It’s one union contract that almost didn’t happen.
Salt Lake City leaders have approved a new collective bargaining agreement with the city’s nearly 350 library workers, making the labor union a reality despite a temporary ban on public-sector unions enacted last year by the Utah Legislature.
Eligible full- and part-time workers at the city’s nine libraries will be affiliated with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local #1004. The City Council unanimously approved the union’s contract Tuesday.
The city department is being billed as the first public library system to unionize in the Beehive State’s history. Utah’s capital also maintains agreements with unions representing police, firefighters and other city workers.
Library workers voted last May by an overwhelming 92% margin of eligible employees to form the union. The new library contract runs through June 30, 2029.
“It’s a right we have in our city, although for a moment, it was almost gone because of the Legislature,” said council Chair Alejandro Puy. “We’re glad that we are here, that we’re fighting together, and you know, we respect and value unions.”
In addition for providing a framework for future negotiations, the new library union pact enshrines an hourly wage scale for fiscal 2026-2027 ranging from $18.35 to $44.59 an hour, depending on pay grade and experience. It also calls for workers to get annual cost-of-living wage increases of 3% through 2028 as well as new health and tuition reimbursement benefits.
The contract affirms the city’s support for labor organizing, said several council members and union leaders, following a successful signature-gathering effort to have the Legislature’s partial ban repealed.
“The response from the public showed that we do believe in collective bargaining,” said council member Chris Wharton. “We do believe in the rights of workers to organize and be able to come together and to ask for safer conditions and for better wages.”
Passage of the new library agreement, according to Brad Asay, executive director for the local AFSCME chapter, “is a bright spot in a dark world right now.”
Asay, who is also vice president with the Utah AFL-CIO, said the council’s decision “will ripple across the nation, and this will give hope to many other workers that they can do it, especially if we can do it in Utah.”
More than a year ago, city officials gave a tentative green light to the library union’s formation, only to see lawmakers pass HB267.
The GOP-backed bill was designed to stop public employers from recognizing unions for bargaining purposes, forbid contracts, and restrict use of public money for union activity.
Union members from 19 labor groups mounted a referendum petition to put the measure on the 2026 ballot. Their efforts succeeded in qualifying 146,480 verified signatures statewide, as well as hitting required targets in 15 senate districts.
Lawmakers repealed the measure in a December special legislative session rather than have it go to the polls.
Council member Sarah Young thanked union organizers on Tuesday for their work “above and beyond” on the referendum and “a legacy of commitment to collective bargaining in Salt Lake City and bringing it to all of the future employees of the library.”