Ruling Democrats at the state Capitol in Denver have been bending over backward for organized labor for years, most notably when Gov. Jared Polis signed collective bargaining power over to state government employees in 2020.
Ever since, tens of thousands of staffers in the state bureaucracy have been able to negotiate ever higher wages and benefits — and stick taxpayers with the tab.
It was arguably the most egregious of numerous concession to Big Labor, which holds enormous sway in Democratic Party politics and is a major donor to Democratic politicians’ campaign coffers.
A spinoff measure signed into law by the governor in 2022 got less attention at the time but might wind up reaching even deeper into taxpayers’ pockets. Colorado’s “County Collective Bargaining by County Employees Act” extended collective-bargaining power to about 36,000 county government employees across the state’s 64 counties.
In some ways, it’s more onerous than the state law on collective bargaining because it effectively muzzles county governments when organized labor tries to unionize rank-and-file bureaucrats.
The legislative act’s provisions bar counties’ leadership from expressing views that could be construed to discourage or deter unionization. That defies even federal laws that assure the right of unions to organize employees but that also call for open and robust debate between labor and management.
The practical impact is counties can’t even point out the drawbacks of unionization without...
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