Posted on 09/02/2002 5:57:12 PM PDT by What Is Ain't
It's a bittersweet Labor Day for the groups that have been representing Colorado's more than 46,000 state government workers.
Never a large number to begin with, their ranks declined significantly after Gov. Bill Owens last November stopped automatic payroll deductions for dues to employee organizations and labor unions.
At the time, nearly 5,800 workers throughout the state - employees doing everything from guarding inmates in prisons to keeping highways in shape - were having their dues withheld automatically.
At a meeting of the 2002 Conservative Political Action Conference in Arlington, Va., this year, Owens described his action as a matter of principle.
"Why should government be withholding these dues?" he asked. "Why not have the union do it itself? I think you can see the impact on the union membership structure when you simply do the right thing, as we are doing in Colorado."
But others viewed it as unfair, even though a variety of different deductions and not just union dues were eliminated.
"The practical consequences were devastating - it was just a union-busting effort on his part," said Senate Democratic Majority Leader Bill Thiebaut of Pueblo.
Thiebaut won Senate approval of a bill earlier this year to reverse the governor, only to see it die in the Republican-controlled House. A labor lawsuit challenging the action has not been successful.
No group was hit harder than the Colorado Association of Public Employees, the largest of the three labor groups representing state employees. Its numbers reportedly shrunk, though by how much is unclear.
The action also hit the Colorado Federation of Public Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
"We're small, but we can create a lot of noise through our network of people. We're going to hang in there, believe me. It has only made us stronger," said Jo Romero, president of the CFPE.
The dispute stemmed from an executive order that Owens signed in May calling for a review of all payroll deductions.
"We had about 150 payroll deductions, and we didn't know what a lot of them were," said Troy Eid, who took over as head of personnel and general support services in September.
"There were deductions for everything from flower funds, sports tickets and parking to employee organizations.
"It got to be the state didn't even know what the deductions were going for. We felt we needed a coherent policy. It was just common sense to do that."
Eid insisted his department did not leave the employee groups high and dry. It included in paychecks last year a form for workers to use if they wanted to have an electronic funds transfer out of their banks.
"We went out of our way - we weren't legally required to do that," he said.
But the impact was felt, nevertheless.
CAPE, which describes itself as an employee association and not a union, was forced to lay off all but three of its employees, including all 17 field workers.
Its executive director, Wendell Pryor, left early this year to become civil rights director for the state's Department of Regulatory Agencies.
In its May 6 issue this year, The CAPE Citizen conceded the organization had lost "a substantial amount" of active workers and criticized Owens for taking away "an employee's right to choose . . . by cherry-picking payroll deductions for association dues."
CAPE's former interim acting director, Sue Middleton, declined to provide exact numbers but said the organization has regained "significant" membership in the past few months. She declined to be more specific.
She said CAPE's loss was actually closer to 2,000 rather than 2,500, which others have estimated. She said the loss stemmed from a variety of factors, including the economy, not just the governor's action.
At the CFPE, union leadership with help from volunteers launched an immediate phone bank late last year, along with a mail campaign, to try to keep its membership.
The group lost only about 150 members and now is 50 short of its former 1,100-membership figure, she said.
"We survived to fight another day - we're not going to let them silence our voice," Romero said. "We're going to hang in there, believe me."
AFSCME spokesman Dave Paladino said his union lost "several hundred members.
"The impact of the governor's action, which we challenged in court, is essentially to try to undermine the voice of state workers," he said.
Despite those complaints, Eid said he personally has come to the conclusion that most government workers seem to like the policy.
Since the payroll deductions for employee groups were eliminated, Eid said he has met with more than 5,000 state workers at more than 40 town hall meetings across the state.
"Since November when we implemented the policy, I've had exactly three people complain about it (at the hearings)," he said. "I've had 150 people tell me it was a great policy.
"I've had people tell me they had money coming out of their paychecks and they didn't realize themselves where it was going. The positive response has been unbelievable."
From someone who does pay quarter estemists.
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