The Colorado Labor Peace Act of 2009

Ok, the election is over, 47 & 49 lost, 53, 55, 56, & 57 were withdrawn, and 54 is looking to be eviscerated by the Supreme Court. And that is a good thing, re-writing the business/labor rules via dueling ballot initiatives would pretty much guarantee that we all end up worse off.

But, the existing labor agreement is 66 years old. You know, some things have changed since then. And it's clear from the substantive discussion (yes there was some) around the initiatives, that we need to look at revising the agreement. Maybe it's time to get all involved parties together: The Governor, Legislature (both parties), business leaders, unions, and non-unionized workers. BTW- involved parties does not include spoiled trust fund babies (i.e. Jonathan Coors) or interest groups that represent an unknown set of funders (Independence Institute).

In this discussion we need to take into account the major changes in the jobs in this state since the previous agreement:

1. We operate in a global economy – pay and productivity in India & China impact what we can do here.
2. Education requirements have risen significantly – most good jobs now require a college degree.
3. Union representation has dropped significantly – no longer do union gains help large numbers of non-union employees.
4. Union representation of public sector has grown significantly – union voters are selecting their top management.
5. Businesses and union management are both expected to be more transparent & legitimate in their actions.

I think first, before we discusses specifics, the act should discuss the expectations we have on both parties. From those expectations, we can then come up with the specifics to reach them. For businesses these expectations should include (in priority order):

1. Be profitable, both short-term and long-term. If a company is not profitable nothing else matters, because it will be gone.
2. Provide value to the customer. If a company is not working diligently to make its customers happy, it is not going to thrive in today's environment. A company that is responsive and customer driven is going to do well.
3. Provide a quality work environment. Employees that are valued, treated well, and empowered to do their best will in turn do well for the company. And employees who do their best for a company have earned the right to be treated well.
4. Maximize shareholder value. Regardless of what all the free-market advocates say, this must come after the above 3 items. Why? Because the only way to maximize shareholder value is to live by the first 3 items.

Ok, that's business, what expectations should we have on the labor side of the equation:

1. Provide value to the company. Any employee who does not add value is then taking money from their co-workers, their employer, and their customers.
2. Do the best job they can. A large part of this in many jobs is working well in a collaborative group and constantly learning.
3. Work to make their company more successful every day. This is key because other companies are doing that and so staying constant means eventual closure.

And that brings us to the specifics. And here I have more questions than suggestions. But hey, it's a start. And these are in no particular order.

• Open shop, closed shop, no union – I think our present arrangement is fine but this needs to be put on the table again, even if it's just for 15 minutes while everyone agrees to leave it as is. The same for what dues are required for non-union members under a union contract.
• What is required to create a union. First off, unions are declining so I don't see why business is getting all worked up over this, but some are. Again, lets discuss it. But if business wants a secret vote, then maybe the answer is that the union only needs signed cards from 10% of the employees to have the vote instead of 50%. We also need to equalize the campaigning before the vote, that every action the company takes, the union is allowed to equal, so a required ½ hour meeting listening to the company is then followed by a required ½ hour meeting listening to the union.
• Union donations to political candidates, ballot initiatives, etc. We have 3 categories here. First are unions like grocery clerks where elected candidates have no real impact on their jobs. Second are unions like construction workers where candidates will vote on capital improvements that their company may then win the bid on – they are voting on people that have an indirect impact on their job. Third are public sector unions where the candidates are the people who then set their wages & benefits – a very direct impact. We need different rules for each but it seems to me the first category should face no restrictions, the second should not be allowed to campaign for capital improvement bonds and have some kind of limitation on political donations. And the third category should have very strict restrictions on candidate donations or advertising.
• Company donations to political candidates, ballot initiatives, etc. This is almost a mirror of the union categories above, and in fairness businesses should face the same restrictions depending on how closely they are connected. And we should also look at prohibiting companies and senior executives at those companies from contributing to capital improvement initiatives that they will bid on or to candidates that will select them for sole-source bids. Amendment 54 had a very good idea in it, it just went way overboard.
• Just as we have term limits & no nepotism laws on our elected officials, we should look at mandating the same for union officers. The existing union leaders have not been able to stem their decline, new blood in their leadership should help the unions turn this around.
• Public sector unions – good idea. There is advantage in the employees working for the government to have their own mechanism to discuss what they would like to see changed, prioritize those wishes themselves, then present them to management. The old paternalistic model where management will just decide what's best won't fly anymore – even if it reached the exact same decision, it will still piss people off.
• Both union & public sector job security – time to revise this. First off, job security does not protect the job, it protects someone doing a mediocre doing the job from being replaced by someone competent. We need to change it from protect the person holding the job to protecting that job slot by having someone productive in it. And to insure that employees are treated fairly, so that probation, and if necessary termination, occur for poor job performance. But key to this is unions and public sector employees buy off on replacing incompetent employees with competent ones.
• Just cause for firing employees. This ties in to union/public sector job security but we need to look at this for all companies in Colorado (and non-profits should be treated equally). So how about this, first we set this for employees below the director level because when you need to fire someone at the director level, you generally need to do so quickly. Let's put together a proposed probationary system, and it can be different based on industry and/or company size. Then companies can choose to follow it voluntarily for the next 4 years. Those that follow it can change it as they see fit – but they must provide feedback as to how it is working. If after 4 years we find a system that worked well for everyone, then we put it in statute. And the "put it in statute" part should get most companies volunteering to make sure what we end up with works well.
• Representation for non-union employees. I have no idea how to do this, but at least in the high-tech world, employees are strongly opposed to unions. Yet employees should have some way of discussing their concerns in-mass with management. The present system, even with all the efforts companies do listening to the concerns of employees is more paternalistic than people nowadays expect, and will soon demand.
• Health care. Create something like Hawaii's HMSA where all companies can easily set employees up with insurance. This will require the state to provide subsidies for industries that cannot be profitable with this cost, but we in total are better off if everyone is covered and those companies on razor thin margins stay in business and continue to provide jobs.

I'm sure there's more, the above is just to start the conversation. Any suggestions?