Senate abandons compromise with unions, passes ban on public sector collective bargaining

This story has been updated. 

The Utah Senate narrowly passed a bill mired in controversy Thursday that strips public sector unions of their ability to collectively bargain. 

Lawmakers who supported HB267 say it will give a greater voice to public employees, while protecting taxpayer resources; union advocates argue it will make public workplaces less safe, stripping unions of their teeth and making it more difficult to advocate for better working conditions. 

The vote marks the end of a rollercoaster two weeks, which included tense debate and a compromise that was ultimately abandoned, where lawmakers had proposed an amendment that would have allowed unions to collectively bargain if they could get enough support from all employees.

HB267’s sponsor in the Senate, Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, told his colleagues that he was discussing a compromise with unions during the first round of votes. Senate rules require each bill be voted on twice, and to win over his more skeptical colleagues on the initial vote, Cullimore promised he would work on an amendment. 

But union support for the compromise “never materialized,” he said. So rather than work on a carve out, he pursued the original version on the second vote.

After debate, the bill passed with a 16-13 vote. Seven Republicans — Lincoln Fillmore of South Jordan, Wayne Harper of Taylorsville, David Hinkins of Ferron, Anne Milner of Ogden, Daniel Thatcher of West Valley City, Evan Vickers of Cedar City, and Ron Winterton of Roosevelt, — joined the Senate’s six Democrats to vote “no.”  

The bill now heads to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk. A spokesperson for the governor on Thursday said Cox has been following the debate closely, and will continue to review the bill now that it passed. He did not say whether the governor supports the bill, and the statement did not rule out a veto.

One of the session’s most controversial bills  

HB267, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, and Cullimore in the Senate, is one of the most controversial bills to pass the legislature in recent years. 

It would prevent public sector unions from collective bargaining — meaning unions that represent teachers, firefighters, police officers, road maintenance crews, municipal and county workers, and more — will no longer be able to meet with their employers to negotiate employment contracts. 

Lawmakers say they’ve never seen such opposition to a bill. “I have received thousands and thousands of emails. And I have not received one that has asked me to pass this bill,” said Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, on Thursday. 

Scores of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees spoke in opposition to the bill during committee meetings; a Utah Education Association petition gathered more than 13,000 signatures urging a “no” vote; a crowd of nearly 300 people packed the halls of the Capitol last week chanting “the union makes us strong”; and after the passage on Thursday, union representatives and advocates gathered outside of the Senate, some tearful, to express their anger. 

“Utah is less safe now,” said Jack Tidrow, president of the Professional Firefighters of Utah. 

Cullimore said the bill protects taxpayers — government employees who are negotiating with other government employees don’t always have the taxpayer’s best interests in mind when working on employment contracts, he said. “In the early times of our country, labor unions were never contemplated to be in the public sector,” he said on Thursday.  

Cullimore and Teuscher also framed the bill as an attempt to give greater voice to public employees, not all of whom are represented by a union. If a teachers union only represents one third of the employees in a school district, it shouldn’t be able to negotiate employment contracts on behalf of everyone, they said. 

Currently, just Salt Lake City’s police and fire departments, and a handful of the state’s school districts, have unions that engage in collective bargaining. 

“More than 99% of all the unions that currently exist today do not do collective bargaining,” said Cullimore. “All the services that they provide their members, the services they provide employees, all the education and training that they do, will still be available.”

‘They don’t listen to their constituents’ 

Lawmakers repeatedly framed the opposition to the bill as a simple misunderstanding, at times blaming unions for not communicating with their members. When asked about Tidrow’s comments that the bill makes Utah less safe, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said that sentiment is “a good example of the lack of communication.”

“When 90% of the unions don’t use collective bargaining, then they go out and say, everybody’s unsafe. That seems like a broad brush comment that isn’t accurate. I mean, how can it be accurate if they aren’t using collective bargaining now?” Adams said.

But just because a union doesn’t collectively bargain now doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. That was the argument from union representatives who have protested the bill since its first committee hearing.

Now that the legislature has stripped unions of their ability to negotiate with employers, they fear that cities, counties, school districts and other entities that employ public workers won’t need to listen to their concerns, might feel empowered to keep wages stagnant, or could impose policies that negatively impact working conditions.

“By having it available, it provides a mechanism for the unions to continue to work closely with those employers. I think that’s where the problem is,” said Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City. “I recognize that many of them do not utilize that, but it’s leverage they do have.”

That’s why so many union members who don’t collectively bargain turned out in opposition to the bill, including Shykell Ledford with AFSCME Local 1004, which represents Salt Lake County employees.

“We’re taxpayers, too. We would never negotiate ourselves out of a job. We understand who our employers are, and we just want to provide better quality service,” said an emotional Ledford, speaking to reporters after the bill passed. “That relationship between the union and the employer is working and they just took that away.”

The sentiment outside of the Senate chamber on Thursday was best summed up by Brad Asay, president of AFT Utah, a teachers union.

“The legislators that voted for this and the sponsors of this bill will pick party and political philosophy over the will of the people. They don’t listen to their people and they don’t listen to their constituents. And they just proved that today,” he said.

Cullimore and other lawmakers tried to refute that point throughout the legislative process.

“We recognize who our civil servants are. We appreciate them,” he said, citing recent legislation in 2024 that increased teacher pay. But he couldn’t name anyone specific when Reibe, on the Senate floor, asked him to name a specific entity — including a school district, city or county — that actually supports the bill. “Which entity asked for this?” she questioned.

“The senator may disagree with the philosophical difference here and the policy that’s before her. That doesn’t change the fact that there are taxpayers, there are public employees, who feel they don’t have the same representation as their colleagues in unions. This is a taxpayer bill,” he said to Reibe. “That’s who this bill is for.”

Reibe, in response, pointed to the hundreds of taxpayers — many of them union advocates as well — who opposed the bill. “We’ve seen so much communication from so many taxpayers that asked us not to run this bill.”

Growing calls to veto 

Utah’s governor doesn’t veto many bills — he denied seven bills that he called “unnecessary” in 2024, while letting two go into law without his signature. And in 2023, he didn’t issue a single veto.

But he’s already facing pressure to veto HB267. Hours after it passed on Thursday, House Democrats, the Salt Lake County Democratic Party and the Utah Education Association all issued statements urging a veto.

“Governor Cox has repeatedly stated that he is a proud supporter of teachers and public educators — this is his chance to prove it,” the education association, which represents about 18,000 educators, said in a statement. “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.”

House Democrats echoed the teachers union on Thursday, asking Cox to “listen to the overwhelming number of Utahns who oppose this bill and employ his veto power.”

“This legislation revokes the right to collective bargaining from our Utah public employees. It takes away the ability of our education professionals, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees to fight for better wages and safer working environments. H.B. 267 will affect tens of thousands of hard-working public servants who fight every day for a higher quality of life for all Utahns,” the minority caucus said in a statement.  

Other changes to public union operations

In addition to changing contract negotiations, the bill would restrict certain government resources from going toward union activity. That includes ensuring taxpayer funds won’t pay a public employee for the work they do for a union. 

It would offer professional liability insurance for teachers to help with employment disputes, which in most cases is only currently offered through a union. Teuscher said that would cost each teacher between $110 to $150 annually. 

People who are employed by a union but aren’t actually employed by the entity the union represents would no longer have access to the Utah Retirement System. For example, someone who works in an administrative position for a teachers union full time, but isn’t employed by a school district, wouldn’t be eligible for the state’s retirement benefits. 

And unions wouldn’t get special exemptions for using public resources, like property — if other groups or people have to pay to use a public room or space, so does the union.