Breaking: Union Group Files Complaint Against Right To Work

Protect Colorado’s Future, a pro-labor group that has been opposing a “right to work” ballot proposal that would make it harder for labor unions to organize in Colorado, filed a complaint with the Secretary of State’s office today alleging that petition collectors seeking signatures are misleading voters.According to legal documentation obtained by Colorado Confidential, Protect Colorado’s Future claims that petition circulators for the right to work initiative violated the law in order to collect the more than 76,000 required signatures to put the initiative on the ballot.

The complaint filed by Denver attorney Mark Grueskin states that circulators told potential signers that they didn’t have to be registered to vote in order to sign, that they could sign the petition if they were going to register and that those who had already signed the petition could sign it again–all of which are illegal under the state’s laws regulating voting petitions, according to the complaint.

The labor group has also submitted audio recordings as evidence to back up the complaint. The filing urges Secretary of State Mike Coffman to investigate the matter.

So far, supporters of the right to work measure have not submitted signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office for authorization to put the proposal on the 2008 state ballot.

Read Colorado Confidential’s continuing coverage on labor and the “right to work” ballot measure.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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