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- Western Union Updates
Unions are usually Kay’s jam, but here are a couple of items from far west of the Mississippi — hope I’m not treading on her turf.
Jared Polis is an anti-union libertarian and, true to form, he’s going to exercise his well-used veto power (10 so far, Hick maxed out at 9) to veto a bill repealing one of Colorado’s many anti-union laws:
Gov. Jared Polis confirmed Thursday that he plans to veto a bill passed by Democrats in the legislature this year that would rewrite the Colorado Labor Peace Act.
Senate Bill 5 is a priority for the Colorado labor movement and Polis’ decision to nix the measure is sure to inflame the unfavorable view of the governor already held by unions.
The measure would abolish a requirement in the Colorado Labor Peace Act that 75% of workers at a company sign off before unions can negotiate with businesses over union security. That’s after a majority of workers vote to unionize.
Union security is the term for when workers are forced to pay fees for collective bargaining representation — whether or not they are members of their workplace’s union. Unions are required to bargain on behalf of all workers at a company, whether they are in the union or not. That’s why they feel it’s only fair that union security be imposed to cover the cost of things like lawyers and negotiating experts.
The Colorado legislature adjourned Wednesday, so we’ll have to wait until at least next year, and probably until Polis is replaced by a better Democrat, for unions to get better legislation.
In more positive news, the REI co-op, based in Seattle, has been having trouble lately. They’ve laid off a bunch of employees and shuttered some stores — in my opinion, they over-expanded recently. Also, their new president had to apologize for her predecessor signing an open letter supporting the nomination of Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior. For a brand that prides itself on supporting the environment, that was notably stupid.
Even though REI markets itself as a highly ethical company, of course when their employees decided to unionize, they acted like any other capitalist organization and fought unionization. So, the union has been slowly organizing from store to store. The union had asked co-op members to vote against the 2025 slate of board members. Though REI is a co-op, their board elections are usually a joke — it’s a slate of candidates who members either vote to approve or withhold approval.
Welp, the votes are in and management’s slate of board members went down in flames. So, the new CEO, who comes from Athleta and Nike (not a promising pedigree) is going to have to decide what to do. As someone who’s belonged to REI since the 80’s, and who voted to withhold, I hope they figure their shit out so I can keep paying too much for gear at their stores. (It’s good stuff, the workers there are great, and their return policy is excellent.)
I’m going to “the big town” to do some shopping, a very rural Dakota thing to do, so consider this an open thread and my last post for today.
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