From Our Readers
| Publication year | 1993 |
| Pages | 265 |
| Citation | Vol. 22 No. 2 Pg. 265 |
1993, February, Pg. 265. From Our Readers
Professor Hogler's interesting article ["Public Employee Strikes in Colorado: The Supreme Court Adopts a New Rule," 22 The Colorado Lawyer 1 (Jan. 1993)] follows so quickly the decision of the Supreme Court in Martin v. Montezuma-Cortez School District, and with such undisguised bias, that we must assume that this professor of management has been watching the case for some time, waiting to strike out against the court's decision should it favor the interests of labor.
I cannot disguise my own bias. For twelve years I have with the help of others represented the 42 teachers from Cortez who prevailed in the Supreme Court, and I have represented teachers in nine other Colorado strikes, beginning with the strike of Denver teachers in November 1969. That strike, the first by public sector workers in Colorado, closed Denver public schools for about two weeks. It ended when the demands of the teachers were met substantially. No teacher was disciplined in any way, and no teacher even lost pay.
In matters of labor relations, it is difficult not to show bias or have one's views predicted by status, residence, employment, or certainly by political affiliation. I was serving as a member of the General Assembly, a Republican as well, when I represented striking school teachers in Littleton in 1974. During that strike, the Republican Women's Club of Littleton visited the legislature, and three of the women cornered me to protest. One said, "You are destroying our schools." Another said, "Worse than that, you are destroying my daughter's education." Then the third volunteered, "Yes, and it would be perfectly proper for you to do these things if you were a Democrat."
From my vantage point, Professor Hogler's criticisms of the Supreme Court's decision in Martin, and his conclusions regarding the effect of the decision and the need for remedial legislation, probably result less from bias than from his misunderstanding the labor history that preceded the Industrial Relations Act and, more significantly, the history of labor disputes in the public sector in Colorado from the last three decades.
The central principle of the Industrial Relations Act, enacted in 1915, was to make the state an interested party to labor disputes. In calling for its enactment, Governor Carlson, in addressing the Twentieth General Assembly said,
The time has now come when Colorado must cease being merely a negative force. Our state government must become a positive and vital agency ... an agency to stand between employer and employee and compel fair dealing between them.
It is true that the immediate precipitants of the Industrial Relations Act were wars in the coal fields of Southern Colorado and the infamous massacre at Ludlow. But Professor Hogler's tortured explanation for the inclusion of public sector workers in the Industrial Relations Act by mistake or "careless drafting"---his statement that their inclusion "conflicts with ... labor relations practices of the time"---indicates his own inattention to labor history.
There were numerous public sector labor disputes in the 19th century. As early as 1835, both public and private workers joined a strike in Philadelphia to gain the ten-hour workday. The same year, workers at the navy yards in Washington, D.C., went on strike without success to obtain a ten-hour workday.
In 1860, government employees at the printing office in Washington went on strike. They did so again in 1863 to obtain an eight-hour workday. The police in Ithaca, New York, went on strike in 1889. There were more...
To continue reading
Request your trial