Tag: Amendment 47

A state advocacy group of conservative Democrats is stepping into the fray between business interests and unions by taking a position opposing labor-backed ballot measures that would provide workers injured on the job with stronger legal rights and require employers to state a “just cause” for firing an employee.

Today it was announced that Colorado's former Republican governor Bill Owens has endorsed Amendment 47, a “right-to-work” ballot question that would restrict the way labor unions organize in the state.

While one labor union in Colorado has already spent $4.6 million on an advertising blitz supporting and opposing certain state ballot measures, yet another coalition of unions is also focusing hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars on media purchases.

A Colorado labor union raised more than $3.2 million in the last two weeks for a campaign to support two ballot proposals regulating safe business practices and to oppose a "right-to-work" measure supported by pro-business interests. Nearly all of the money has been committed to purchase media advertisements across the state in what appears to be an unprecedented pull-out-all-the-stops campaign by the union.

Seems like this year's political messaging is all about who's going to do what in the middle of the night. First, Hillary Clinton capitalized on our fear of things that go bump in the night with her primary commercial. "It's 3:00 a.m and your children are safe and asleep," a narrator says while images of sleeping babies flash across the screen. "But there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing. Something is happening in the world. Your vote will decide who will answer that call."

Unions and business groups in Colorado are preparing for what now seems to be an inevitable ballot war between the two political titans, with one side opposing a measure that would restrict the way unions organize and the other side determined to fight two labor-backed amendments regulating employer conduct.

Despite claims by supporters of the “right-to-work” state ballot measure Amendment 47, it is against federal law for any worker in the United States to be forced to join a labor union. Now the mainstream media is starting to catch on to this fact when penning articles about the issue, and surprisingly, the trend is being led by the traditionally conservative Rocky Mountain News.

Denver public television KBDI Channel 12 plans to air half-hour debates every Monday in September examining measures facing voters in the November election, which will have the longest ballot since Colorado first allowed citizen initiatives.

Colorado voters haven't faced a ballot this long since 1912, the first year citizens were able to initiate laws in the state. After striking a pro-affirmative action measure for insufficient signatures Wednesday night, the Secretary of State's office drew a line under a total 18 statewide questions for the November ballot -- 14 initiated by citizens and four referred by the State Legislature.