Bill to end collective bargaining for public unions one step closer to law; senator promises changes

Yahoo

30-01-2025

Members of Salt Lake City's Fire Department union, Local 81, watch as the Utah Senate discusses a bill that would end collective bargaining for public sector unions at the Utah State Capitol Building on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2024. (Katie McKellar/Utah News Dispatch)
A bill to ban public sector unions from collective bargaining is one step closer to becoming law after passing the Utah Senate on Thursday with an 18-10 vote.
But the vote came with a promise from the bill's Senate sponsor, Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy. By Friday, he said the bill will be amended so public sector unions — which represent teachers, firefighters, police officers and other government employees — can still engage in collective bargaining, as long as they get enough support from the employee base.
Senate rules require bills to be voted on twice, so the bill still needs to clear one last legislative hurdle before it heads to the governor's desk.
Sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, HB267 is shaping up to be one of the most controversial bills this legislative session, drawing widespread backlash from the state's labor groups and seeing broad bipartisan opposition. It cleared the House with a 42-32 vote, and narrowly made it out of a Senate committee with a 4-3 vote. On Thursday, four Republicans joined the Senate's six Democrats to vote against the bill.
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As it stands, the bill eliminates collective bargaining for all public sector unions, the process where a school district, city, county or other entity with public employees meets with a union to negotiate a contract for those employees.
Currently, Salt Lake City's fire and police departments, and a number of Utah school districts are the only government entities with employees that collectively bargain, Teuscher said.
More than 13,000 people have signed onto a Utah Education Association petition opposing the bill, and public comment during both the Senate and House committee meetings dragged on as teachers, firefighters, police officers and other union representatives voiced their opposition.
Since its fire and police departments are some of the only public unions that collectively bargain in the state, the bill would have an outsized impact on Salt Lake City. More than 60% of the city's 4,000 employees are union members, and city mayor Erin Mendenhall on Thursday urged lawmakers to vote no, calling the bill a 'direct attack on the rights of our public workers and their families.'
'This bill would not only harm those on the frontlines but would also erode the values of fairness and respect for hard work that we should be upholding in our state,' she said in a statement.
Lawmakers say they have received thousands of emails urging a 'no' vote. Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, called it a 'direct attack on unions' and Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, called the process 'un-American.'
To that end, Cullimore said he 'anticipates a substitute' bill by Friday that will allow a public sector union to engage in collective bargaining, so long as more than 50% of the employees in an organization (for instance, a school district) vote to have a union represent them.
So if a school district has 3,000 employees, at least 1,501 would have to vote for a union to represent them in negotiations, regardless of whether they are union members or not.
Despite opposition, bill banning collective bargaining for public unions advances after tight vote
That ultimately won over some of the bill's skeptics on Thursday, who said they were voting 'yes' based on Cullimore's promise of an amendment.
'I trust the good sponsor that he'll follow through and get the provisions in there. And I'll wait. To be honest with you on this version, I'm a hard no,' said Sen. Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, who, despite his hesitation, voted in support of the bill. 'You may not want to count on me tomorrow, we'll see.'
But other lawmakers, most of them Democrats, had reservations about voting for a bill they oppose on the promise of an amendment.
'We are beholden to vote on the bill before us,' said Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights. 'If our good senator wanted us to vote on the bill that's somewhere in the wings, they would have brought that bill to us today. We cannot vote on a bill that we don't know about. We are not voting on a promise. We are not voting on a compromise. We are voting on what's in front of us.'
Teuscher says the bill will level the playing field and allow public employees to have a greater voice. In some cases, a union might not represent a majority of the employees in an organization, like a fire department or school district, yet it negotiates on behalf of everyone.
That means some public employees 'really don't have any sort of voice in what their working conditions are going to be,' Teuscher said on Wednesday during a Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.
But that's not how many of the state's labor organizations see it. Collective bargaining is an essential tool in negotiating for better wages, benefits and working conditions, dozens of teachers, firefighters and other public employees have argued. Taking that away would strip unions of their teeth, and make it difficult to advocate for themselves.
'The 6,000 people that work for Granite (School District), the 4,200 that work for Nebo (School District), they're all going to have access to their superintendent 24 hours a day? Is that more efficient?' asked Riebe, herself a teacher and member of the Utah Education Association.
Cullimore, in response to some of the criticism toward the bill, accused unions of fearmongering.
'The fear that is being promulgated by the education unions, to rally everybody else against this bill is unfounded,' he said on the Senate floor Thursday, telling his colleagues that it's because unions 'feel threatened.'
In addition to the ban on collective bargaining, HB267 would restrict certain government resources from going toward union activity; for example, ensuring taxpayer funds won't pay a public employee for the work they do for a union.
Unions also 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.
People who are employed by a union, but aren't actually employed by the entity the union represents (for example, someone who works in an administrative position for a teachers union full time, but isn't actually employed by a school district) would no longer have access to the Utah Retirement System.
And the bill would offer professional liability insurance for teachers, which in most cases is only currently offered through a union. Teuscher said that would cost each teacher between $110 to $150 annually.
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