By

Dan Pilcher

CACI Senior Vice President

& Chief Operating Officer

Phone: 303.866-9600

E-Mail: dpilcher@COchamber.com

September 16, 2008

CACI Urges Members

To Strongly Oppose Four Anti-Business Ballot Initiatives

The November 4th ballot will contain four anti-business ballot proposals, which are opposed by CACI and which will severely harm Colorado employers and damage state and local economic development efforts:

• #53, which would hold a business executive criminally liable if his or her company did not carry out a duty required by law and the executive knew about this.

• #55, the so-called “just cause” amendment, that (a) would bar companies from firing or suspending a full-time worker except for specific (just cause) reasons and (b) would allow such workers to sue the employer if they thought that they had been unjustly suspended or fired.

• #56, which would mandate that (a) companies with 20 or more workers would either have to provide major medical insurance to workers and their dependents or pay for such insurance through a new state health insurance authority; (b) workers pay no more than 20 percent of the cost of the insurance coverage for themselves and nor more than 30 percent for their dependents; and (c) require the legislature to create the new state health insurance authority and establish minimum standards for the health insurance plans.

• #57, which would let injured workers sue employers outside of the workers’ compensation system and require companies to maintain a “safe and healthy workplace.”

CACI urges all employers and their workers to closely examine these ballot measures to learn how they will drastically harm the state’s economy and its ability to create and maintain jobs if the proposals are approved by the voters.

CACI will soon be sending its members a brochure explaining why the four measures will hurt Colorado’s economy.  The brochure also will be available as a downloadable file from the CACI Web site.

Newspaper Coverage

Here’s a recent column on Amendment 55 by Vincent Carroll, Editorial Page Editor of The Rocky Mountain News:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/09/

carroll-ritter-needs-to-step-up-and-step-on-55/

In the Sept. 12-18 issue of The Denver Business Journal, reporter Bob Mook examines the implications of Amendments 53 and 57:

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/09/15/story1.html

Informational Resources

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Web site lists all approved ballot measures.  Click on each one to obtain the ballot title (the language that will appear on the ballot) and the proposed amendment:

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

The Legislative Council’s famous “Blue Book” will be mailed this fall to every registered voter in the state and contains a staff analysis of each measure plus the pro/con arguments:

http://www.leg.state.co.us/LCS/InitRefr/0708InitRefr.nsf/

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The Mountain States Employers Council, which is mutually affiliated with CACI, has analyzed the four anti-business measures in detail, but a company must be a member of MSEC to access the information:

www.msec.org

Business Campaign Committee Opposes Amendments 53, 55, 56 and 57

For information on the business campaign committee, Coloradans for Responsible Reform, that is opposing the four initiatives, visit:

http://www.nopoisonpills.com/

Amendments 53 and 55 are being advocated by the Colorado AFL-CIO and various allies.  Amendments 56 and 57 are being advocated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 and sundry partners.

NOTE: Proponents of a ballot measure have until 33 days before the election to withdraw their proposal.