Why Weakening the Labor Peace Act Is a Mistake for Colorado Workers

For decades, Colorado has maintained a careful balance between the right of workers to organize and the right of individuals to control their own paycheck. That balance is embodied in the Labor Peace Act, a law that has governed labor relations in our state for more than eighty years.

Unfortunately, legislation moving through the Colorado General Assembly would dismantle one of the most important safeguards in that law.

Under current law, workers must approve two separate votes before unions can collect mandatory dues or fees from every employee in a workplace. The first vote determines whether employees want union representation. The second vote determines whether that union can require every worker to financially support it.

That second vote is not a technicality. It is a protection.

If a union wishes to compel financial support from every employee in the workplace, it should have to demonstrate strong and clear support from the workforce. The Labor Peace Act recognizes this simple principle. Power over another person's paycheck should never be granted lightly.

Yet the bill now advancing at the Capitol removes this safeguard.

In effect, it would allow union leadership to gain the authority to collect dues from workers who may not support the union and who may never have agreed to fund its activities. Once the initial unionization vote occurs, the financial obligation would follow automatically.

As if unions did not already wield enormous power in our political system, this proposal seeks to expand that power further while weakening the rights of individual workers.

Across the country, unions have become some of the most powerful political institutions in modern public life. They direct billions of dollars into political advocacy, often advancing agendas that many workers themselves do not share. The troubling part is that those political activities are frequently funded by mandatory dues taken directly from workers’ paychecks.

In that context, the protections within the Labor Peace Act become even more important.

Colorado’s law has long recognized that forcing workers to fund an organization requires a broad consensus among those workers. It requires clear consent before anyone gains the authority to deduct money from another person’s wages.

The bill now before the legislature lowers that standard.

It tilts the system further toward centralized union power while diminishing the voice of individual employees. It makes it easier for union leadership to gain financial control over workers who may strongly disagree with the organization’s priorities or political activities.

That is not a step toward fairness. It is a step away from it.

Colorado has built a strong economy in part because we have avoided the extremes seen in other states. We have maintained a system that protects both worker representation and individual freedom. The Labor Peace Act is a key part of that balance.

Weakening that law does not empower workers. It empowers institutions.

The freedom to control your own paycheck is fundamental. No one should be compelled to finance an organization they do not support simply because the rules were rewritten to make that outcome easier.

Colorado should be strengthening protections for workers, not eroding them.