing the state to deduct dues payments from state employee paychecks. As Face the State has reported previously, significant numbers of union-affiliated employees opted out from directly paying union dues under Owens’ executive order.

The latest documents also show that Ritter and his staff often use the term “collective bargaining” in discussions with outside strategists, even though Ritter and legislators insist on calling any such arrangement an “employee partnership agreement.”

In a Sept. 13 radio interview on 850 KOA's Mike Rosen Show, Ritter told Rosen any agreement with the unions “isn’t about pay,” but declined to rule out a collective bargaining component in legislation. “We may or may not be able to [institute partnerships without collective bargaining],” he said.

Ritter's research on impasse resolution options suggests a significant portion of any executive order or legislative package would center on the handling of contract negotiation and compensation disputes. Ritter contends the law would focus instead on an effort to “acknowledge the work of state employees, to take their input.”