Greeley Tribune recycled Independence Institute's misleading column about Ritter's labor-business peace efforts

Summary: The Greeley Tribune on April 29 published an online "guest commentary" in which Jessica Peck Corry of the Independence Institute asserted that Gov. Bill Ritter is "the source of the rift" between unions and business leaders, but did not mention the think tank's own anti-labor campaigns. Further, the opinion piece, which originally was published April 3 on The Denver Post's PoliticsWest website, misleadingly suggested that Ritter's executive order authorizing employee partnership agreements "could now impose collective bargaining" on "unwilling state employees."

On April 29, the Greeley Tribune recycled an opinion piece by Independence Institute policy analyst Jessica Peck Corry that blamed Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter for a standoff between state organized labor and business interests without noting the think tank's own anti-labor activities -- among them a ballot initiative in Greeley. As Colorado Media Matters pointed out when the same piece appeared April 3 as Corry's "Diary of a Mad Voter" blog entry on The Denver Post's PoliticsWest website, Corry referred to Ritter as "the source of the rift" between "Colorado's union bosses and business leaders" over competing ballot initiatives. But she omitted the "free-market" think tank's role in opposing organized labor through its "Ask First" campaign to limit the ability of government entities to make payroll deductions for public employees, failed to mention that Independence Institute President Jon Caldara and state Sen. Nancy Spence (R-Centennial) filed a statewide ballot initiative to block the state government from making such payroll deductions, and did not note that Caldara publicly has identified unions as a target of the initiative.

In preserving the language of Corry's April 3 Post blog entry, the Tribune's April 29 online "Guest Commentary" also gave the impression that Ritter "on Tuesday," April 22, had called on union leaders to withdraw five ballot initiatives filed "on Monday," April 21. The Tribune failed to clarify that Ritter actually had "called on the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 to withdraw" the ballot initiatives on April 1 after the union filed them on March 31.

Further, as published by the Tribune, the column repeated Corry's misleading assertion that Ritter's executive order, "Authorizing Partnership Agreements with State Employees," which he announced on November 2, 2007, "could now impose collective bargaining" on "unwilling state employees." However, under the order, state employees have the option but not the requirement to petition and then vote to accept or reject an employee organization as their exclusive representative. The order also prohibits state personnel from pressuring employees to become members of an employee organization, as Colorado Media Matters has pointed out.

Colorado Media Matters also has noted that Oliver and other operatives from the "free-market" Independence Institute on numerous occasions have used their public media platforms to disseminate false, distorted, or misleading information regarding organized labor issues.

The Post reported on April 2 that Ritter was "[h]oping to avoid an ugly confrontation between business and labor this fall" and wanted "the two sides to withdraw their competing ballot measures, his spokesman said." The article continued:

"The governor believes the best thing for all of Colorado would be if none of these measures were on the ballot in November," said Evan Dreyer, the Democratic governor's spokesman.

[...]

None of the ballot measures has made it through all the necessary steps to appear on the ballot.

In any case, Ritter believes they should all go away. The governor wants labor and business to have a dialogue and will help make that happen if needed, Dreyer said.

From Jessica Peck Corry's guest commentary, "Business versus workers: Ritter is part of the rift," published April 29 on the Greeley Tribune's website:

Gov. Bill Ritter wants you to believe that he's working to end a duel between Colorado's union bosses and business leaders. He says he wants to prevent a November ballot battle that could see their competing initiatives put before voters. The only problem: Ritter is the source of the rift.

Last Tuesday, Ritter called on the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 to withdraw five ballot initiatives it filed a day before that would impose significant constraints on Colorado employers. Likewise, Ritter also called on business leaders to deny support for a "Right to Work" initiative that would prohibit unions from mandating that employees join a union or pay dues for union representation.

[...]

Ritter is stepping in now, before any of the union's five initiatives or the right-to-work effort has successfully navigated the approval process, including gathering the more than 76,000 voter signatures required.

My, how times have changed. It's hard to believe that just five months ago, it was Ritter who secretly met with union bosses to design an executive order that could now impose collective bargaining, conveniently called "employee partnerships," on unwilling state employees. His tactics were enough for The Denver Post to opine in an editorial comparing Ritter to famed mobster Jimmy Hoffa. As the Post concluded, "His promise to usher in a new era of collaborative government -- where business and labor, Democrats and Republicans, would all be at the table -- was nothing more than a sham." It remains a sham.

If Ritter has his way, his November executive order, and the political damage resulting from it, will all just be a distant memory. He's a uniter not a divider. But his goal of having business and labor leaders drop their initiatives will remain a fantasy, especially as long as he remains at the helm of state government. There simply is no fair middle ground, especially given the questionable intentions of Local 7's latest efforts.

As Colorado Media Matters has pointed out, the Independence Institute in 2007 sponsored the "Ask First" campaign to pass ballot measures barring local governments from automatically deducting from public employee payrolls membership dues and fees for unions and other private organizations. On the November 6, 2007, broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show, guest host Caldara described the purpose of the measures:

Several cities and counties have adopted, or are adopting, a policy that says you can go ahead and unionize, but our government payroll system -- the people's payroll system -- is not going to become a conduit for union money to go from workers' paychecks to the unions or to other special interests, whether it's the ACLU or the NRA. It's not what we do; you guys have to figure it out yourselves.

Ask First-backed measures blocking payroll deductions appeared on the November 6, 2007, ballot in Greeley and Englewood, where voters rejected them; the Centennial measure passed.

On March 15, 2007, Ritter issued an executive order rescinding an order by his Republican predecessor, Bill Owens, that barred state government from making automatic payroll deductions except for the charitable Colorado Combined Campaign. On November 28, 2007, Caldara and Spence filed their initiative to block state government from making such payroll deductions. The Colorado Initiative Title Setting Review Board designated the proposed measure Initiative 53 and approved its petition signature collection form on February 27. According to a November 29, 2007, article in the Rocky Mountain News, Caldara stated of the initiative, "Now that Ritter is bringing unions to state government, it merely says the people's payroll system won't be used to funnel money to special interest." (sic)

Corry's misleading assertion that Ritter's executive order "could now impose collective bargaining" echoed a claim made by the Post in a November 4, 2007, front-page editorial that the order will "forc[e] collective bargaining on thousands of state employees." To the contrary, Ritter's press release accompanying the executive order explicitly noted, "This order does not require employees to join an employee organization."

Further, the executive order contains a section -- Determination of Representation -- outlining the procedures under which state employees have the option but not the requirement to petition and then vote to accept or reject an employee organization as their exclusive representative.

The executive order also explicitly prohibits state personnel from pressuring employees to become members of an employee organization:

Neither the Director of the Division of Labor nor any management or supervisory employee may encourage or discourage membership in any Employee Organization nor encourage or discourage exclusive representation of employees by any Employee Organization.

Additionally, a November 4, 2007, Post article about the executive order reported that it does not grant traditional collective bargaining rights. For instance, the order bars employee organizations from striking and obtaining binding arbitration, and any fiscal impacts of partnership agreements reached under the order are not binding on either the governor or on the legislature. According to the article:

The executive order did not give state employees the powers of traditional collective bargaining -- it contains a no-strike policy and specifies the new "partnership agreements" will not result in binding arbitration.

But workers now will have the right to collectively negotiate on matters of workplace safety, training and efficiency. Employees -- represented by the union of their choice -- can bargain on any "issues of mutual concern," including wages, health care and staffing.

The legislature, however, gives up none of its authority to set the state budget, which means lawmakers could toss out any agreement that costs money. And the governor is not bound to include such agreements in his annual budget proposal. [emphases added]

— C.H. & E.B.

Posted to the web on Tuesday April 29, 2008 at 6:04 PM EST