Denver voters may have a say in whether almost 7,000 city employees have the right to collective bargaining. If the charter amendment ends up on the ballot.
Councilmembers Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, Sarah Parady, Shontel Lewis and Chris Hinds are sponsoring a proposed change to the city’s charter that would give city employees collective bargaining rights.
The proposal was presented during the Charter Review Committee on Monday.
About 3,000 City and County employees already have the option of collective bargaining, according to Katie Romich, the director of organizing for Communications Workers of America District 7, one of the unions that would be working with employees.
That figure includes Denver teachers, firefighters and police.
But about 7,000 employees, including for example those who work for the Denver Public Library and Parks and Recreation do not currently have collective bargaining options.
There are two ways for this proposal to get on the ballot.
One is through City Council referral and the other is through citizen signature collections. CWA is pursuing both options. Romich said she’s hoping to see the proposal on this fall’s ballot.
The desire to have this ability, Romich said, is not new. In 1980 and 1997, a proposed amendment to add collective bargaining to the city’s charter for all city employees failed at the voting polls.
But now, Romich said, sentiments regarding unions have changed.
“There's more of a social understanding of the importance and the role of labor unions, particularly in regards to public workers who come to this work because they have a mission, not because they're going to get rich or make money, but because they have a mission for the work,” Romich said. “[Collective bargaining] is the simple desire to have a seat at the table and a voice at your job.”
Gonzales-Gutierrez added that in 2022, the state of Colorado, through Senate Bill 22-230, granted counties with more than 7,500 county employees the right to form collective bargaining groups. Denver was exempted from this change because it’s a home rule county.
Romich said the senate bill was another catalyst to pushing this amendment change forward.
Monday's presentation included a slide showing that many U.S. cities under democratic control already allow their city employees the opportunity to form collective bargaining groups. The most recent city to make that change was Philadelphia at the start of this year.
"Denver is an extreme and solitary outlier among peer cities. Every single other democratically controlled large U.S. city in purple and blue states already has collective bargaining for its municipal workforce," Romich said, during the presentation.
The language that would appear in the charter, or on the ballot, isn’t official as city councilmembers work to iron out who exactly will be involved and what this would mean for the city moving forward.
However, the amendment would affect “most non-supervisory and non-confidential” employees. “Non-confidential” employees basically means employees who wouldn’t have a conflict of interest in supporting or not supporting a union.
If passed by voters, the charter amendment would allow employees to form collective bargaining groups. Through the groups, if 30% of employees are interested, they could pursue a vote to form a union. If a majority votes to form a union, then they would begin working with the city to determine what that looks like.
Romich notes that just because city employees have the option to form these groups, doesn’t mean they will.
“Under the legislation that we're proposing, workers are in the driver's seat. They would decide whether or not they want collective representation,” Romich said. “This is a mechanism by which workers get to have their voices be heard and take the initiative to have collective representation in the city and county of Denver.”
The proposal is in the beginning stages. Councilmembers are set to have more briefings and official language will be presented to the full council within the upcoming months.
Romich said CWA is looking forward to working with councilmembers, while they continue to collect citizen signatures.
“We're tremendously excited to see these basic human rights extended potentially, if Denver voters choose to do so and if it gets on the ballot this fall, to thousands of workers here in the city and county of Denver who help our city run and make our city run,” Romich said. “We believe that collective bargaining only makes the workplace better and the city and county of Denver better.”
Clarification: This article has been updated to note that CWA is one of the unions that would be assisting city workers. Not the only one.
