Colorado Workers Should Know Their Rights

Originally published in The Denver Gazette.

This past week, Colorado lawmakers approved legislation, Senate Bill 5, that would gut the state’s 80-year-old Labor Peace Act by making it easier for unions to force private-sector workers to pay a union as a requirement of their job. Though Gov. Polis opposes the bill, union advocates have promised that even his veto pen won’t end their push to expand labor’s reach.

Recent history shows that Colorado workers should take them at their word.

Five years ago, union officials gained mandatory collective bargaining affecting state employees. In 2022, they landed compulsory organizing of many county workers. And in 2023, lawmakers granted them more favorable rules on how certain municipalities, universities, schools, and hospitals interact with and speak about unions.

With each legislative victory, union officials expanded their power over a new population of Colorado employees. Now that they are determined to push across the finish line another fundamental change in the state’s labor landscape—hinting at a referendum should Polis veto SB5—it’s more important than ever for workers to understand their rights under union representation.

If they don’t, they may be vulnerable to misinformation about the latest legal changes. And the unfortunate truth is that some Colorado union officials aren’t always careful about following even well-established law.

For example, seven years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unions could not force public employees to pay so-called “fair share” fees to a union if they were not members. But the collective bargaining agreement between the City of Pueblo and the Pueblo Association of Government Employees union says the opposite.

The Pueblo contract, enacted in 2023, reads, “Any person employed by the City in a position within the Bargaining Unit represented by the Union who is not a member of the Union . . . shall pay to the Union a fair share fee for collective bargaining[.]”

Whether or not union officials intentionally ignored the Supreme Court’s ban on “fair share” fees, Pueblo’s unconstitutional contract language effectively disincentivizes employees from declining union membership. City employees who would otherwise opt not to join the union could wrongly assume that they will be obligated to pay the union no matter what.

The Denver Housing Authority’s contract goes even further, stating that employees must be full, dues-paying members of the union, AFSCME Local 535—a requirement that flies in the face of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The contract, enacted this year, states that employees must “become a member of the Union . . . and shall maintain their membership in the Union.”

If enforced, this could be one of the most egregious violations of public employees’ rights of free speech and association anywhere in country.

And that’s saying something. Union officials in other states have likewise used the relative obscurity of labor law to stretch their authority to the constitutional breaking point—and beyond—at employees’ expense. Several legal cases brought by clients of the Fairness Center, the nonprofit law firm of which I am president, provide examples.

Connecticut school cook Tina Curtis encountered a union form with a provision similar to Pueblo’s that required employees to pay union fees. When union officials insisted she abide by it, she sued them and won a settlement requiring the union to change its collective bargaining agreement.

And the president of a Pennsylvania union told new state employee John Kabler that he had to become and remain a union member if he wanted to keep his government job. A lawsuit resolved the matter, but it is not known how many other employees received similar misinformation over the course of decades and, like Kabler, funded union activity with dues they had a right to withhold.

With the examples of Pueblo and Denver—and those in other states—in mind, Colorado employees would be wise to educate themselves on their rights under state and federal law regarding union membership and representation. With lawmakers determined to expand union power, it may be up to employees to ensure union officials are also held accountable to the law.

Nathan McGrath is president and general counsel for the Fairness Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm that represents those hurt by public-sector union officials.