While Colorado labor organizers and activists have been (rightly) concerned for the past several years with passing the Worker Protection Act, there is an often overlooked but equally important route toward worker empowerment in the state: Municipal collective bargaining.
The Worker Protection Act would strengthen labor rights for private sector workers in Colorado, but it excludes from its scope public sector workers. Fortunately, government workers in Colorado have been given a shield and a light gladius in the form of the Protections for Public Workers Act, or PROPWA. The protections granted to government workers by this state law are substantial, and they pave the way for a new era of public sector labor organizing in Colorado.
However, there is a deficit in PROPWA that prevents its gladius from becoming a broadsword, insofar as it creates in a public sector employer no obligation to recognize a union that may form under PROPWA’s aegis. A city’s municipal workforce may unanimously vote to unionize, but their employer can simply refuse to acknowledge the union till kingdom come, effectively union busting, with no legal recourse for the workers…