Ritter's veto is the right move.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Bill Ritter - Column

Gov. Bill Ritter's veto of an amendment to the Colorado Labor Peace Act last month seems a fitting subject for my last column as editor of ColoradoBiz.

Exactly 6 1/2 years ago, I opened the October issue with an introductory column describing myself as a pro-growth, liberal Democrat.

This month I sign off applauding the new governor for being not so liberal, but taking into consideration the concerns of all the people whom he now governs, including those who did not vote for him.

As an editor, I have long argued that a governor should rule with the most people in mind, not the least. That whoever the governor may be, he or she should steer the Colorado ship of state rather than let it float out of control for fear of demonstrating that government is a necessary institution.

The labor-bill issue, as every Colorado businessman or woman should know by now, concerned moving the state closer to the status of 27 others that allow "all-union shops," which means all employees in a workplace must pay dues or fees to a union for its service to them as a bargaining unit.

"Right-to-work" states, 22 of them, don't allow that, and employees who don't want to be affiliated with a union don't have to pay even if a union bargains for them or protects their rights as workers.

Colorado is the only state in the nation that does allow the former, but requires a "super-majority" endorsement of the "all-union shop" by most workers in a specific company.

I've not heard "right-to-work" status debated in Colorado in all the 19 years I've worked in the state, probably because no one was very successful at trying to change the Colorado Labor Peace Act in all that time--until this year.

With a new Democratic governor in position to sign bills into law that come from two houses of the General Assembly whose majorities are also Democratic, a few labor activists felt the time was ripe for making a change in the law. Woe be to them!

They rushed a bill through the committee process in the House, but they got noticed because no one among the Democratic majority there seemed to object.

But Republicans caught on. And boy did they raise a stink!

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