Imagine starting a job in public service, only to be told you must hand over a cut of each paycheck to a labor union — years after the U.S. Supreme Court has already declared this requirement illegal.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a hypothetical for thousands of public employees in Colorado.
Consider the city of Pueblo, which employs an estimated 2,000 workers. The Pueblo Association of Government Employees union, also called AFSCME Local 1712, claims it can charge so-called “fair share fees” to the technicians, park caretakers, engineers and other employees who help Pueblo run, but who choose not to join the union. That’s according to the active collective bargaining agreement between the city and the union.
The problem? The agreement directly contradicts the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus decision, where the court, in 2018, ruled that public-sector unions could not force nonmember employees to pay fees to a union.
If union officials are acting on this contract provision and charging fees to nonmembers, they are breaking the law. And even if the provision isn’t being enforced, it still has consequences.
Pueblo’s unconstitutional contract language makes it seem as though an employee’s only options are to join the union and pay dues, or decline union membership and pay up anyway.
It’s not much of a choice — the union is effectively strong-arming employees into joining their ranks.
Pueblo’s contract isn’t even the worst offender in Colorado. The Denver Housing Authority’s contract, enacted this year, says that its 300-plus employees must be full, dues-paying members of the union, AFSCME Local 535.
If enforced, the requirement could be one of the most egregious violations of public employees’ rights of free speech and association anywhere in the country.
With some union officials unaware of — or unwilling to comply with — dettled law, it’s more important than ever for public employees in the state to understand their rights under union representation. And because union power has been steadily rising, Pueblo’s and Denver’s problematic union contracts should concern all Colorado workers.
In 2020, Colorado union officials gained mandatory collective bargaining affecting state employees. Three years ago, they landed compulsory organizing of many county workers. And the following year, Colorado lawmakers granted more favorable rules on how certain municipalities, universities, schools, and hospitals interact with and speak about unions.
Now, union officials want to fundamentally change the state’s labor landscape once again.
They have pledged to overturn Gov. Jared Polis’s recent veto of Senate Bill 5, legislation that would help unions force private-sector workers to pay a union as a requirement of their job. Union advocates have promised a referendum, making clear that even the governor’s veto pen won’t end their push to expand labor’s reach.
Public workers across the Rocky Mountain State need to know their rights under union representation so that they aren’t vulnerable to misinformation, even when it shows up in their employment contracts.
This sort of misinformation is not limited to Colorado. Indeed, union officials in many other states have been caught using the relative obscurity of labor law to get their way at employees’ expense.
In Connecticut, union officials insisted that school cook Tina Curtis abide by a requirement, similar to Pueblo’s, that forced employees to pay union fees. As in Pueblo, union officials had ample time to comply with the Janus ruling that banned these fees for nonmembers but conveniently ignored it.
Curtis sued union officials with the help of the Fairness Center, the nonprofit law firm where I serve as president, forcing the union to change its collective bargaining agreement and promise not to violate workers’ rights in this way again.
But there’s no way to know exactly how many other employees — in Connecticut, Colorado and nationwide — are being fed similar misinformation and could be funding union activity with money they have a right to withhold.
Of course, labor unions should follow the law when they enter binding legal agreements with employers. But if union officials act like they don’t know the law, it will be up to workers to know — and defend — their rights.
Nathan McGrath is president and general counsel for the Fairness Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm that represents those hurt by public-sector union officials.
