Recently, I’ve reading a lot about how really long the November election ballot will be in Colorado.
Here is a sampling of all the choices we will have to make:
- President
- U.S. Senator (Schaffer, Udall)
- 7 U.S. House races
- 84 Colorado legislative seats
- 18 initiatives and referendums
You can see the list of initiatives and their descriptions here, here and here.
Apparently, one of the behind-the-scenes stories is that labor groups in Colorado have put 4 of 18 initiatives on the ballot in retaliation to a “right-to-work” amendment promoted by Denver business groups.
The Coloradans for Responsible Reform as well as A Better Colorado (behind which is the 28 year old, Jonathan Coors, a great grandson of Adolph Coors) are the marketing groups organized by Denver’s business groups that put Amendment 47 on the ballot.
Amendment 47 would:
do away with the current practice of allowing workers to vote on whether they want an “all-union” agreement that requires employees to pay dues to cover the cost of being represented by a union that negotiates wages and other benefits.
In response to this move by, the Colorado labor groups have put 4 amendments on the ballot:
Amendment 53 would
ban firing full-time employees without a specific reason and allow workers to sue if they believe the’ve been improperly dismissed.
Amendment 55 would
make an executive criminally liable for fraudulent activity they know about but fail to report within their business.
Amendment 56 would
require every private employer with 20 or more employees to provide health insurance, limiting the amount employees would pay to 20 percent or 30 percent for dependent coverage. Nonprofits would not be required to do so unless they have 1,000 or more employees. Employers could opt to pay for insurance through a new state authority.
Amendment 57 would
require every employer with 10 or more employees to provide a safe workplace and allow injured employees to seek additional damages in court beyond workers compensation benefits.
Here is the source for all the quotes above.
