Utah lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in a special session Tuesday night to strike a controversial new law barring public employees from collective bargaining.
The move came less than a year after Republican legislators narrowly voted to pass it, several months after labor groups broke signature-gathering records as they mounted a referendum effort to repeal the law and only weeks ahead of the Legislature’s 2026 general session.
Under Utah law, a referendum is automatically voided after lawmakers repeal the law it’s challenging. So the question of whether to keep the law will no longer appear alongside the approximately 90 legislative contests on ballots next November.
The bill passed easily in the House of Representatives, with nine of the most conservative Republicans in the body breaking from their caucus to vote “nay.” In the Senate, everyone except one Republican voted to repeal.
“It was good policy,” Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, the sponsor of both the original and repeal bills, told his colleagues.
“However, since that bill’s passage, House Bill 267 has been overshadowed by misinformation and unnecessary division,” Teuscher continued. “This was never the intent behind the bill. As such, HB2001 repeals HB267 in its entirety. It allows us to step back, to lower the temperature and to create space for a clearer and more constructive conversation.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Educators and supporters hold a silent protest outside of Gov. Spencer Cox's office at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City over the anti-union bill HB267 on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025.
On Monday ahead of the special session, Protect Utah Workers, the coalition formed to organize the referendum, celebrated the law’s expected demise as a win.
“I’m appreciative that the Legislature listened to the people,” said Utah Education Association President Renee Pinkney, attributing lawmakers’ turnaround to the more than 250,000 valid signatures added to referendum petitions.
“During the session, we did not feel like they were listening to the people. And when we called on the governor to veto, we had that huge rally — it just felt like it landed on deaf ears," Pinkney said. “And so now the people’s voice is in the room.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Labor leaders turn in nineteen boxes of signatures (the sixth drop to Salt Lake County) in their attempt to qualify a referendum repealing an anti-union bill, at the Salt Lake County Clerk's office on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
But as HB267 disappears, Protect Utah Workers’ struggle may not be over.
In a lengthy statement following Gov. Spencer Cox’s Sunday proclamation calling the Legislature into a special session to repeal the law, Teuscher indicated he plans to work on more legislation on the issue.
“I intend to work closely with union leaders, public employees, and Utahns across the state in the coming year to determine the best path forward,” Teuscher wrote. “My focus is on developing policies that protects public workers, supports taxpayers, and keeps Utah’s public employment practices open, responsible, and grounded in good governance.”
Although the law was temporarily blocked after Protect Utah Workers cleared the hurdles to place the referendum on the ballot, there is nothing in statute to stop lawmakers from enacting a similar law.
When asked whether the referendum effort and subsequent stay on the law could have any restraining effect on the Legislature once voided, a spokesperson for Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson — Utah’s top elections officer — deferred questions to lawmakers.
Some GOP representatives used Tuesday’s discussion to criticize the public unions that were challenging Teuscher’s bill.
Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Riverton, highlighted increases to education funding and teacher pay passed by the Legislature in recent years, saying, “A lot of those things were fought by the union.”
In 2023, public teachers’ unions opposed Pierucci’s bill that tied a raise for teachers to a voucher program that rerouted hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for public schools to private schools and home schooling families.
“I just would like to caution that I think today, modern unions so often act as gatekeepers rather than advocates,” Pierucci said. “And I hope for the teachers who are listening that you would reach out directly to your legislators.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) People pack the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee hearing at the Capitol in addition to several overflow rooms to discuss HB267, a bill aimed at banning collective bargaining for public labor unions in Utah, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, center right, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan 29, 2025.
Union leaders, however, expressed optimism Monday that lawmakers will include them in discussions on future measures affecting government employees’ organizing.
“I really would like to believe that we can move forward and work together, and I guess the only way that you know if that isn’t going to happen is when it doesn’t happen,” Pinkney said.
Workers representing other public unions who gathered Monday at Union Labor Center in West Valley City to speak to reporters agreed.
And as he stood on the House floor presenting his bill, Teuscher told his colleagues that he was “happy to report” that he’s so far had “very productive” conversations with Protect Utah Workers.
“We’re both trying to accomplish the same thing — help the public in Utah," Matt Briggs, a Division of Wildlife Resources conservation officer with the Utah Public Employees Association, said of the Legislature and public unions. “And if we work together rather than as adversaries, I think we can create laws and regulations that are beneficial to both.”