Negotiations for the Boulder County Employees Union have begun after a judge denied a motion seeking to delay the process.
Boulder County Public Health (BCPH) and Boulder County Housing Authority (BCHA) filed the motion last month asking to pause bargaining until the suit — filed by the county, BCPH and BCHA — seeking to exclude BCPH and BCHA from the union is decided. The county has said that an earlier decision by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) to allow the two agencies to be included is based on a “misinterpretation of how the county is structured.”
The plaintiffs argued in the motion that beginning negotiations before a ruling on the suit would force BCPH and BCHA to choose between sitting out negotiations (and therefore losing their say in the terms of their staff’s employment) or expending resources to participate, which “could reach” $25,000 per agency.
The court found that BCPH and BCHA failed to demonstrate that irreparable harm — the legal standard for a stay — would occur if negotiations proceeded. According to the denial, both the financial and non-financial harms of beginning the process were “speculative.”
The court also found that “the interests of Defendants and Boulder County employees who are members of the collective bargaining unit — or, at a minimum, all members other than BCPH and BCHA employees — would be adversely affected by the stay requested by BCPH and BCHA.”
The collective bargaining process began May 19 and includes BCPH and BCHA.
“The court challenge by Boulder County, BCPH, and BCHA continues,” county spokesperson Gloria Handyside wrote in an email. “Boulder County is not contesting the existence of the union itself or the results of the election for Boulder County employees, but rather the discrete point where Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) interpreted Collective Bargaining by County Employees Act to include BCPH and BCHA employees in the bargaining unit.”
Editor’s note: This article previously stated that the county, along with BCPH and BCHA, filed the motion to pause bargaining. The county is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, but did not file this specific motion. The county did not oppose the motion, according to the filing.