2023 Colorado Revised Statutes › Title 8 - LABOR AND INDUSTRY (§§ 8-1-101 — 8-88-207) › LABOR I - DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT (§§ 8-1-101 — 8-20.5-401) › LABOR RELATIONS (§§ 8-2-101 — 8-3.8-101) › Article 3 - LABOR PEACE ACT (§§ 8-3-101 — 8-3-123) › Section 8-3-104 - Definitions

As used in this article 3, unless the context otherwise requires:
(1)
(a)
"Agricultural employer" means a person that:
(I)
Regularly engages the services of one or more employees or contracts with any person who recruits, solicits, hires, employs, furnishes, or transports employees; and
(II)
Is engaged in any service or activity included in section 203 (f) of the federal "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938",
29 U.S.C. sec. 201
et seq., as amended, or engaged in "agricultural labor" as defined in section 3121 (g) of the federal "Internal Revenue Code of 1986", as amended.
(b)
The meaning of "agricultural employer" must be liberally construed for the protection of persons providing services to an employer.
(1.5)
"All-union agreement" means a contractual provision between an employer or group of employers and a collective bargaining unit representing some or all of the employees of the employer or group of employers providing for any type of union security and compelling an employee's financial support or allegiance to a labor organization. "All-union agreement" includes, but is not limited to, a contractual provision for a union shop, a modified union shop, an agency shop (meaning a contractual provision that provides for periodic payment of a sum in lieu of union dues but does not require union membership), a modified agency shop, a prehire agreement, maintenance of dues, or maintenance of membership.
(2)
"Authority" means the state of Colorado; any board, commission, agency, or instrumentality thereof; or any district, municipality, city and county, county, or combination thereof, which acquires or operates a mass transportation system.
(3)
"Collective bargaining" means negotiation by an employer and the representative of a majority of his employees who are in a collective bargaining unit or their representatives concerning representation or terms and conditions of employment of such employees in a mutually genuine effort to reach an agreement with reference to the subject under negotiation.
(4)
"Collective bargaining unit" means an organization selected by secret ballot, as provided in section
8-3-107
, by a majority vote of the employees of one employer employed within the state who vote at an election for the selection of such unit; except that, where a majority of such employees engaged in a single craft, division, department, or plant have voted by secret ballot that the employees of such single craft, division, department, or plant shall constitute their collective bargaining unit, it shall be so considered. Two or more collective bargaining units may bargain collectively through the same representative or where a majority of the employees in each separate unit have voted to do so by secret ballot, as provided in section
8-3-107
.
(5) and (6)
Repealed.
(7)
"Company union" means an organization of employees, the members of which are the employees of only one employer.
(8)
"Director" means the director of the division of labor standards and statistics.
(9)
"Division" means the division of labor standards and statistics in the department of labor and employment.
(10)
"Election" means a proceeding in which the employees authorized by this article cast a secret ballot to select a collective bargaining unit or for any other purpose specified in this article, including elections conducted by the division of labor standards and statistics or by any tribunal having competent jurisdiction or whose jurisdiction has been accepted by the parties.
(11)
(a)
"Employee" includes any person:
(I)
Working for another for hire in the state of Colorado in a nonexecutive or nonsupervisory capacity, and is not limited to the employees of a particular employer and includes any individual whose work has ceased solely as a consequence of or in connection with any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice on the part of an employer; and
(II)
(A)
Who has not refused or failed to return to work upon the final disposition of a labor dispute or a charge of an unfair labor practice by a tribunal having competent jurisdiction of the same or whose jurisdiction was accepted by the employee or the employee's representative;
(B)
Who has not been found to have committed or to have been a party to any unfair labor practice under this article 3;
(C)
Who has not obtained regular and substantially equivalent employment elsewhere; or
(D)
Who has not been absent from the person's employment for a substantial period of time during which reasonable expectancy of settlement has ceased, except by an employer's unlawful refusal to bargain, and whose place has been filled by another engaged in the regular manner for an indefinite or protracted period and not merely for the duration of a strike or lockout.
(b)
"Employee" does not include:
(I)
An independent contractor;
(II)
Domestic servants employed in and about private homes;
(III)
An individual employed by the individual's parent or spouse;
(IV)
An employee who is subject to the federal "Railway Labor Act",
45 U.S.C. sec. 151
et seq., as amended; or
(V)
A parent, spouse, or child of an agricultural employer's immediate family.
(12)
(a)
(I)
"Employer" means a person who regularly engages the services of eight or more employees, other than persons within the classes expressly exempted under the terms of subsection (11) of this section.
(II)
"Employer" includes:
(A)
Any person acting on behalf of an employer within the scope of the employer's authority, express or implied; and
(B)
An agricultural employer.
(b)
"Employer" does not include the state or any political subdivision thereof, except where the state or any political subdivision thereof acquires or operates a mass transportation system or any carrier by railroad, express company, or sleeping car company subject to the federal "Railway Labor Act",
45 U.S.C. sec. 151
et seq., as amended, or any labor organization or anyone acting in behalf of such organization other than when the employer is acting as an employer-in-fact.
(13)
(a)
"Labor dispute" means any controversy between an employer and such of his employees as are organized in a collective bargaining unit concerning the rights or process or details of collective bargaining. The entering into of a contract for an all-union agreement or the refusal of an employer to enter into an all-union agreement shall not constitute a labor dispute. It shall not be a labor dispute where the disputants do not stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. No jurisdictional dispute or controversy between two or more unions as to which of them has or shall have jurisdiction over certain kinds of work; or as to which of two or more bargaining units constitutes the collective bargaining unit as to which the employer stands impartial or ready to negotiate or bargain with whichever is legally determined to be such bargaining unit, shall constitute a labor dispute.
(b)
The general right of an employer to select his own employees is recognized and shall be fully protected. It shall not constitute a labor dispute if an employer discharges or refuses to employ an employee on account of incompetence, neglect of work, unsatisfactory service, or dishonesty; but the discharge of an employee or the refusal to employ an employee shall constitute a labor dispute only when such discharge or refusal to employ is founded upon membership in a union or labor organization or activity therein or when such discharge or failure to employ is in violation of a contract.
(c)
No controversy between an employer and his employee shall constitute a labor dispute until after a bargaining unit in accordance with this article is created and a dispute arises between the bargaining unit and the employer.
(d)
No labor dispute shall arise from the refusal of an employer to join a union or to cease work in his own business.
(14)
"Local union" means an organization of employees employed in this state, the membership of which includes employees of one or more employers, whether or not they are affiliated with an organization of employees employed in one or more other states.
(15)
"Mass transportation system" means any system which transports the general public by bus, rail, or any other means of conveyance moving along prescribed routes, except any railroad subject to the federal "Railway Labor Act",
45 U.S.C. sec. 151
et seq.
(16)
"Person" includes one or more individuals, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, or receivers.
(17)
"Representative" includes any person who is the duly authorized agent of a collective bargaining unit.
(18)
"Secondary boycott" includes causing or threatening to cause, and combining or conspiring to cause or threaten to cause, injury to one not a party to the particular labor dispute, to aid which such boycott is initiated or continued, whether by:
(a)
Withholding patronage, labor, or other beneficial business intercourse;
(b)
Picketing;
(c)
Refusing to handle, install, use, or work on particular materials, equipment, or supplies; or
(d)
Any other unlawful means in order to bring him against his will into a concerted plan to coerce or inflict damage upon another or to compel the party with whom the labor dispute exists to comply with any particular demands.
Amended by 2021 Ch. 337,§ 2, eff. 6/25/2021.
Amended by 2016 Ch. 131,§ 9, eff. 8/10/2016.
L. 43: p. 394, § 2. CSA: C. 97, § 94(2). CRS 53: § 80-5-2. C.R.S. 1963: § 80-4-2. L. 65: p. 810, § 1. L. 69: pp. 594, 731, §§ 72, 2. L. 77: (1) R&RE, p. 419, § 1, effective June 29. L. 86: (5) and (6) repealed, p. 502, § 125, effective July 1. L. 96: (11)(f) added, p. 293, § 1, effective April 12. L. 2016: (8), (9), and (10) amended, (HB 16-1323), ch. 377, p. 377, § 9, effective August 10.