Utah legislative Republicans torpedo public employee unions

In a stunning reversal, Utah Senate Republicans voted Thursday to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights, abruptly ending weeks of negotiations and dealing a devastating blow to organized labor in the state. The sudden about-face came just days after lawmakers had signaled their willingness to compromise, leaving union representatives reeling.

The controversial bill, HB267, had been fast-tracked through the first two weeks of the 2025 session despite fierce opposition from union members. The legislation effectively eliminates unions' ability to negotiate contracts with public entities, a right they've held for decades.

Legislative Republicans were fast-tracking HB267 through the first two weeks of the 2025 session despite massive opposition from union members. The bill took away the rights of public employee unions to negotiate contracts with public entities on behalf of members.

Late last week, Senate Republicans seemingly relented on the anti-union push, proposing a watered-down version of the bill that kept the right of collective bargaining in place, but required a recertification vote by union members to determine whether they wanted the union to continue bargaining on their behalf.

Republicans had hoped the revised legislation would quell opposition or, at the least, unions would be publicly neutral about the bill.

“The hope and the goal when I presented this last week was that there was going to be some sort of a consensus and have a lot of the stakeholders, at a minimum, go neutral on the bill if not support the bill,” Sen. Kirk Cullimore said on Thursday morning.

“It felt like we were really close. Now I have to come to you and apologize that we did not get there.”

Jeff Worthington, President of the Utah AFL-CIO, confirmed that negotiations did come quite close to a resolution. He tells Utah Political Watch that they had agreed to five of the six main provisions in the proposed substitute. The sticking point was the requirement that every member of a union cast a ballot in the vote to reauthorize collective bargaining.

“If you got a union that’s got 2,000 members in it, the recertification process required that all 2,000 members in that unit had to cast a vote. If they did not vote, it would count as a no vote,” Worthington explained.

“Instead of having that 100% participation from a union, we asked to just go by the democratic way of voting and you go with a 50+1% of all the people that cast a vote. They would not agree to that even though that is how they got elected.”

Proponents claimed that there was widespread support behind eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employees, but were hard pressed to come back that up when challenged.

In one remarkable exchange on the Senate floor, Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Salt Lake City, said Salt Lake City and County did not support the bill, nor was Granite School District.

“If this isn’t coming from the cities, the county or the school districts, what problem are you solving?” Riebe asked Cullimore.

Cullimore dodged the question.

“When you have government employees negotiating with other government employees, you don’t have market forces underlying those negotiations. You’re negotiating against yourself to the detriment of the taxpayer, and that’s what this policy is looking to address,” Cullimore replied.

Republicans were also irked that union members continued to flood them with messages opposing the bill even though the unions themselves had agreed to remain neutral.

“It was communicated to me that there would be a neutral position based on the negotiations. But the stream of emails and texts never stopped. That’s not neutral,” Sen. Calvin Musselman complained.

“I thought we had a landing place. We clearly did not.”

Worthington did not hold back when asked about his reaction to Thursday’s vote.

“I am completely appalled at the Utah legislature right now and the way that they have handled this. I am just almost speechless that they did not have the backbone to kill this bill when it’s a direct attack on Utah’s public sector that serves this state, serves this city and takes care of the people here. They have just thrown them a death blow.”

The Utah Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said they were disappointed by the Senate vote, and they hope that Gov. Spencer Cox vetoes the bill once it reaches his desk.

“Governor Cox has repeatedly stated that he is a proud supporter of teachers and public educators—this is his chance to prove it. We call on him to show up for teachers, listen to public employees and reject policies that weaken our ability to advocate for fair working conditions and quality public services,” the UEA said in a statement.

Cox has 10 days to either sign or veto the bill, or let it go into effect without his signature.

In addition to pressuring the governor for a veto, there are a few other moves still available to unions. Since the legislation did not pass with a 2/3 majority in either the House or Senate, unions could launch a referendum effort to overturn the bill at the ballot box. Plus, there’s always the possibility that unions could call for a strike.

Worthington wouldn’t commit to any course of action but would not rule anything out.

“There’s a lot of talks that need to be had right now. There are a lot of things that we still need to address. I won’t say right now what the future plans are, but there’s nothing off the table yet.”