Ritter's latest swipe at labor angers firefighters

Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed a bill Thursday that would have granted collective-bargaining rights to firefighters' unions.

Senate Bill 180 would have given firefighters' unions with a minimum of 50 employees equal negotiating status with management in decisions on pay, benefits and working conditions - but not the right to strike.

Ritter, a Democrat, said he was vetoing the bill because firefighters can get collective-bargaining rights through voter approval in their communities, and signing the bill "would have overturned the will of the voters in communities that have opted against collective bargaining."

One such community is Colorado Springs, where collective bargaining for public employees' unions has been rejected three times.

Ritter "supported a position of local control and home rule, which I think is good wisdom on his part," said Colorado Springs Vice Mayor Larry Small, a Republican.

Colorado Springs is the largest city that would have been impacted by the bill. Voters in Denver, Aurora, Thornton, Pueblo, Greeley, Longmont, and Englewood have already granted collective-bargaining rights to their firefighters.

Mike Smaldino, president of the Colorado Springs Firefighters Union, said Ritter had broken a campaign promise.

"Three different times, he talked to firefighters and said that he would support this kind of legislation," Smaldino said. "He's let us down tremendously today."

"The governor knows the firefighters who supported this bill are disappointed today," Ritter's spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said in an e-mailed statement.

"Sometimes, being governor means you have to tell your friends no."

"He has to take a broader view about what's best for the entire state," Dreyer continued, "and that's exactly how he approached every single one of the 468 bills that landed on his desk this year."

Ritter incurred the wrath of Colorado organized labor two weeks ago, when he vetoed a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits to union workers locked out by their employers.

King Soopers, City Market, Safeway and Albertsons are negotiating a new statewide contract with the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and Ritter said the bill would have tilted the playing field in those talks.

The vetoes may help Ritter with conservatives, who complained in 2007 when the governor issued an executive order giving greater bargaining authority to state workers.

But coming on the heels of his action on the lockout-benefits bill, Ritter's veto of the firefighters bill risks alienating union members, a core Democratic constituency, so deeply that they will support his primary opponent when Ritter runs for re-election in 2010.

Smaldino said the public would see no reduction in union members' commitment or performance. But asked if he foresaw a united labor front against Ritter in 2010, he replied, "I would hope so."

"The people that helped get him elected," Smaldino said, "are the people that he's turning his back on right now. I'll tell you, 2010's probably going to be a pretty lonely year for him."

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