Colorado Democrats plan bill to remove state’s unique barrier to union organizing

Flanked by dozens of union members, a group of Colorado Democrats unveiled legislation Tuesday to remove a unique barrier to union organizing in the state.

The proposal, which will not be introduced until the legislative session starts in early January, would repeal an 81-year-old requirement that unions in Colorado pass a second election to require dues from all workers they represent. Colorado is the only state with such a rule, legislators said.

Federal law requires new unions to pass one election to form, though some states have so-called “right-to-work” laws that don’t require all employees in a unionized shop to pay dues or be a member of the union that represents them.

The Colorado legislation, dubbed the Worker Protection Act, will be backed by Denver Democratic Reps. Javier Mabrey and Jennifer Bacon, as well as Sens. Jessie Danielson, of Wheat Ridge, and Robert Rodriguez, also of Denver.

Rodriguez, the Senate’s majority leader, said at a news conference Tuesday in the state Capitol that the measure would be introduced during the first week of session. A group of unions — representing workers in health care, grocery stores and communications — are also backing the effort.

“We have been laboring under an unfair and outdated policy that makes it harder for workers to unionize, harder to seek those basic human rights that they deserve and that come with union security workplaces,” Danielson said, referring to unions that have passed their second election.

More than half of the United States have “right-to-work” laws, meaning employees who work in unionized shops in those states don’t have to be union members or pay dues. Colorado’s two-election system, the only one of its kind in the country, is effectively a diet right-to-work policy: To form a union, employees must first win a simple majority election. Then, to require dues collection and membership, they must pass a second election that requires up to 75% of voting employees to back it. In those cases, members can still choose not to pay dues but will instead pay “agency fees,” which help pay the union’s bargaining costs.

If the union doesn’t hold the second election or fails to win it, then employees can’t be compelled to pay dues to the union that represents them. Employees can still voluntarily pay dues and be a full member, but the additional barrier undermines a union’s financial strength and weakens its position at the bargaining table, officials and advocates said.

According to data from the left-leaning Colorado Fiscal Institute, 68% of 553 unions that pursued second elections between 1977 and 2024 successfully passed them. In 126 other cases, a majority of workers supported the second election, though not enough to clear the 75% threshold. In a report released Monday, CFI did not describe how many unions chose not to pursue the second election at all, though it suggests some didn’t because of the “high bar” to passage.

The group also released a chart showing union density in Colorado has generally mirrored levels seen in right-to-work states going back to the late 1970s. There was a spike in union membership here during the 2010s, according to CFI, though that has since dipped again.

Rich Martin, a King Soopers worker and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said organizers at his store pursued the second election seven years ago.

“Management ran a very intense anti-union campaign, and the store manager wouldn’t allow people to take time to go down and vote,” he said. “So we lost.”

Before the Tuesday news conference was over, several business groups released a joint statement opposing the proposal as a disruption of the state’s long-standing labor laws. Loren Furman, the president and CEO of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, said the proposal “would be counterintuitive to our goal of elevating Colorado’s competitiveness at a time when we should be making it easier to do business here.”

“We were disappointed to only learn yesterday about an upcoming bill that would repeal major provisions of the Labor Peace Act,” she wrote in a statement shared by Colorado Concern, the Colorado Competitive Council and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. The Labor Peace Act is the 1943 law that includes the second election requirement. “Colorado’s carefully crafted labor laws promote fair policies for workers while allowing for a healthy economic climate for business.”