Utah bans public union bargaining
Editor’s Note: Gov. Cox signed HB267 on Feb. 14.
After days of intense debate, protests and failed substitutions, House Bill 267 passed both the Utah House of Representatives and Senate, banning collective bargaining between public employee unions and their government employers. It has been sent to Gov. Cox to await his signature as of Feb. 12.
“Collective bargaining simply means that working people organize into groups, usually labor unions, in order to negotiate with their employer about workplace issues such as hours, wages, conditions, safety, and discrimination. This gives them more power than negotiating as individuals,” wrote Victoria Grieve, associate professor of history, in an email to The Utah Statesman.
Multiple different versions of the bill were introduced, including one which allowed unions to continue to negotiate with their employers. The legislature voted on the bill’s original language sponsored by Republican Rep. Jordan Teuscher and Sen. Kirk Cullimore.
According to Grieve, public unions representing jobs such as teachers, firefighters and police officers are typically treated differently under the law than public sector unions.
“In most states, public employees, especially those deemed essential—police, firefighters—do not have a federal right to strike. In Utah, they are prohibited from striking,” Grieve wrote.
When United Campus Workers USU, the union for university employees, met in the Merrill-Cazier Library for a town hall on Jan. 30, their leadership appeared hopeful about their future.
“We’ve always recognized it’s going to be years in the future before we get a collective bargaining agreement, but we can still do all sorts of important stuff in the meantime,” said one union organizer at the event. “The union is still fully legal. You are still fully protected to join it, and we’re not changing anything about how we organize.”
The union’s leadership pointed to examples of successful university unions around USU who also do not have collective bargaining agreements, such as the University of Utah’s healthcare worker union, which was able to secure parking passes for hospital employees.
Before collective agreements and the right to unionize, “Americans went on strikes and were exposed to violence, many died in fights for a minimum wage, the eight-hour day, safer working conditions, higher wages, equal pay for equal work,” Grieve wrote.