Posts tagged Utah AFL-CIO
Labor leaders make final push to get repeal of anti-union bill on Utahns’ ballots
April 14, 2025 // UEA, AFL-CIO, Utah Public Employees Association, Utah Professional Firefighters, AFSCME and others have banded together in an attempt to repeal HB267, which bans collective bargaining with government employers — meaning those public employee unions cannot represent members in contract negotiations.
UTAH, Opinion: Republicans Need to Learn Government Unions Can’t Be Trusted
March 3, 2025 // On Feb. 14, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law I sponsored banning public-sector collective bargaining. This makes Utah the best state in the nation for protecting taxpayers and ensuring that government employees can negotiate their own employment terms. But this victory came only after fruitless attempts to work with government unions—efforts that exposed their pattern of saying one thing while doing another. In early 2024, I introduced a bill that would have required public-sector unions to hold regular recertification elections. As I argued at the time, unions representing teachers, firefighters and police should have to prove continuously that they represent a majority of workers. Taxpayers, too, have a stake: If a union doesn’t speak for most employees, why should the rest of the state be on the hook for its demands?
‘We’re making history’: Salt Lake library workers reach key step in effort to unionize
December 18, 2024 // They also noted that they were essentially the last remaining city department not unionized, as most city employees are members of either the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or part of police or firefighter unions. Yet, it took nearly 20 months to reach Monday's vote because of hurdles that union leaders didn't expect when the process started. Brad Asay, vice president of the Utah AFL-CIO, which has helped employees seek unionization, said the effort was complicated because of Salt Lake City's unique structure. The city's library system is independently governed, but its budget is approved by the City Council every year.
UTAH: Is it ‘union busting’? Bill moves to House floor, over worker objections
January 29, 2024 // The bill, which Teuscher called a “compromise,” would require labor unions that represent public-sector employees to recertify every five years, and would prohibit public employers from deducting union dues from paychecks unless union members “affirmatively” opt in every year. The bill, if enacted, would also prohibit unions or their members from using “public money or property from union organizing or union activity.”