La Plata County Sheriff’s deputies have submitted a petition to the state that may trigger a vote on unionization – a major step toward collective bargaining taken in accordance with a new law that went into effect July 1.
The state must find their petition sufficient before a vote can be held.
Keith McSweeney is the president of the Durango Lodge 8 Fraternal Order of Police, the professional organization for law enforcement officers that sometimes also facilitates the organization of collective bargaining units.
“The majority of deputy sheriffs in the Plata County Sheriff’s Office have been members of Lodge #8 Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) for decades so it was a natural progression for us to seek collective bargaining rights and be represented by the FOP after the Collective Bargaining for County Employees law went into effect,” he said in an email to The Durango Herald.
Employees of Colorado counties with more than 7,500 residents were afforded the right to unionize after the passage of legislation in 2022.
According to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s database, only the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office has voted to form a collective bargaining unit.
McSweeney said the FOP had collected the requisite signatures from 30% of the relevant employees and submitted a petition to the state as a “showing of interest,” which will trigger a secret-ballot election.
“We expect to have an election for the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office employees to formally vote to choose collective bargaining rights and select the FOP as their bargaining agent representative within the next couple of months,” he said.
At least 50% support from voting parties will be required to form a collective bargaining unit.
It remains unclear what specifics a hypothetical collective bargaining unit might seek to secure in an agreement, but the broad understanding is that the goal would largely be to secure the existing benefits and pay in place now.
McSweeney said the goal is to formalize negotiations regarding benefits, wages and working conditions for Sheriff’s Office staff.
“We also hope to improve communications and collaborations with county and Sheriff’s Office leadership in achieving common goals and improving service to this community,” he said.
In a voicemail to the Herald, Sheriff Sean Smith said that the impacts of a collective bargaining unit are unknown, given how new the law is.
“It will be a learning process for me and, I think, a learning process for them if they choose to go down that road, and for the county as a whole,” he said. “It’s all new to us, and we’re going to figure it out.”
In 2022, La Plata and Montezuma county commissioners joined many of their peers statewide to oppose the legislation and wrote in an opinion column saying it could cost the county between $6 million and $8 million in additional labor.
“To be clear, counties do not oppose collective bargaining as a policy tool – in fact several counties around the state have embraced collective bargaining and it is working well in those jurisdictions,” the letter read. “But, those are local decisions that should be left up to county commissions and their employees.”
In an interview Wednesday, County Manager Chuck Stevens stressed that the collective bargaining landscape is not good or bad, but culturally different for all parties.
“It’s just new,” he said.
He is not aware of any other county departments that have formally moved toward forming a collective bargaining unit.
In an email to the Herald, Director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics Scott Moss said that petitions must be kept confidential by law and he could not confirm the existence of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office petition.
However, he said that after a petition is filed, the division will post either the results of an election or a notice that the petition was found to be insufficient at the corresponding time.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
