Steamboat Springs — Since the late 1800s, unions have helped develop our blue-collared middle class through successfully negotiating for better wages, benefits and safer working conditions from management that has not always given these up easily. Yet, it is time for employees in Colorado to have a free choice of whether to join a union when they accept employment with a company rather than being forced to join and pay what is now, in some unions, approaching $100 a month in dues. Today’s union leaders often go their own way, not meeting individual members’ needs or philosophies. Thus, Colorado’s workers should have a choice of union membership like others have in about 23 states. This will cause union leaders to be more responsive to members’ needs. Vote “yes” on Amendment 47.

Frank Roitsch

Hayden