"They're timid. They're going to be attacked more and more if they don't stand up to the Legislature and say enough is enough."
That's how Utah AFL-CIO president Jeff Worthington described the Utah Education Association, Utah's largest teachers union, after they rejected his call for a strike to protest what labor leaders are calling a "union busting" bill passed by lawmakers this year.
HB267 takes away the collective bargaining rights for public employees like teachers, police officers and firefighters. Despite massive protest from union members, lawmakers passed the bill and Gov. Spencer Cox signed it into law.
Now, with their bargaining power stripped away, unions are planning a last-ditch effort to overturn the law through a referendum after the 2025 Legislature. The clock will be ticking: they'll have just 40 days to collect approximately 140,000 signatures to put the issue to voters.
Speaking on the "Special Session with Bryan Schott" podcast, Worthington revealed that in January he challenged leaders of the Utah Education Association (UEA) to go on strike to head off the legislation.
"Day one of the session, we met with our Utah One Coalition, which includes all the teachers and public service employees. And I challenged UEA on that day to go on strike. I said, this is when you need to step up to the plate and go on strike to oppose this bill. And they wouldn't, they just wouldn't," Worthington said.
Worthington said members of his union were prepared to offer support to a possible labor action by teachers, but UEA leaders balked.
"I told them, well, you know, a strike by the teachers would be a short-lived strike because when the teachers don't show up and the kids don't have anywhere to go, and the parents start getting mad, the parents start calling the legislators and things happen fast," Worthington said.
When asked to respond, a spokesperson for the Utah Education Association told Utah Political Watch that they do not comment on internal communications with their labor partners.
A statewide teacher strike has only happened twice before in Utah.
- In 1964, teachers walked out for two days in a dispute over school funding. It was one of the first statewide teacher strikes in the United States.
- About 20,000 teachers walked out for one day in 1989 to protest a decision by lawmakers to use a $38 million budget surplus for tax cuts instead of increasing public school funding.
Worthington pointed to a recent success story to make his case: When Park City Mountain ski patrol went on strike for 13 days in late December and January over wages and benefits, they "got everything they wanted" because they were willing to take action.
"They (the UEA) are timid. UEA just doesn't have the desire to strike, and it's a weakness. They're going to be attacked more and more if they don't show that they will bow their necks and stand up to the Legislature and say enough is enough."
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