On KOA, Independence Institute's Caldara repeated misleading talking points on Ritter's labor order

Summary: Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute and Newsradio 850 KOA echoed previous misinformation regarding Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) executive order authorizing state employee partnerships. In comparing it to a state of Washington law, Caldara omitted key distinctions between the states such as the contrast in their rates of union membership and Colorado's efforts to keep state employees' salaries competitive with those available in the private sector.

On his May 30 Newsradio 850 KOA broadcast, Independence Institute President Jon Caldara criticized Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) executive order, "Authorizing Partnership Agreements with State Employees," misleadingly comparing it to the public employee collective bargaining law in Washington state, which, according to Caldara, "cost them about $1.2 billion more in expenses." However, Caldara omitted important distinctions between Colorado and Washington, including the significant contrast between the states' rates of union membership and the measures that Colorado has taken since 2004 to maintain prevailing wages for its workforce, while Washington state workers' pay was losing ground to those in comparable private-sector occupations, as Colorado Media Matters has noted.

Caldara further distorted the circumstances of the release of the order, claiming that "Ritter dropped that bomb on a Friday afternoon. He did so to mitigate the response that's gonna come out." But, as Colorado Media Matters repeatedly has noted, Ritter reportedly notified The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News of the order before he issued it on November 2, 2007, and gave an interview to the News the day it was announced. After issuing the order, Ritter also gave an email interview to the weekly Denver Business Journal, which published his responses to its questions on November 9, 2007.

From the May 30 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Jon Caldara Show:

CALDARA: November 2nd, 2007 -- November 2nd, 2007, was the date where Ritter put out this amazing executive order bringing collective bargaining to Colorado. That is, allowing government employees to unionize and therefore drive up the cost of doing pretty much everything here in Colorado. And it was a terrible executive order; I'm not even certain if it's legal. I don't know who's gonna be challenging it. But soon, tens of thousands of government workers are going to start being collectively represented. When Washington state did this, it cost them about $1.2 billion more in expenses. But somehow here in Colorado, they're gonna get it right and it won't cost anything. It's going to actually save us money. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Anyway, Bill Ritter dropped that bomb on a Friday afternoon. He did so to mitigate the response that's gonna come out. It actually worked differently than that, because everyone saw right through it. Dropping a Friday afternoon atomic war on Colorado politics doesn't always work.

In suggesting that the cost of Ritter's order might be comparable to the cost of Washington's 2002 civil service reform bill (House Bill 1268), which led to a 2005 collective bargaining agreement between the state and its employees that the Seattle Times reported would cost $1.6 billion over two years, Caldara failed to point out key differences between the two states. For example, unlike Washington, the state of Colorado by the time of Ritter's executive order already had implemented measures designed to keep state employee salaries competitive with those available in the private job market.

As the Times noted, Washington "[s]tate workers got cost-of-living raises in just five of the 12 years between 1993 and 2004." Washington's 2006 Total Compensation Survey -- a biennial study designed to compare state employees' wages to prevailing wages in the private sector and local governments -- found that "[f]or the first time in four survey periods (8 years) the state's competitive position for salaries has not worsened. Monies spent in 2005 for prevailing rate improvements to specific job classes and the general wage adjustment to all classified employees were largely responsible."

In contrast, Colorado's Total Compensation report, updated in December 2007, states, "With very few exceptions, the General Assembly has historically and consistently funded market salary adjustments at prevailing levels based on the salary survey process." The report further shows a timeline of actions Colorado has taken from 2004 through 2007 to improve total compensation of its employees, including aligning "salary ranges to move with the market and leave no employee below range minimum." The Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration's Division of Human Resources conducts an annual compensation survey to compare the state's salary ranges to the private sector's.

In addition, Caldara failed to point out statistics showing that in recent years the level of union membership in Washington was significantly higher than that in Colorado, even before the 2002 collective-bargaining legislation for state workers in Washington.

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 7.7 percent of Colorado's employed workers were union members in 2006, while in Washington the figure was 19.8 percent. Washington's union membership rate that year was the nation's fifth highest, while Colorado's was near the bottom third. In addition, according to BLS historical data, Washington's union membership has increased in recent years, ranging from 17.9 percent in 2000 -- two years before the state collective-bargaining legislation was approved -- to a high of 19.8 percent in 2006. In contrast, Colorado's union membership rate declined during the same period, from 9.4 percent in 2000 to 7.7 percent in 2006.

On his November 6, 2007, KOA program, Caldara similarly distorted Ritter's announcement of his employee partnership order; he did so again on the November 8, 2007, broadcast of public television station KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking. Independence Institute Director of Operations Amy Oliver similarly has repeated the distortion on her 1310 KFKA program.

—C.H.