Tribune editorial: Protect Utah Workers members earn the distinction of 2025’s Utahns of the Year

It was, frankly, an astounding display of public-spirited democracy in action.

In a state where organized labor is not known to be a major political force, supporters of teachers, police, firefighters and other public sector workers rallied to force the repeal of a particularly ill-advised, if not downright mean, act of the Utah Legislature.

An ad hoc alliance of labor unions, not just those representing public sector workers, arose under the title of Protect Utah Workers. It included unions whose members primarily work in the private sector, such as electrical workers, operating engineers, painters, sheet metal workers, Teamsters, food and commercial workers and miners.

Their success was quick, forceful and did so much to make a real difference in the lives of Utahns that the campaigners of Protect Utah Workers are The Salt Lake Tribune’s Utahns of the Year for 2025.

The alliance’s focus was to force the repeal of HB267. That bill, passed in February and signed, if reluctantly, by Gov. Spencer Cox, prohibited Utah cities, counties, school districts and other public entities from engaging in collective bargaining with public employee unions.

With no apparent examples of how those unions actually harmed government, taxpayers or the public interest in Utah, it seemed clear that the bill was no more than a petulant slap at public sector unions, particularly the Utah Education Association, for their activism in support of public education.

The UEA led public and legal campaigns, one opposing legislation that would shift public money to private schools, and another that stopped a Legislature-backed plan to end the provision in the Utah Constitution restricting revenue from the state income tax to education and programs for the disabled.

The gauntlet thrown down by the Legislature was quickly picked up by not only the teachers, firefighters and police officers, but also their allies in several other Utah public- and private-sector labor unions.

Their goal was to invoke the provision of Utah law that allows the people to place a motion to repeal a law on the statewide ballot. To do that, backers needed to collect at least 140,748 signatures on initiative petitions from around the state — or 8% of the total number of registered voters. They also needed at least 8% of the voters in at least half of the 29 state Senate districts.

And they had only 30 days to do it.

In that narrow window, Protect Utah Workers rounded up more than double the necessary number of signatures, a record for such a petition drive in Utah. After county clerks sifted through the petitions, they certified that at least 251,590 of the signatures were valid.

There was no way that many signatures could have been collected in so short a time unless the appeal resonated, not just with union members, but also with people in all socioeconomic groups, with Democrats, Republicans and independents.

By law, the filing of the petitions meant that enforcement of HB267 was frozen until the initiative was voted on by the people — or until the Legislature repealed the law. Which it did, by bipartisan majorities, as part of a Dec. 9 special session.

Legislative leaders painted the whole thing as an unpleasant misunderstanding and pledged to work with labor representatives for a better process going forward.

More likely lawmakers were just worried that if the initiative actually came to a vote of the people, the anti-union law would be repealed by an embarrassingly overwhelming majority. Such conditions were also highly likely to boost voter turnout overall, hurting Republican candidates and any other Legislature-backed questions that might be on the ballot.

Such acts of true democracy are rare in Utah. The law makes it much more difficult here than in some other states, notably the referendum-happy California, to get any question on the ballot.

When it happens, it is no small accomplishment, and worthy of note and respect.

That’s why the Protect Utah Workers campaigners, by having the most impact on the state and its future, are The Tribune’s Utahns of the Year for 2025.

Note to readers • Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.