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[The Asshole]

was just reviewing the election results when i noticed a few of the amendments were missing......c hecked out the ballot website
COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE ELECTIONS CENTER

[url]http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=1035[url]

Notice of Withdrawn Petitions
Amendments 53, 55, 56 and 57 have been withdrawn by their respective proponents. According to state law, proponents may withdraw an initiative up to 33 days before Election Day (§ 1-40-134, C.R.S.). Because the ballots were already printed by the time Amendments 53, 55, 56 and 57 were withdrawn, these four withdrawn Amendments will still appear on your ballot. However, no votes cast for or against these amendments will be reported in any way. If you have any questions about these withdrawn Amendments, please contact the Election Division at (303) 894-2200.

withdrawn on october 2, 2008
Amendment 53: Formerly Proposed Initiative #74   
(Liability of Business Entities and Their Executive Officials - Criminal Liability)
Amendment 55: Formerly Proposed Initiative #76   
(Just Cause for Employee Discharge or Suspension)
Amendment 56: Formerly Proposed Initiative #92   
(Employer Responsibility for Health Insurance)
Amendment 57: Formerly Proposed Initiative #93   
(Safe Workplace)
 

seriously these were inportant issues, so carelessly thrown out......
53 held execs like those of enron to be prosecuted for "cooking-the-books" which is not actually illegal.
55 changed the stat from an AT WILL employment state (employee is employed at the will of the employer and can be discharged without cause or reason) to a right to work state (can't be fired without a just cause)
56 employer MUST have an available benefits package if thgey have more than 20 employees.....(same asn normal bens... employee pays premiums/deductables etc)
57 employer must provide a safe working enviroment.... um duh.


   
 
 
 

[Heineken]

Gotta love big brother

[VWO4L]

This wasn't really news, but it was a bit frustrating that those amendments were still on the ballots at many places.  They were where I voted.

They were removed by the people who placed them on the ballot due to some sort of strange blackmailing scheme.

I recall hearing about it over the past few weeks but didn't' pay too much attention to it.

Here's a little bit of info I found through a google search.

Finally, there is news on Amendments 53,55,56 and 57, all of which are pro-union measures. Due to a back room deal with the business community, these pro-union measures have been canceled. Unfortunately, it was an odd deal that was struck allowing the removal.

    The four canceled measures were withdrawn from the ballot as part of a deal last week between business and labor groups in Denver. In exchange for pulling the pro-labor measures from the ballot, the labor groups have accepted $3 million from business groups to fight Amendment 47, the so-called right-to-work measure that would bar employers from requiring new workers to join unions as a condition of their employment. That’s right — business and labor interests struck a somewhat bizarre deal (some have already called it an unholy alliance) to remove several onerous measures from the state ballot; the good news for voters is that there are fewer complex issues to consider.

That was from here: http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/10/12/update-on-colorados-amendment-propositions-47-49-54/

So, I'm also looking for a more mainstream version of the story, but that's actually pretty accurate to everything else I heard.

[VWO4L]

Found another: http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/09/29/daily46.html

For what it's worth, I would have been against all 4 of those amendments.  The simple one-liners you have above hardy tell the full story.  They sound great from an employee perspective, but things change dramatically when you realize that no business is going to want to hire you because of them.

Here are the breakdowns of those amendments by the Denver Business Journal, http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/10/06/editorial1.html

• Amendment 53, establishing a wide range of what are now acts of potential civil misconduct on the part of corporate executives as criminal offenses, prosecutable by local district attorneys. The existing guards against wrongdoing by executives are sufficient; this proposal would make Colorado untenable as a place to do business or operate a nonprofit.

• Amendment 55, requiring most employers to offer “just cause” before they can let someone go, eliminating the concept of Colorado as an “at will” employment state. In other words, businesses simply couldn’t fire anyone except in a narrowly defined set of circumstances, which again, is an untenable situation for any business.

We don’t think the scenario offered by the Economic Development Council of Colorado — that economic-development agencies might as well close — is an exaggeration. No business is going to want to operate under these conditions.

• Amendment 56, requiring all employers with more than 20 workers on their payroll to provide health insurance. Health care is a serious issue for business, but this isn’t the way to address it.

Aside from the obvious disincentive this amendment poses on businesses to limit payrolls to just 20 employees, the proposal would redefine what level of health care coverage all businesses would have to offer employees, eliminating the ability of businesses to creatively package benefits and premiums to match employees’ needs.

• Amendment 57, the so-called “safe workplace” amendment, which throws Colorado’s well-run workers’ compensation system out the window in favor of a tort-based system that will do nothing to improve worker safety and compensation, and will only clog the already crowded courts.

[The Asshole]

hmmm unions and bussiness paid  labor groups to stifle pro-labor rights, anti union amendments... gotta love america...

[Smokestack]

57 was the only one I was voting yes on, only because it would have helped me in my situation. It allows employees hurt on the job to sue their employer for an unsafe work environment. Currently workers comp takes care of this, but IMHO does beyond a horrendous job of it. Really, Colorado's worker's comp laws need a serious re-do, but this would at least allow some help until then. A good example is myself. I hurt both of my hands at work in April of this year. For my troubles I recieved $400 and a "you could improve with time" diagnosis from a doctor. No lawyer would touch my case because the maximum pay-out for my injury is $4000, and that's if I had NO use of my hands. I am now stuck with Sedentary work (Wal-mart greeter) or Light duty work (desk job at best) after spending the past 10 years in either hands on automotive or hands on construction work. I couldn't sell water to a dehydrated man in the desert and, even though I keep trying it, I'm not very good in management. Going from earning over $40k a year by myself to living just off of the wife's $15k a year salary is causing some major upheavals in my life that worker's comp insurance was supposed to take care of. It'd at least be nice to have the funds to get through retraining myself in a new profession.

[The Asshole]

none of these amendments would have effected any bussiness that was doing things properly and was on the up and up..... think it sucks those were all very good pieces of legislation.