In a November 15 editorial criticizing Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) executive order “Authorizing Partnership Agreements with State Employees,” The Gazette of Colorado Springs declared that an initiative similar to Ritter's implemented by the Clinton administration “produced nothing that we're aware of, in terms of freeing federal agencies from the grip of inertia and inefficiency.” However, a December 2000 report by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) found that a “significant number of agencies ... reported substantial improvements in productivity and efficiency” resulting from the partnerships formed under the auspices of President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12871.

Additionally, in questioning the credibility of “Ritter's assertion that the new 'partnerships' will lead to efficiency and innovation,” the Gazette misleadingly noted that "[t]here's absolutely nothing preventing rank-and-file workers from bringing their better government ideas to the attention of managers right now." In fact, recent news reporting has included state workers' comments that the absence of a structure for employee-management communication contributed to wasteful expenditures on flawed state computer systems that originated in the administration of Ritter's Republican predecessor, Bill Owens.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, Colorado media outlets have made numerous distortions related to Ritter's November 2 executive order.

From the editorial “Union made: Ritter throws bone to his political backers,” published November 15 in The Gazette of Colorado Springs:

For the second time in less than a year, Gov. Bill Ritter has gotten into political trouble by throwing a bone to his labor union friends. In this case, however, he didn't just throw them a bone, but a sirloin steak, by granting state employees de facto collective bargaining powers in an executive order issued late in the afternoon of Nov. 2.

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Ritter's critics point out that there's little need for enhanced union influence, since Colorado state employees rank ninth in the country in terms of pay and make 25 percent more than counterparts in neighboring states.

In addition, the order excludes supervisors from newly created “partnership units,” clears a path for unions to achieve exclusive bargaining rights and mandates that departments negotiate “in good faith” with the “certified employee organizations.” Perhaps this doesn't meet some legal definition of “collective bargaining,” but it certainly gives workers and unions powers they lacked previously.

Even less credible is Ritter's assertion that the new “partnerships” will lead to efficiency and innovation in government. There's absolutely nothing preventing rank-and-file workers from bringing their better government ideas to the attention of managers right now.

A similar partnership between federal workers and federal managers was announced during the Clinton years, as part of Al Gore's effort to “reinvent government.” But while this succeeded in muting union hostility to the Clinton initiative, it produced nothing that we're aware of, in terms of freeing federal agencies from the grip of inertia and inefficiency.

While the Gazette was technically correct in its assertion that "[t]here's absolutely nothing preventing rank-and-file workers from bringing their better government ideas to the attention of managers right now," the editorial ignored numerous recent news reports quoting state employees as saying that partnerships similar to those created by Ritter's order might have averted wasteful spending that arose in the Owens administration. For example, a November 4 Denver Post article quoted one state technology employee as stating specifically that the partnerships give workers “a voice” that they didn't have when they tried to warn managers about flawed computer systems that date to the Owens administration:

“We didn't have a voice, and now we do,” said Bill Cron, an information technology employee for the state Department of Transportation. “I'm ecstatic.”

Cron said he tried to speak up about a flawed computer system that cost the state millions of dollars, but he had no “voice at the table.”

Another November 4 Post article quoted the president of one union local as making the same specific connection:

Mitch Ackerman, president of Service Employees International Union Local 105, called the partnership with Kaiser [Permanente Colorado] a “21st century model of collective bargaining,” a departure from the traditionally adversarial relationship between managers and workers.

Ackerman said the governor's executive order is “a really important step forward” for the state because it will provide a vehicle for employees to offer suggestions for how government can operate more efficiently.

Citing the $300 million the state has spent on failed computer systems, staff time, legal work and other costs related to crashing computers, Ackerman said state employees -- if asked -- could have offered suggestions to prevent such problems.

The Rocky Mountain News on November 3 quoted another state technology worker as saying that the lack of partnerships such as those enabled by Ritter's order hindered their efforts to warn state officials about the massive computer problems:

Unionized employees point to some foiled attempts by fellow workers to alert managers to potential problems with new information technology systems in several departments of state government in recent years.

“When employees raised the flag, it fell on deaf ears,” said Dave Growley, a member of the Colorado Association of Public Employees who works in the Colorado Department of Public Administration's IT area.

While Growley and his co-workers have been able to join a union to advocate for them on topics such as health care, he said workers lack any formal representation.

“Right now, you can be part of a union, but you really have no partnership or ongoing relationship with the heads of government to make any difference,” he said.

Further, although the Gazette stated that the Clinton administration's 1993 executive order on “Labor-Management Partnerships” produced “nothing that we're aware of” regarding efficiency improvements, the OPM found in “Labor-Management Partnership: A Report to the President” that a “significant number of agencies ... reported substantial improvements in productivity and efficiency as a result of partnership”:

3. Productivity and Efficiency

Partnerships' impact on productivity and efficiency has varied widely, although more agencies reported gains here than they did for customer service or quality.

A significant number of agencies -- 16 in all -- reported substantial improvements in productivity and efficiency as a result of partnership. Another 8 agencies reported that partnership produced at least moderate gains in these areas. Fourteen agencies did not report anything at all in this category.

The OPM cited specific examples of productivity gains:

Here are some leading examples of productivity gains achieved through partnership:

• Operation Brass Ring was a joint effort by the Customs Service (part of the Treasury Department) and the National Treasury Employees Union to increase the amount of illegal narcotics seized at our borders. A seven-step strategy developed at a meeting of the Customs/NTEU National Partnership Council called on labor and management to create specific action plans at over 100 major land border and airport ports of entry. These joint action plans, implemented throughout the country, resulted in a 42% increase in the amount of illegal narcotics seized and a 74% increase in the amount of drug currency seized over the six-month life of the initiative.

Productivity gains like these are a hallmark of the Customs-NTEU partnership. A cost-benefit analysis of partnership conducted by Booz-Allen found that each $1.00 Customs spent on partnership between 1994-1998 returned a benefit of roughly $1.20 to the agency. Booz-Allen also found that even the intangible, non-monetary benefits of partnership helped to increase Customs' efficiency and effectiveness in meeting its mission.

• Between 1996 and 1998, the Defense Distribution Depot, San Joaquin, and AFGE Local 1546 reduced workplace accidents by 20% and ergonomic injuries by 40%, saving $950,000 annually. Labor and management have also cut overtime costs from $9.8 million in FY 1995 to $1.4 million in FY 1999. At the same time, production costs have been cut from an average of $25.42 per unit for FY 1995-1998 to $23.48 per unit in FY 1999.

• The VA Regional Office in Waco, Texas, serves almost 900,000 veterans and their families with annual benefit payments totaling $1 billion. A Regional Office partnership with AFGE Local 2571 was established in March 1998, marking the end of a hostile, litigation-filled labor-management history. Dramatic improvements in operations and services since then are attributed directly to the Regional Office's partnership. Labor and management have worked together to reduce the backlog of compensation and pension cases by almost 20 percent. The rate of lost calls has been cut from over one in five to less than one per hundred, and the number of blocked calls has fallen from 86% to zero. Today, 95 percent of customers are helped within 10 minutes of their arrival in the Regional Office.

The OPM report also noted improvements in the categories of customer service, quality, cost savings and cost avoidance, quality of worklife, and labor-management relations.