We knew it would happen. All of Colorado’s state government is unionized. And all in less than a year.
More on that in a moment on the Face The State Radio Minute.
Well, it’s official. Courtesy of a November 2007 executive order signed by Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter, Colorado’s state government is completely unionized. That spells trouble for you and I as taxpayers, since the only real reason for such an arrangement is for the unions to play hardball over pay and benefits.
The story gets even nastier when you look at the election results. State law doesn’t even require a majority of employees to participate in an election to unionize in order for the election to be valid. In this case, less than a quarter of employees voted “yes” for union representation, but that doesn’t stop the vote from becoming binding on everybody – whether they voted or not.
Does that sound fair to you? It doesn’t to me, but that’s the way it’s set up. Thank the union bosses and their politician friends.
For FaceTheState.com, I’m Brad Jones.
More of the same
On August 19th, 2008 tallport says:
Nonsense. How many times does it have to be stated that dues money cannot be used for direct political contributions. Some monies can be used for legislative purposes, but that is not a "political coffer" as you have described. And it why is ok for employers to bargain collectively with each other and not for employees? Brad and his buddies sure do not want to see people empowered at the grassroots level. They think all economic and political power should flow from the top down, ie, trickle down. So employees should do exactly as they told or find another job. This is a elitist authoritarian world view. A " free market" for whoever signs the paychecks. Although I commend this comments as being somewhat clear about the facts as opposed to using double talk to scatter the facts. Truth is that the right wing opposes unions because they bring democratic principles to the workplace and that is something they do not believe in. That is more honest than pretending that you are acting in the interest of employees like is often done with the sound bites. And if less than half the people show to vote for my representative, the election still counts. Then the representative is assigned to me regardless of how I voted. That is called majority rule. Did you want to change that practice for all elections or just for unions you disagree with?
I heard that is like 66,000 new union members
On August 18th, 2008 Libertad says:
Just think at $100 in monthly dues, it's nearly $80 million new union revenues that will flow into their political coffers.
$800 million in union cash to influence 10 years of Colorado's elections. That's one heck of a payback from Bill.
FTS, please keep up the reporting.