SEIU Local 105 on Colorado's Labor Peace Act and Worker Rights

Andy Jacob, Chief of Staff of Service Employees International Union Local 105, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss one of the most unusual anti-union laws in the country — Colorado's Labor Peace Act — which requires workers who have already won a union election to survive a second, far more difficult vote before their union can collect dues or fees.

Jacob argued that the law, which has helped hold Colorado's union density to just 5.9 percent despite eight-plus years of a Democratic trifecta governance, is a textbook example of the gap between pro-labor rhetoric and pro-labor action. SEIU Local 105 and its coalition partners intend to keep pushing the Worker Protection Act until it becomes law, regardless of the current governor's veto threats, he added. For working families in Colorado and across the country, Jacob believes the stakes could not be higher.

• Colorado's Labor Peace Act requires workers to win a second election after their union has already been certified. The second vote requires 50+1 of eligible voters to vote yes or 75 percent of those who vote, whichever is greater. To secure the ability to collect dues or fees, a threshold that Jacob noted no elected official in the state would survive if applied to their own elections.
• Colorado's union density sits at 5.9 percent, well below comparable non-so-called “Right-To-Work” states with similar political and demographic profiles that are posting densities of 10 percent to 12 percent. Jacob argued the Labor Peace Act's chilling effect on organizing is the primary reason — a connection he said cannot be denied with a straight face.
• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed the Worker Protection Act last session and has already signaled he will veto it again, but SEIU Local 105 and its coalition partners have committed to reintroducing the bill every session until it is signed. The campaign is part of a broader effort to force Democratic candidates — including those running for governor — to publicly choose between workers’ interests and the donor class’s interests, Jacob said.

Colorado Has a Union Problem — and the Law Is the Reason

Andy Jacob grew up in a union household. His grandfather was a tool-and-die union worker. His grandmother was a unionized lunch lady. His other grandfather served as the Secretary-Treasurer of an IBEW Local in Toledo, Ohio. When he moved to Colorado nearly 20 years ago to work for SEIU, his Midwest family thought he was bringing union values to the frontier. What he found instead was a state with a one-of-a-kind law that has been quietly strangling organized labor for decades.

Jacob, now Chief of Staff of SEIU Local 105 — which represents roughly 8,000 home care workers, healthcare workers, janitors, security officers, mental health workers and others across Colorado — joined America's Work Force Union Podcast to explain that law, the campaign to repeal it and what the fight reveals about the state of the Democratic Party's relationship with labor.

The Labor Peace Act: A Second Election Workers Should Never Have to Face

The Colorado Labor Peace Act sounds benign. Jacob acknowledged that much, noting drily that the name is Orwellian in its design, promising peace while delivering suppression. What the law actually does is this: after workers go through the grueling process of winning a union election — enduring what Jacob described as psychological warfare from employers who threaten jobs, exploit personal vulnerabilities and routinely skirt labor law, knowing penalties are weak and slow — they must then turn around and do it all over again.

The second election is not to certify the union. That battle was already won. The second election is simply to determine whether the union can require any form of dues or fees from the workers it is legally obligated to represent. And the threshold is deliberately punitive: the second vote requires 50+1 of eligible voters to vote yes, or 75 percent of those who vote, whichever is greater.  Jacob has made a habit of posing a simple question to Colorado politicians: Would any of you be in office if you had to meet that standard? The answer, he said, is uniformly no.

The law is not a so-called “Right-To-Work” statute in the traditional sense — Colorado does not carry that designation. But the practical effect is similar, and in some respects more corrosive, because workers must fight the same campaign twice, against the same employer tactics, at a moment when the initial organizing victory should have been cause for progress, not a renewed assault.

5.9 Percent Union Density in a Democratic Trifecta State

Colorado has operated under a Democratic trifecta — a Democratic governor, a Democratic state House and a Democratic state Senate — for more than 8 years. In that time, SEIU Local 105 and its coalition partners have driven real legislative wins, including minimum wage increases, paid family leave and paid sick days. Those victories were hard-fought and coalition-built, and Jacob credited them with improving workers’ material conditions across the state.

But union density stands at 5.9 percent. Comparable states — similar in political makeup, demographics and business environment — are registering densities between 10 percent and 12 percent. The Labor Peace Act, Jacob argued, is the variable that explains the gap.

Jacob pointed out that Alabama — a fully so-called “Right-To-Work” state without a Democratic trifecta — has higher union density than Colorado. The comparison, he said, is not a coincidence.

A Governor Who Vetoes, a Coalition That Keeps Coming Back

The Worker Protection Act would eliminate the second election requirement. It passed the legislature last session. Gov. Polis vetoed it. When SEIU and its coalition partners tried to negotiate a compromise that might earn his signature. They could not get there. They brought the bill back in the same form this session. Polis has already signaled he will veto it again.

Jacob said the coalition will keep bringing it back until it passes. This, he noted, is not unfamiliar ground for the labor movement. Nothing that working people have gained in this country came without a sustained fight, he said, and the coalition is not going anywhere.

Polis is in his final legislative session as governor. Jacob said the union does not view that as a reason to stand down — the bill's continued reintroduction is also a message to the candidates now running to succeed him. No gubernatorial candidate has yet publicly committed to signing the Worker Protection Act, a hesitation Jacob attributed to pressure from the business community and donor class, which has made the repeal of the second election requirement their red line.

A Democratic Party That Must Choose

The deeper argument Jacob made is about the Colorado Democratic Party. He has watched Colorado Democrats win elections on pro-labor rhetoric — invoking unions, praising workers, running on the popularity of the people Local 105 represents — while failing to deliver the legislative change that would actually expand union power. He traced part of that failure to Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in elections, giving corporations leverage over a party that once relied more heavily on union resources and support.

The result, he argued, is a party that is trying to serve two constituencies whose interests are fundamentally opposed. Policies that benefit one tend to harm the other.

SEIU Local 105 is preparing public accountability campaigns designed to force exactly that choice — to show Colorado voters in concrete terms where their elected officials and candidates actually stand when the votes are cast, not just when the cameras are on. For Jacob, the goal is not to punish the Democratic Party but to push it toward becoming what it claims to be: a party that fights for working families in deed as well as in word.

More information on SEIU Local 105 and the Worker Protection Act campaign is available at seiu105.org.

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