January 20, 2025

Colorado’s Labor Peace Act: A Balance of Competing Forces 

Background

At the negotiated middle, Colorado’s Labor Peace Act (LPA) of 1947 balances the interests of unions having the right to organize, the individual freedoms of workers, and the public’s interest in a smoothly functioning economy.

The issue is of immense importance to all parties. According to union advocates, the benefits of unions include better pay; better benefits for the employee and their family, including retirement benefits; worker protections; and better negotiating power. These benefits can accrue to both the union worker and the non-union worker in right to work (RTW) and right to organize (RTO) states. Other studies have suggested union members may have better mental health.

Others point to the harm unions can cause to the economy, other workers, and union members themselves. Higher pay for some workers may reduce employment for others. Higher union wages reinforce higher cost of living. Unions make it harder to improve productivity – a critical element and predictor of future generations’ standard of living – by making it very difficult to fire underperforming workers. States with higher wages and cost of living have higher youth unemployment. Individual workers may receive lower wages than they could negotiate on their own if they were allowed to negotiate with management individually.  The effects of these factors accumulate over many years.

One thing that all sides agree on is that the prevalence of unions has individual and economic impacts for everyone, including union and non-union businesses, union and non-union workers, current and future employment, and our overall standard of living.