Utah News Dispatch
Utah Legislature approves repeal of anti-collective bargaining law
People watch from the gallery in the House Chamber during a special session of the legislature at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A campaign to repeal a controversial law banning collective bargaining in public sector unions was fruitful — but not at the polls, the way many Utahns expected. During a special session Tuesday evening, the Utah Legislature voted to repeal it with lawmakers arguing that the division surrounding the bill faded its real intent.
Some Republicans rejected the proposal to repeal HB267, a law the Legislature approved this year that would have prohibited public sector unions from negotiating terms of employment with their employers. But ultimately, the House voted 60-9 and the Senate 26-1 to annul the legislation.
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Gov. Spencer Cox is expected to sign the repeal bill as he already expressed support for it in a social media post ahead of the special session.
Unions celebrate Utah Legislature’s planned vote to repeal anti-collective bargaining bill
During the special session, Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, who sponsored both HB267 and the action to repeal it, said he believed the original legislation was good policy, but was “overshadowed by misinformation and unnecessary division.”
“Repealing HB267 doesn’t mean that we’re abandoning the principles behind it,” Teuscher said. “It means that we’re choosing clarity over confusion, collaboration over conflict and long term stability over short term noise.”
The law was controversial from its inception and led to packed hallways and galleries during the last general session. It also awoke a massive signature-gathering effort in which over 5,000 volunteers collected about 320,000 signatures to qualify for a referendum to nullify the law.
That overwhelming public input, leaders from a coalition of public and private unions that organized the referendum efforts said, gave them leverage in the negotiations they held with lawmakers over the past month and a half to reach this conclusion.
After the House vote, Renée Pinkney, president of the Utah Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said that if the repeal hadn’t been successful at the Legislature, it would have had a good chance of going through at the ballot box.
“We know that we have the people’s support behind us, and we are going to continue working forward and adhering to the work group,” Pinkney said. “We said that we would enter into talks with the Legislature and try and lower the temperature, and we will adhere to that agreement.”
Overall, she said, their fight was about their students.
“We want our students to be successful. We want them to thrive. We want them to reach their full potential, and we know that we can do that through collective bargaining with our employers,” Pinkney said.
Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, a retired high school teacher, described the repeal as “a tribute to nearly 300,000 Utah teachers” who have done collective bargaining in the state for 15 years, and other public sector unions that stood by them.
“This is a very timely bill now, because this is a time when many teachers are not feeling valued by the Legislature and activist groups who are banning books and making scurrilous attacks on teachers and school librarians,” she said.
‘Gatekeepers rather than advocates’
While many celebrated the repeal, House Majority Whip Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, lamented the repeal, which also deleted a provision that offered professional liability insurance for teachers, which in most cases is offered through unions.
“I just would like to caution that I think today, modern unions so often act as gatekeepers rather than advocates,” Pierucci said, encouraging educators to reach legislators directly to come up with policy solutions for their challenges.
“I would still say to the teachers and the firefighters and policemen, we want to hear directly from you, not through your union leaders,” Pierucci said, “because they’re not always representing you in the best way, nor they have your best interest at heart.”
After hearing those remarks Teuscher said he felt compelled to share a story he heard in a town hall months ago.
“We had a teacher raise their hand and essentially say, ‘every time the legislature goes into session, I’m on suicide watch,’” Teuscher said.
But, he said, that feeling doesn’t stem from the Legislature’s actions.
“Try to figure out who is telling you this, who is adding to this chaos and stress in your life, because it isn’t the Legislature,” he said.
Repealing the law, Teuscher said, would ultimately allow “something stronger to grow,” and the state is committed to finding a solution that protects all public employees across the state.
