Colorado lawmakers are facing impossible choices this budget season. Fund education or health care? Invest in infrastructure or public safety?

But there’s a budget-buster legislators rarely mention by name — government union contracts.

Since Gov. Jared Polis signed collective bargaining into law for state employees in 2020, personnel costs have exploded. Next year’s union-negotiated raises alone will cost taxpayers about $60 million.

This statewide union, voted in by the legislature and not the employees, is a bankroll for union corporations at the taxpayers’ expense. 

When this legislation was passed, those who testified in favor were various activist groups and union leaders who stood to gain massively — not the public employees themselves. And now, nearly six years later, as Colorado’s government jobs grow exponentially month after month, their union membership is stagnant.

Despite stagnant membership, Colorado WINS hasn’t gone bankrupt. Why? Because collective bargaining is expensive for the employer, not the union. Every percentage point in union pay increases costs roughly $17 million from the General Fund.

The state workforce has grown faster than overall budget growth, with positions tied directly to union-negotiated staffing obligations.

This is unsustainable.

Thanks to Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, residents are protected from excessive government spending. It caps budget growth and requires voter approval for tax increases. That forces fiscal discipline and keeps politicians accountable.

Good employees doing good work deserve competitive pay. But what happens when government unions negotiate generous contracts that lock in automatic annual raises and staffing increases with no consideration to the state’s budget health or the merit of an employee’s work?

Those costs are baked into the budget as fixed expenses, and union contracts eat up more of the budget each year. Everything else faces cuts.

Standard practice for government union contracts is to negotiate salaries and staffing year by year because budgets change. Instead, Colorado’s unions have locked in automatic increases that compound regardless of fiscal reality.

Road repairs. School funding. Health-care programs. Public safety initiatives. Union contracts come first, and the priorities that matter to Colorado families get cut.

The budget doesn’t always highlight exactly how much of the increase goes to public employee compensation. You have to dig through legislative budget documents to find the real numbers. And even then, the line items make it hard to separate union-negotiated increases from other personnel costs.

Government unions are not just negotiating contracts; they’re working to elect the politicians who sit across the table from them.

In Denver’s 2025 school board elections, the Colorado Education Association — aka the CEA, the state’s largest teachers union — put money into independent expenditure committees to elect its candidates to all four open seats, and the scheme succeeded. Total spending topped $1.6 million — higher than the nearly $1.4 million spent in 2023, when only three seats were on the ballot.

Beyond Denver, CEA and other local teacher unions spend hundreds of thousands of dues dollars in districts from Jeffco, to Mesa 51, to Woodland Park.

Then there’s Colorado WINS, the union representing state employees. After gaining certification, they created small donor committees that were very active in defending Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

A union that negotiates with Democratic legislators is spending money to keep those same Democrats in power.

The people who negotiate your compensation package are the same ones your union just spent millions to elect. How is that an arm’s-length transaction?

Unions collect millions in member dues then funnel that money into independent expenditure committees to bypass candidate contribution limits. They elect politicians who give them generous contracts.

Those contracts drain the state budget. Taxpayers foot the bill. The cycle repeats itself.

And it’s not just Colorado union money anymore. National unions are importing resources into the state to influence both candidate races and ballot measures.

The NEA, AFT, AFSCME and SEIU all have Colorado affiliates, and they all pour money into state politics to protect and expand union power.

A single ballot measure alone saw over $4 million of NEA money stand in opposition.

The 2024 school choice initiative would have secured choice for students and teachers across the state, but those choices deny unions additional dues.       

The unions know they’re on shaky ground. Their membership and the state budget alike are struggling. That’s why they keep trying to gut Colorado’s so-called “Labor Peace Act.”

In 2023 the Colorado Legislature decided to include certain public employees in the “Labor Peace Act,” giving many local government agencies a clearer path to unionization.

The “Labor Peace Act” requires a second vote with 75% approval before a union can mandate dues or fees from nonmembers. It ensures that unions have strong worker support before they can force everyone to pay.

It’s been Colorado law for decades, reflecting what should be a basic principle — that workers should have a real choice about whether to fund a union.

Public polling shows 70% of Coloradans don’t want to eliminate this second vote requirement. The governor vetoed a union-backed bill last year that would have weakened these protections.

Union-backed lawmakers keep trying anyway. Bills to remove the second vote requirement keep appearing in the legislature, session after session. This year, wasting no time, the recycled bill was introduced on the first day of the legislative session.

They know that if they can eliminate that 75% threshold, they can force more workers to pay dues even if those workers don’t support the union. It’s about money and power, not worker representation.

Union bosses care more about their own power than what workers or voters want. The repeated attempts to kill the “Labor Peace Act” prove it.

Government unions spend millions electing union-friendly Democrats to the state legislature and governor’s mansion. Those Democrats pass laws allowing collective bargaining for state workers.

Unions negotiate contracts with automatic raises, step increases, and staffing mandates. Those contracts lock in tens of millions in annual costs.

Unions use their resources and membership dues to elect more union-supporting politicians.

At a time when the state is facing a fiscal crisis, Colorado taxpayers are funding a system where government unions have captured the budget process.

They’re not just another special-interest group lobbying for favorable treatment. They’re active participants in elections, spending millions to install the politicians who will negotiate their contracts. They’re writing the rules of the game while playing it.

This is not how a representative government is supposed to work. Elected officials are supposed to represent the public interest, not negotiate deals with the same organizations that funded their campaigns.

Coloradans deserve to know exactly how much of their tax dollars fund union-negotiated contracts. Budgets should clearly break down personnel cost increases and specify which portions are driven by collective bargaining agreements.

Right now, that information is buried in budget documents most people will never read.

State employees deserve the freedom to choose whether to join a union without facing mandatory fees or pressure tactics. The “Labor Peace Act” should be strengthened, not weakened. Workers should have real choices, not ultimatums from union bosses.

Taxpayers also deserve a budget process that prioritizes essential services over special interests. When roads get potholes, schools need funding and health-care access is left lacking — while public employee compensation grows faster than the overall budget — something is broken.

The next time a Colorado lawmaker tries to tell you there’s no money for roads, schools or health care, ask how much of the budget is locked up in government union contracts.

Then ask who funded that lawmaker’s campaign. Ask why they keep trying to eliminate workplace freedom protections that 70% of Coloradans support.

Coloradans deserve answers.

Aaron Withe is chief executive officer of the Olympia, Wash.-based Freedom Foundation.