The battle over Utah’s collective bargaining ban: How Utahns say they would vote

Over the last few months there’s been a lot of discussion and controversy over Utah’s law banning public sector collective bargaining and the referendum to repeal it. But how do Utahns actually feel about the law?

The Deseret News recently ran a poll with HarrisX asking over 800 Utahns what they think of the labor unions referendum movement happening in Utah, here’s a look at what the response was.

The law, HB267, was passed through the Utah Legislature this year and shortly after a group of public unions filed for a referendum against it.

How Utahns say they would vote on the referendum

Respondents to the poll were asked: “The referendum to repeal the law that bans public employee unions in Utah from collective bargaining recently qualified for the 2026 ballot. If the election were held today, would you vote in favor or against the referendum?”

Out of 805 registered voters, 36% said they would vote in favor of the referendum, 32% said they’d vote against and 31% said they don’t know.

“This shows that while the referendum supporters gathered historic numbers of signatures, that’s not necessarily translating directly to support for the referendum overall,” wrote Kevin Greene, the state director of Americans for Prosperity Utah, who is in favor of HB267.

When it comes to party affiliation, Republicans were split almost perfectly into thirds, with 33% saying they’d vote in favor, 33% against and 34% saying they don’t know.

“The recent poll confirms what we already know: Utahns stand with public workers, no matter their political affiliation. Support for the referendum is strong and we see a significant opportunity to grow that support further,” according to a statement from the Protect Utah Workers coalition.

Democrats had a stronger lean toward the referendum, with 50% saying they’d vote in favor, 27% saying they’d vote against and 23% saying they don’t know.

“I think these results show that there’s a lot of room to educate the public on what HB267 actually did and why it’s good policy for Utah,” Greene said. “We’re already doing that through conversations at the grassroots level, and we’re seeing support grow in favor of this new law when people get fully connected to it.”

This survey was conducted online from May 16-21 among 805 registered voters in Utah by HarrisX. Respondents are recruited through opt-in, web-panel recruitment sampling. Recruitment occurs through a broad variety of professional, validated respondent panels to expand the sampling frame as wide as possible and minimize the impact of any given panel on recruiting methods.

The results reflect a representative sample of registered voters in the state. Results for voters were weighted for age, gender, race/ethnicity, income, political party, education, and congressional district. The margin of error for the sample is +/- 3.5 percentage points.

“It appears that every side, regardless of your position, has a lot of ground to cover, for, for or against,” said Jason Perry, Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. “I expect, given these numbers, all, whatever side people are on, there will be a renewed effort to reframe the arguments for and against.”

What does HB267 do?

David Osborne, the senior director of Labor Policy with the Commonwealth Foundation, shared what the different provisions of the bill are.

The first thing it does is prohibits collective bargaining for public labor union, which is what has drawn the most controversy. Collective bargaining is when an employer and a union come together to negotiate a contract for employees.

It also has a provision called paycheck protection “in Utah, that means that there’s only so much union dues that can be collected via payroll deduction,” Osborne said.

There is also a ban on government support for union activities, which includes “giving union employees paid leave to participate in union activities,” as well as allowing unions to use certain spaces for free.

The law also puts an end to involving public sector unions in the state retirement system.

It also would provide liability insurance for teachers, which was previously only available through the unions.

“So that would take away the impulse for someone who doesn’t want to be part of the union to join anyway,” Osborne said.

There is also a transparency aspect to HB267, which would require unions to report to the labor commission their membership numbers and where they’re spending their money.

This law only deals with public sector labor unions and has nothing to do with the private sector. Under HB267 unions would still have the right to exist and operate, they just would no longer be able to participate in collective bargaining.

What those in favor of the law say

While the law would impact all public sector unions in the state, teachers have been the focus of a lot of the arguments over HB267.

There have been multiple organizations that openly support HB267, one of these is Utah Parents United, which supports the law because they want schools to focus more on students and parents.

“It will take the focus off the politics in school, right, and then start putting the focus back on student success and our kids. And that’s what education should be about. It should really be about our kids the end of the day and and that’s why we love this bill,” said Corinne Johnson, the founder and president of Utah Parents United.

Osborne said that part of HB267 is protecting public employees who don’t want to be a part of the union.

“Usually in America, we think individualistically about individual rights, civil rights, one of which would be to choose who represents you and who doesn’t speak for you, but exclusive representation and unionism is a collective enterprise. It’s sort of the opposite of what we might think of as a individual liberties in another context.”

But with the paycheck protection and retirement system provisions, its more than just about employees.

“This is a lot more than just protecting an individual public employee, this seems to also be about the taxpayer,” he added.

One argument in favor of the law is that it will decrease the political power of the unions. Osborne shared that in Chicago the teacher’s union got one of their union officials elected as mayor.

“They get him in place, and then come negotiation time, they’re like, ‘Alright, let’s do a deal.’ He has basically drawn up plans to bankrupt the city for the benefit of the teachers unions,” he said.

He also added that the law will help governments “actually run things,” instead of focusing on negotiating with the unions.

What those against the law say

“This law, again, takes away our voice. It takes away the autonomy of our employers to recognize a bargaining agent,” said Renee Pinkney, the president of the Utah Education Association.

The Protect Utah Workers Coalition has been leading the charge in the fight against HB267. The coalition is made up of 19 different unions in the state including the UEA, Teamsters Local 222, American Federation of Government Employees and Professional Firefighters of Utah.

“It’s about our voice. It’s about our ability to make positive improvements in our schools, and it’s about democracy, because we believe the people should be able to weigh in on this particular decision,” Pinkney said.

Pinkney said that the ability to collective bargain doesn’t just help when it comes to compensation packages, but also with working conditions, safety and their students’ learning conditions. But she added that being able to collective bargain for compensation allows districts to stay competitive.

Harrison Long, a firefighter who is a part of the Salt Lake City Local 81 union, helped with the signature gathering effort and shared why he is against HB267. He agreed that collective bargaining helps firefighters not just with wages but with safety.

One thing firefighters in Salt Lake City have been able to negotiate for is four-handed staffing, which makes it so each fire engine has to have four firefighters, making it easier for them to do their job and safer for the public.

“We believe that firefighters should have a voice in firefighting,” Long said.

“It is important for public workers, for educators, to be able to collaborate with our districts to improve working conditions, to make sure that we have healthy and safe schools for our students, for our educators, that we are working to help our students and educators thrive,” Pinkney added.

One other point Pinkney made is that some districts and organizations use collective bargaining and others don’t, based on their needs and situation.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” she said.

What happened?

HB267, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R- South Jordan, was one of the most controversial bills of this year’s legislative session and after it was passed by lawmakers, it was signed by Gov. Spencer Cox. As soon as the session ended, the public unions against the law came together to form the protect Utah workers coalition and filed an application for a referendum against the law.

The next few weeks were engulfed by a signature gathering campaign by the coalition, which included volunteers and paid signature gatherers.

After the coalition turned in over 300,000 signatures, signature verification was completed on May 8. At the end of the verification process conducted by county clerks offices around the state, 251,590 signatures had been verified and 73,136 signatures had been rejected.

In Utah a referendum requires 140,748 signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The law was originally supposed to go into effect on July 1 but on May 6, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson issued a temporary stay of HB267, meaning it will not go into effect when originally planned.

Under the temporary stay, the ban on public sector collective bargaining will stay paused until the lieutenant governor declares the referendum petition insufficient or the governor issues a proclamation putting the law into effect.

Even though the signature verification process has been finished, signatures can still be removed, Pinkney said she believes the deadline for signature removal is June 23.

What comes next?

The amount of signatures gathered qualifies the referendum for the ballot and it is assumed that the referendum will be on the ballot during the November 2026 general election in Utah, but nothing is confirmed.

There are a few other options as to what could happen, for example a special election could be called by the governor.

As soon as it is confirmed that the referendum will be on the ballot and when that will be, it is expected that both sides will be launching campaigns to encourage Utahns on how to vote.

“We’re confident that when voters have the final say, they will reject HB267 and stand with the people who serve our communities every day. Public workers are united, momentum is on our side, and we will win,” according to a statement from the Protected Utah Workers Coalition.

Pinkney said that the campaign for the referendum would look similar to the UEA’s campaign against Constitutional Amendment A.

“We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing — talking to the public about why the law is great policy for Utah. It protects taxpayers and ensures accountability. We’re ready to continue our push to rally support for the law if it ends up on the ballot,” Greene wrote.