DENVER–After a failed attempt last year, legislative Democrats will take another shot at dismantling the unionization second-vote requirement in Colorado’s Labor Peace Act, enacted to quite literally keep things peaceful between business and organized labor more than 70 years ago.
The 2025 bill received ample pushback from Governor Jared Polis, as well as both business and policy leaders, and the controversy is likely to continue into this year’s legislative session.
The Colorado Labor Peace Act was enacted in 1943 as a solution to ongoing strife between business owners and striking employees. To put an end to violent, and sometimes fatal, labor protests, the Act guarantees Colorado workers the right to unionize, collectively bargain, and establish union dues, but requires two separate votes.
The two-part vote gives employees the chance to reject being forced into paying union dues. The first vote requires a simple majority in support of unionization. The second vote requires a 75% supermajority to achieve “union security” which demands every employee, even those who voted no, to pay dues.
In 2025, majority Democrats passed Senate Bill 25-005 ‘Worker Protection Collective Bargaining,’ eliminating the second vote requirement and leaving one simple majority vote both to unionize employees and mandate dues, even if almost half did not support it.
Gov. Polis vetoed the bill in May. “I believe there must be a high threshold of worker participation and approval to allow for bargaining over mandatory wage deduction,” Gov. Polis said in his veto letter, “Labor and business missed an opportunity this year to modernize this outdated law while providing lasting certainty to Colorado workers and businesses.”
Polis encouraged both sides to continue working through the issue to reach a solution. However, the Democrat’s 2026 bill, announced on Jan. 8, is almost identical to last year’s.
Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver (as well as publisher of Complete Colorado), last year introduced the ‘Colorado Worker’ Rights’ initiative in response to SB25-005. The measure sought to nullify the Democrats’ efforts by embedding what’s often referred to as “right-to-work” in the state Constitution, thus giving individual employees the freedom to decide it they want to join a union or not.
Currently there are 26 states where such laws give employees of unionized organizations the choice to opt out of union membership and prohibit unions from deducting dues from paychecks unless permitted by the employee.
Once the bill was vetoed by the Governor Polis, the initiative was withdrawn, but it will make another appearance this year, said Independence Institute President Jon Caldara, whose name appears on the initiative as a sponsor.
“We weren’t the first to throw a punch in this fight,”Caldara told Complete Colorado, “Colorado workers deserve the right to choose.”
