The Utah House on Monday approved legislation that would ban public sector employee unions from collective bargaining with government entities in what some advocates see as the starkest attack on organized labor in more than a decade.
The measure would prohibit government employers from recognizing a labor union as an agent capable of bargaining on behalf of the workers it represents. It would prohibit paid release time, in which public employees are paid for work they do on behalf of the union, and require public sector unions to disclose their spending.
“It’s important that public resources are dedicated solely to supporting public services and not subsidizing any union activities,” Rep. Jordan Teuscher (R), the bill’s chief author, told lawmakers at a committee hearing last week. “I strongly believe that this path will actually get to a place where all voices are heard, that they can have a seat at the table, and that we’ll have better working conditions across the board.”
Teuscher, a third-term lawmaker who chairs the House Rules Committee, has been working on similar legislation for three years. An earlier version won committee approval in 2024 before dying in the waning days of last year’s session.
In testimony explaining his bill to fellow lawmakers, Teuscher said the legislation was meant to correct an imbalance between private sector businesses, which must balance employee costs with profits to stay afloat, and public sector government entities, which do not have the same incentives.
“In the private sector, when you do collective bargaining, you’re bargaining with a company that has to make a profit. If they don’t make a profit, they go out of business,” he said. “In the public sector, the government never goes out of business, and because of that, at the end of the day, if a public employer makes a bad deal, the person who has to pay on the other side is the taxpayer.”
Public employee unions have sounded alarms over the legislation, which they say would effectively end their presence in Utah. The state teacher’s union and unions representing Salt Lake City Police and Fire Departments showed up to testify against the legislation, packing three overflow rooms as the committee heard testimony.
“This is an attack on the very people who are educating our children and keeping our community safe,” said Mike Harman, president of the Salt Lake Education Association, a union that represents educators in the state’s largest school district. “This bill was not drafted collaboratively, and this is not the Utah way.”
Union leaders mobilized a pressure campaign to sway lawmakers, who reported receiving thousands of letters, emails and phone calls over the weekend. In spite of that pressure, the House passed the legislation Monday in a 42-32 vote; 18 Republicans joined the chamber’s 14 Democrats in opposition.
Some labor leaders said the legislation recalled the fierce protests that erupted in Wisconsin in 2011, when Republicans approved Act 10, a measure that limited collective bargaining power for state and local government officials. As Republicans advanced that measure, tens of thousands of people descended upon Madison in protest.
After Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed Act 10, labor leaders mounted a recall effort that forced Walker on the ballot in 2012, though he survived the vote.
Conservative Utah, though, has less of a history of union organizing than does Wisconsin, once the epicenter of the Progressive Era. Today, just 3.7% of Utah workers are members of unions, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and only 7.8% are represented by unions.
Only North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota and Arkansas have lower rates of union membership among their workforces.
Observers and labor leaders said they were surprised at the speed with which Utah Republicans have teed up what would be one of the headline bills approved in this year’s session, which began only a few weeks ago. They expect the state Senate to begin hearings on the bill as early as Wednesday, with plans for final passage by Friday.
“This is a fast timeline. They’re trying to push it through as quickly as possible so they can move on and not have a lot of opposition,” one Utah labor leader said in an interview.
Supporters of the measure said it would improve transparency in spending, help individual teachers obtain liability insurance and save taxpayer money.
“This bill represents a necessary reform to ensure that taxpayer resources are used appropriately and transparently,” Kevin Greene, who heads the conservative Americans for Prosperity chapter in Utah, told lawmakers. “HB267 levels the playing field for all organizations by ending the subsidization of union activities with public resources.”
But labor organization representatives said the bill would specifically target teachers, fire fighters and police officers, some of the only public employees in Utah who use unions to bargain collectively on their behalf.
“It would greatly hinder our ability to ensure our firefighters’ safety, safe staffing levels and protect our members’ rights,” said Jack Tidrow, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Utah. “We have to have the ability to sit down with our employers and their bosses and talk about our safety when it comes to our protective equipment, our policies, our [standard operating procedures].”