The Aurora city councilman made headlines - as well as enemies - for sponsoring the controversial "right to work" ballot measure Amendment 47 this past November, and even though it lost at the polls, unions, many of which are vehemently against right to work, surely haven't forgotten.
Last week, the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, part of the powerful AFL-CIO union, asked the city of Aurora, as well Arvada and Commerce City, to provide them with the names and contact information for all their municipal employees. The move is unmistakable: Union officials are hoping to organize metro-area city employees - and it looks like they're starting with Frazier's home base.
Is this payback? Frazier, for one, doesn't think so. "I think this is just an indicator that the national labor leaders have targeted Colorado and the West," he says.
In that regard, Amendment 47 may have inadvertently encouraged big labor to set its sites on the state, since the ballot measure's 10-point loss may have indicated to them that Colorado residents are supportive of the union cause.
But if Big Labor is hoping to also get back at their election-day foe by unionizing Aurora, Frazier has some bad news for them. "As far as I am concerned, [the employees] have every right to unionize, as long as we respect their ability to make the choice themselves," he says. "We'll see how it all turns out." - Joel Warner
