Former Gov. Bill Owens chimes in on Amendment 47

Today it was announced that Colorado’s former Republican governor Bill Owens has endorsed Amendment 47, a “right-to-work” ballot question that would restrict the way labor unions organize in the state.

A Better Colorado, the campaign that is backing Amendment 47, disclosed today that Owens was coming out in support of the proposal.

The news comes less than a week after opponents of the “right-to-work” measure staged a rally at the local offices of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union where U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. Ed Perlmutter assailed Amendment 47 as a anti-worker ballot initiative.

Amendment 47 would restrict the way labor groups organize and negotiate in the state, by banning collective-bargaining agreements between unions and businesses that require minimal agency fees from nonmember employees who receive union-negotiated benefits in the workplace.

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.

Comments are closed.