Bully Tactics Used on Colorado’s HB 1072

An editorial in the Washington Examiner shines a light on the AFL-CIO’s aggressive strategy of threatening to move the 2008 from Denver if Governor Ritter opts against the recently re-introduced HB 1072:

Editorial
AFL-CIO bullying Colorado on Dems’ 2008 convention

The Washington DC Examiner Newspaper, The Examiner
Mar 12, 2007 3:00 AM (7 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 2 of 19,146
WASHINGTON – National AFL officials seem determined to remove any remaining doubt in anybody’s mind that Gov. Bill Ritter did the right thing in February by vetoing Colorado House bill 1072. That hurriedly approved measure repealed a long-standing Colorado law requiring that, once a company’s employees approve a union, they have a second, secret-ballot vote on how dues will be assessed, with a 75 percent supermajority required for approval.

Why is the AFL-CIO so worried about an obscure Colorado bill? Because the vetoed measure was of a piece with the “Employee Free Choice Act of 2007” now being rushed through Congress by national Democrats, led by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. That bill abolishes all secret ballot voting in union representation contests. Doing away with workers’ right to cast a secret ballot when voting on whether to unionize is the AFL-CIO’s top national priority because union leaders think it will help them reverse their decades-long slide in membership. Less than 10 percent of all private sector workers now belong to unions.

AFL-CIO officials say they will urge Democrats to move their 2008 national convention from Denver if Ritter doesn’t agree to sign a re-introduced version of 1072. Since a quarter of the delegates to a typical Democratic National Convention are union representatives, the AFL-CIO threat is not a hollow one for DNC officials. But the AFL-CIO’s threats against Ritter and Colorado workers shows exactly why secret ballots must be protected in all workplaces nationwide. Otherwise, workers will be exposed to endless threats and intimidation from thuggish union organizers.

Ritter should man-up and tell the AFL-CIO to take its aging school-yard bully tactics elsewhere. And DNC officials ought to beseech their union buddies to cool it before voters get the idea Democrats approve of Big Labor’s workplace intimidation.