What really happened with the bill banning collective bargaining?

SALT LAKE CITY — A bill banning public sector collective bargaining was one of the most controversial bills of the 2025 session, but the bill sponsor, Rep. Jordan Teuscher, shared that this bill has been a work in progress for years.

HB267 was signed by Gov. Spencer Cox on Feb. 14, and last week Teuscher, R-South Jordan, had an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal which described what his negotiations with public labor unions, specifically the Utah Education Association, looked like.

After the op-ed ran, Teuscher offered context and background on HB267 and his thoughts on public labor unions to the Deseret News.

In the op-ed, Teuscher specifically called out certain actions of the Utah Education Association, one of the biggest advocates against HB26. He said the union went back on promises made and was difficult to work with.

In response to what Teuscher wrote, the UEA told the Deseret News it disagreed with Teuscher's characterizations of the negotiations, adding it didn't make the promises he said it did.

What led to HB267

Teuscher said the path to introducing HB267 started after he worked with the UEA and other unions while running a bill on curriculum transparency in schools. During that time he said he recognized issues with the public labor unions that he wanted to address.

"As I dived into it, learned more about how collective bargaining worked and how you have some districts that have 25% of members of the union that get to speak for 100% of everyone, and they have this monopoly in collective bargaining, I thought, 'this is wrong,'" Teuscher said.

During the 2023 session, he introduced HB241, which focused on the financial side of public labor unions. Teuscher said he introduced that bill late in the session to gauge reactions and to see how he could move forward with similar legislation in the future.

Teuscher returned in 2024 with HB285, which addressed collective bargaining as well as payroll deductions.

"It had the recertification provision in it that said, in order to collective bargain, you have to have at least 50% of the members of the employee class be members of the union," Teuscher said.

Many unions were against the bill. Teuscher said he had the votes to pass the bill a year ago but after feedback from stakeholders and conversations with leadership, he decided to pull the bill as a measure of good faith.

Along with negotiations for pulling HB285, Teuscher said the UEA agreed to stay neutral on Amendment A — a constitutional amendment that would have expanded how the income tax could be used — and he believed collaboration would be better than confrontation.

"We were wrong. The moment the legislative session ended, the UEA reneged. Not only did it oppose the amendment, it also filed a lawsuit to remove it from the November ballot. The union exploited our good faith," Teuscher wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

In a statement to the Deseret News, the UEA said it never agreed to be neutral on Amendment A.

Over the interim, he worked on preparing a new bill focused on public labor unions and collective bargaining, which became HB267. Teuscher said he told the unions he would be putting together a new bill for 2025, but that it had nothing to do with Amendment A and what happened in 2024.

He said one reason he chose to address public sector collective bargaining completely with HB267 is because he heard from teachers who said that even with unions that have a majority of employees as members, there were still people who weren't able to have their voices heard.

He said he also decided during the interim that he didn't believe he could work well with the UEA.

"I've tried working with the UEA. ...It doesn't get me anywhere. They're not a good faith actor. We saw what they did at the end of the session. They made promises during the session on Amendment A and completely reneged on that promise," Teuscher said.

In the statement sent to the Deseret News, the UEA responded to claims made by Teuscher in his Wall Street Journal piece.

"It was disheartening to see Rep. Jordan Teuscher use a national platform to misrepresent the Utah Education Association's (UEA) positions on Constitutional Amendment A and the 2025 labor bill. Utahns deserve honest discussions, not misleading claims that attempt to undermine those who serve our communities every day," read the statement from the UEA.

As the bill made its way through the Legislature, some referred to HB267 as Teuscher's "revenge bill" against the UEA.

But, Teuscher said, "I've been working on this issue for a really long time and trying to get the right policy in place. Just because they've been a bad actor isn't the reason that we're running this bill now."

What the negotiations over HB267 looked like

When HB267 was first introduced at the start of the session there was immediate backlash. Hundreds of public employees opposed to the bill filled multiple overflow rooms. Other lawmakers said they had heard more about HB267 from their constituents than any other bill.

Because of this reaction, Teuscher said he worked with the unions to try to come to a compromise. The original version of the bill completely banned collective bargaining, and after negotiations, Teuscher published a substitute to the bill that would allow collective bargaining if a majority of employees were members of the bargaining unit.

"You know, no one worked harder to try to get to that compromise. And I truly believe that. I mean, how many meetings, late night meetings we had with labor unions in this room trying to get to somewhere or phone calls or whatever," Teuscher said.

Read the full article at Deseret.com.

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