Opposition to Unions Overheats

By Al Lewis
The Denver Post

Saturday 10 February 2007

Say the word, "union," and you might as well add "communist," "mobster" and "bureaucracy."

It's a lot like the word "abortion," says Ray Hogler, a management professor at Colorado State University.

"It's all politics, it's all heat, it's all debate, it's all acrimony," said Hogler, who has studied unions for the past 30 years.

On Friday, Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed a bill that would have lowered a hurdle for unions in Colorado. Ritter said he agreed with House Bill 1072. He just didn't like the way it was forced through the Democratic-controlled legislature.

"It caused ... overheated partisan rhetoric," he said. "A lot of Coloradans turned the volume completely off."

Some say signing this bill would have been like hanging a "closed" sign over the state's economic development office.

"There will be companies that (wouldn't) come here because of this," Aurora's eco-devo diva Wendy Mitchell told me.

Companies are already not coming, said Tom Clark of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. "This is not theory," he said. "We've been fielding phone calls from companies who say they are now looking at taking their expansions out of state."

One of the first questions on any relocating or expanding company's checklist is, "Are you a right-to-work state?"

There are 22 such states where workers cannot be forced to pay union dues or agency fees. There are 27 other states that allow unions to negotiate with management for the right to establish all-union shops where everyone pays union dues or agency fees.

Colorado is the only state in the middle. It allows unions to pursue all-union shops after an initial simple-majority vote by employees and a second super-majority vote. HB 1072 would have eliminated that second vote.

"Capital flees risk," said Clark. "And, like it or not, unions are viewed as an uncontrollable risk to capital."

Clark grew up in a union family. When he worked as a schoolteacher in Minnesota in the 1970s, he was president of a local collective bargaining unit. But unions are not what Clark's economic development prospects want to talk about.

"There's a huge surplus of highly trained union autoworkers in Michigan right now," Clark said. "Why aren't the foreign companies that are building auto plants in this country going to Detroit? They're going to Mississippi. That ought to tell you something."

It tells you that multinational companies want cheap labor, said Hogler, the management professor. Even eco-devo folks like Clark pride themselves on the highest-paying jobs they can attract.

"You don't create a good business climate by reducing wages," Hogler said. "We're not Mississippi and we're not Alabama, and I don't think we ought to be trying to compete with them."

Still, fewer than 10 percent of Colorado's workers belong to unions, and most employers like it that way.

Companies often respond to union campaigns with intimidation, said Teamster Ted Textor. Just talking about a union can mean reduced hours, undesirable assignments or termination. HB 1072 wouldn't have changed that.

"It's symbolic, but substantively, it hardly changes anything," said Textor, secretary-treasurer of Local 537. Employers "will probably be firing people and surveilling them more than ever."

Ritter, once a union man himself, says companies such as Qwest and Xcel depend on unions as partners.

"A lot of folks have that mindset that these interests (labor and management) are polarized and will remain that way," he said. "I don't think they have to be."

We live in an age when even our Republican president complains about CEO pay, and our Federal Reserve chairman warns about widening economic inequality. Once stalwart companies are ditching pension plans. Middle-class jobs are disappearing. And health care benefits?

Well, last week Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott joined Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, in a campaign called "Better Health Care Together."

"Government alone won't and can't solve this crisis," said Scott. "We have to work together - business, labor, government and our communities."

Imagine that. The Wal-Mart CEO and the union president, in the same room, and it's not a courtroom.

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