Colorado - State Workers Win with Colorado WINS

Denver, Colorado

Better Days Ahead - Labor trades and crafts employees who work at Front Range Community College in Greeley celebrate victory after voting for their own union, Colorado WINS.
Photo Credit: Dawn Le

Nearly 31,000 state employees voted this summer to join Colorado WINS (Workers for Innovation and New Solutions), a coalition formed by AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union.

“This is the first time we’ll have a voice, and it will be one voice for all state employees,” says Mark Warne, a community re-entry specialist working for the Department of Corrections in Grand Junction. “It will be the first time we’ll get agency directors to really listen to us.”

Colorado WINS activist Karen Esau, an administrative assistant at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Denver, says workers “were unhappy having no voice in how our health care is chosen, how we’re trained, how we’re advanced.”

Their efforts met with success in November 2007 when Gov. Bill Ritter (D) signed an Executive Order unique to Colorado. It established a process for employees to choose organizations through which they could address working conditions, conflict resolution, safety, staff attrition, pay and benefits.

Employees in seven bargaining units now have an opportunity to negotiate improvements to their working conditions and the services they provide: administrative support and related services; enforcement and protective services; health care services; labor, trades and crafts; physical sciences and engineering; financial services and professional services.