December 31, 2008 09:15 PM UTC

2008 Top Ten #2 (Tie): "Right to Work" Gets Worked

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• by: Colorado Pols

We wrote earlier about the importance of Amendment 46 being defeated in Colorado and how it may spell the end of Ward Connerly’s efforts to ban affirmative action throughout the country.

Colorado’s defeat of Amendment 47, the so-called “right-to-work” measure, probably won’t stop anti-union folks from trying to pass similar measures, but Colorado was home to an historic decision. Amendment 47 was handily defeated in Colorado, and while it cost opponents millions of dollars (the Rocky Mountain News called it the costliest ballot fight in state history, along with battles against Amendments 49 and 54), it was money well spent for the message it sent.

Colorado has traditionally not been a labor-friendly state, and when unions started to make some gains in recent months, it scared some local business goons (namely Jonathan Coors and Jake Jabs, getting mauled by the lion above) into helping fund and organize a nationally-based effort to get “right to work” laws on the books in every state. They didn’t like the union gains, so they tried to break their collective necks with a law that would have essentially destroyed most labor unions in Colorado. Given that no state had defeated a “right to work” measure in decades, labor leaders were rightfully worried.

But in the end, an unlikely coalition of business and labor leaders joined together to help out state become the first in recent memory to defeat a “right-to-work/work for less” measure. While labor unions were forced to spend more money than they wanted, leaving the well dry for many working family-friendly candidates, the end result was worth it. “Right to work” was long thought to be the silver bullet for anti-union activists, but it didn’t succeed in Colorado; no doubt others around the country took notice.

With less than 9 percent of Coloradans members of a labor union, Colorado is nowhere near a union-friendly state. But in 2008, Coloradans showed that they didn’t want to be an anti-union state, either. The political repercussions of this victory should also resonate for years to come, showing elected officials that voters don’t look down on labor unions and their members after all.