An anti-union right to work bill sponsored by state Sen. Tim Neville, R-Littleton, was briefly turned on its head Friday in the Republican-controlled Senate when an amendment submitted by pro-labor Sen. Jessie Ulibarri, D-Westminster, gained unanimous support even though it stripped Neville’s bill, SB16-070, of all the crucial right-to-work language that defined it.

Neville, speaking from the dais, told his members it was a friendly amendment and then, in what Ulibarri later tongue-in-cheek called a “kumbaya moment,” the full membership of the sharply divided chamber voted to gut Neville’s bill and to add protections for workers who support union policies against employer retaliation.

Democrats, their faces painted in broad smiles, huddled around the front of the chamber.

Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, acting as a chair of the committee of the whole, called for a short recess, and Republicans regrouped.

“Did anybody actually read the amendment,” Neville asked Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and Majority Leader Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Sedalia, in a huddle on the edge of the Senate floor.

Ulibarri’s amendment asked lawmakers to replace language in the bill that would have freed employees across the state from joining or remaining members of a labor organization with language that Ulibarri said better fit the bill’s title. Officially, the bill “concerns the prohibition of discrimination against employees based on labor union participation.”

Here’s Neville’s language meant to thin labor participation and control:

Here is Ulibarri’s amended language, meant to protect union supporters from pressure brought by employers:

In conversation with The Colorado Statesman, Neville played down the floor events, saying that end result is what matters.

“There are two or three ways to skin a cat,” he said. “It was what it was.”

Neville restored the intent of his bill while leaving Ulibarri’s language on protecting employees as well.

Early on Neville and Ulibarri sparred over what the bill was really about and whether the Senate was having an honest conversation.

Labor union workplace and electoral power has been championed for decades by Democratic lawmakers and targeted for decades by conservative lawmakers and pro-employer interest groups.

Ulibarri said Neville’s bill wasn’t at all about addressing discrimination problems against workers. Ulibarri had nine amendments prepared to introduce in debate but only offered four of those in the event.

Senators engaged in a duel of data that suggested that “right-to-work” states were either better off or worse off.

Colorado is not a right-to-work state but it is not a full union state either. It’s a “good balance,” said Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton. “We’re not considered pro-union or an anti-union,” she said.

The bottom line, said Neville, is that if members of the workforce don’t want to unionize, they shouldn’t have to.

— kara@coloradostatesman.com