A group of Democratic Colorado lawmakers will run a bill next year to alter the state’s labor laws by removing a secondary election requirement for unions.
The bill, dubbed the Worker Protection Act, would repeal a requirement that workers win a second election — on top of the one to form their union — to require fees from every worker that the union represents. Colorado is the only state to have that requirement, which is part of the state’s 1943 Labor Peace Act.
“It is uniquely hard to form a union in the state of Colorado, and we are asking our colleagues to affirm the right to collectively bargain and fight for better pay and safer workplaces,” Democratic Rep. Javier Mabrey of Denver said.
Mabrey, House Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon of Denver, Sen. Robert Rodriguez of Denver and Sen. Jessie Danielson of Wheat Ridge will run the bill. They said they will introduce it during the first week of the new legislative session that starts Jan. 8.
Employees need to win a simple majority to become represented by a union. But to negotiate “union security,” which requires that every worker benefitting from union negotiations pay into it, workers need to win a second election with up to a 75% vote. That is known as an all-union agreement election. It does not compel union membership.
Of five AUA elections in Colorado in 2024 so far, four were successful, according to state data. Of the 553 unions that initiated a second election in Colorado between July 1977 and July 2024, 68% were successful, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Colorado Fiscal Institute released Tuesday.
CFI estimated that updating Colorado’s labor law could increase a union worker’s annual income by $2,300.
