Senate Democrats used their first bill hearing of the 2025 legislative session Tuesday to advance a proposed major change to the state’s Labor Peace Act, saying that the 82-year-old “compromise” law is not working for Colorado employees anymore.
The 4-3, party-line vote from the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee to send Senate Bill 5 to the Appropriations Committee came despite business warnings that erosion of the law will depress the state’s falling economic competitiveness even more. But one of its supporters said he’d like to see business and labor leaders find a compromise — a plea issued before the sides were set for a major negotiating session on Wednesday.
SB 5, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez of Denver and fellow Democratic Sen. Jessie Danielson of Wheat Ridge, would end the eight-decade-long requirement that workers pass two votes in the unionization press. The first vote, to organize a workplace, requires majority support, while a second vote of 75% is needed for a union to begin negotiating with an employer to collect fees from the paychecks of every worker, even non-union members, that can be used for bargaining and negotiations.
The second election — a unique feature that differentiates Colorado from the 26 right-to-work states and the 23 right-to-organize states — is considered a compromise by business leaders, but SB 5 supporters pilloried it Tuesday as an unnecessary and unfair burden. Danielson called it a major reason Colorado’s 6.9% unionization of private-sector workers is the lowest rate of any non-right-to-work state, and labor leaders said it gives employers time to harass workers into voting against mandatory fees that are known as union security.
Nixing the second election and letting unions negotiate right away for fees will fund bargaining that results in higher pay and benefits and less income gap between workers and management, Colorado Fiscal Institute labor policy analyst Sophie Mariam said. It also will boost workplace safety and give disenfranchised workers more of a voice, SB 5 supporters said.
“Powerful business interests have ironically suggested this bill would increase costs on working people. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most powerful driver of increased costs is corporate greed,” said David Seligman, an attorney for Towards Justice. “(The second election is) not about protecting worker choice. It’s about diluting the freedom of workers to enter into union security.”
Attorney David Seligman testifies Tuesday in favor of proposed changes to the Labor Peace Act.
Business leaders — as well as some workers in the restaurant industry — disagreed vehemently, saying the 75% bar is meant to ensure that workers who don’t want to pay fees to a union they didn’t want to join are not required to do so. Sean Connelly, a franchisee who owns six McDonald’s restaurants in the state, said the mandatory fees would be a burden on workers and directly violate his employee’s rights whether to pay into a union.
At a time when Colorado’s economic competitiveness is falling — a study commissioned by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce found it’s the sixth-most regulated state — the Labor Peace Act aids ability to attract employers, economic-development leaders said. Potentially relocating employers “almost always” ask about the law and see it favorably, said Jeff Thormodsgaard, vice president of government affairs for the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC.
While labor leaders said SB 5 will lead to higher wages — Mariam pegged the increase at $2,500 per worker or $5.7 billion statewide — opponents argued those costs would be hard for businesses to shoulder at a time of inflation and decreased profit margins. When GOP Sen. Lisa Frizell of Castle Rock asked what more workers could gain, Common Sense Institute senior economist Thomas Young noted that Colorado already has the eighth-highest wages and 13th-highest benefits in the country and said further boosts would raise the cost of living more.
Colorado Chamber President/CEO Loren Furman pointed to a recent survey showing 64% favorable opinion of unions but also 70% opposition to SB 5 and argued that there is room for compromise that proponents of the bill aren’t discussing right now. Yet, passage of SB 5 — even after groups like hers worked with labor to kill past efforts to make Colorado a right-to-work state where no one can be forced to pay union fees even at organized workplaces — will ignite a firestorm and distract from other issues, she warned.
“There may be structural changes that can be made. But we remain absolutely committed to giving workers a voice,” Furman said, emphasizing that business leaders are willing to negotiate but not on the issue of flat-out getting rid of the second election. “It makes complete sense to us to keep working on a solution instead of creating a war in this building or at the ballot.”
Sponsoring Sens. Robert Rodriguez and Jessie Danielson explain Senate Bill 5 to a committee on Tuesday.
Senators did not mince words on the proposal, adding to the perception that the ferocity of the debate around the issue could creep into general legislative relations and impact other bills this session.
Rodriguez said that the issue comes down to who gets money from their work — the employees or the already-wealthy owners of a company. He brushed aside the claims that the Labor Peace Act is one of Colorado’s best tools for attracting jobs now and said that legislators needed to think more about workers struggling to afford living here.
“If there are entities that want to come here because we have the ability to disincentive organizing by workers, that is a problem to me,” Rodriguez said. “I’m not anti-business. I believe in people making a dollar. And I also believe you’re only as strong as the people who work for you.”
Colorado state Sen. Larry Liston speaks during the committee hearing on Senate Bill 5 on Tuesday.
But Sen. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, shot back that Colorado is changing for the worse because of regulations and costs, and he predicted that if SB 5 becomes law, it will accelerate the state’s current economic decline.
“If the Labor Peace Act is pulled, I do get a real sense that there will be a lot of companies that will say, ‘Goodbye, Colorado, we’re not even going to consider you,’” Liston said before voting against the bill. “It may not be perfect. But I think if we do away with the Labor Peace Act, I think we will rue the day.”
The one legislator who seemed interested in compromise was Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat who asked several witnesses if it might be possible to change the way union elections occur in order to make it easier to organize without nixing the second vote. He seemed interested in the idea of keeping in place the first vote to form a union with simple majority support — as is dictated by the National Labor Relations Board — but requiring a higher percentage of 60% or so in that vote to enact union security.
In the end, Hinrichsen voted to advance the bill, saying the current system encourages freeloading by non-fee-paying members if they can unionize on the first vote but aren’t willing to fund the work that a union is then required to do in representing them. But he added that he wants to see negotiations continue.
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