'Right-to-work' impact in question

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/16/right-to-work-impact-in-question/

Number directly affected has fallen, analysis indicates
By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

As Colorado's battle over a "right-to-work" initiative escalates, state labor data analyzed by the Rocky Mountain News suggest that the number of people directly affected by the controversy has dwindled in recent years.

The frequency of elections to form all-union workplaces - a practice that would be outlawed under a November ballot initiative - has decreased sharply from labor's heyday to just a handful in each of the past five years, according to three decades' worth of statistics obtained from the state's labor division.

At the same time, many of the votes to create all-union pacts show workers overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, back the concept voluntarily. Under the state's current labor law, a second, secret-ballot vote is required to approve all-union arrangements - the ones that compel all workers to pay fees if they are covered by a collective-bargaining contract.

"What this data indicates is the 'right-to-work' issue in Colorado is a triumph of ideology over reality," said Harley Shaiken, a University of California at Berkeley professor who specializes in labor issues. "Given this second-election law, it's a nuclear option that doesn't really seem to be justified even from the perspective of its proponents."

Adds Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper: "It's become symbolic."

The Colorado Division of Labor, which oversees the second- election process, only recently transcribed decades of handwritten data on union vote results onto computer spreadsheets. Staff members had turned up files filled with index cards covering elections dating to 1977.

In that era, unions conducted several dozen elections a year. In each of the past five years, o

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