Key Takeaways
- Your local association can continue collaborating with your school district, representing public educator interests in compensation, working conditions, benefits, professional licensing, and student instructional materials.
- The UEA can continue to represent public educators' concerns, including protecting prep time and class sizes, and supporting safer, more stable schools for our students and members.
- Our union remains a strong, united voice for public education and the professionals who make it work every day.
Thanks to sustained advocacy from Utah Education Association members and other public workers, Utah lawmakers voted to repeal a highly unpopular law that would have eliminated collective bargaining rights for public sector unions.
During a special session on Dec. 9, the Utah House voted 60-9 and the Senate voted 26-1 to repeal HB 267 Public Sector Labor Union Amendments, a bill passed in February that banned public sector unions from negotiating terms of employment. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed the repeal three days later.
The repeal marks a significant victory for public educators and public employees who mobilized statewide in response to the direct attack on public workers and our unions. HB 267 sparked immediate backlash during the 2025 general session, drawing packed crowds to the Capitol and launching the largest signature-gathering effort in state history.
More than 5,000 volunteers, many of them UEA members, gathered about 320,000 signatures to qualify a referendum for the November 2026 ballot. Facing the prospect of a public vote, legislative leaders requested meetings with members of the Protect Utah Workers coalition, which includes UEA and other public and private unions.
“Organized labor is nothing if organized, and they collected some signatures,” said Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Draper, while speaking on the Senate floor. Cullimore, along with Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, sponsored HB267 and the repeal bill.
UEA President Renée Pinkney said the Protect Utah Workers coalition stood firm during conversations with House leadership, making clear it would pursue a full repeal or take the issue to the ballot.
After the House vote, Pinkney told Utah News Dispatch that the referendum would have succeeded at the ballot box if lawmakers had not acted.
“We know that we have the people’s support behind us, and we are going to continue working forward and adhering to a work group between labor unions and the Legislature,” Pinkney said. “We said that we would enter into talks with the Legislature and try and lower the temperature, and we will adhere to that agreement moving forward.”
Pinkney said the fight was not just about contracts, but about protecting students and the educators who serve them.
“We want our students to be successful. We want them to thrive. We want them to reach their full potential, and we know that we can do that through collective bargaining with our employers,” she said.
Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, a retired teacher and UEA member, called the repeal “a tribute to … Utah teachers” and the public workers who stood with them.
“This is a very timely bill now, because this is a time when many teachers are not feeling valued by the Legislature and activist groups who are banning books and making scurrilous attacks on teachers and school librarians,” Moss said before the vote.
Four UEA members currently serve in the Legislature: Moss; Rep. Doug Welton, R-Utah County; Rep. John Arthur, D-Salt Lake County; and Sen. Kathrine Reibe, D-Salt Lake County.
“I was hoping that this would be a promise that we would get some reprieve for the next couple of sessions because it has been really exhausting for our union people to gather signatures and to spend that time away from their families trying to fight this last bill,” Reibe said.
Arthur, a sixth-grade teacher and the 2021 Utah Teacher of the Year, cast his first vote as a legislator Tuesday to repeal HB267. He was sworn in ahead of the special session after being selected to fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Gay Lynn Bennion, who was elected mayor of Cottonwood Heights.
“When HB267 passed, I stood shoulder to shoulder, I threw on my walking boots and went out and gathered signatures with all the other teachers and public workers and volunteers. It was movie-dramatic. ... Then to come back on Tuesday as the representative, get sworn in and have my first vote on the House floor be to repeal HB267 — it really was one of the most special full-circle moments in my life,” Arthur told KSL.com.
Arthur said the fight created strong unity across professions.
“It brought us together in a way that I've never seen before,” he said. “I'm a 13-year teacher and teaching has been tough and I can't remember a time where I felt more proud to be a teacher and more unified with everybody that I work with than I was around this bill to see it go.”
Pinkney said the message is clear: When public educators organize, they win.
With the repeal secured, UEA is turning its focus to the 2026 legislative session, which begins Jan. 20. The association is asking members to help set priorities by completing the UEA legislative priorities survey, which closes Dec. 19.
The survey takes about five minutes. A SurveyMonkey link is available in members’ personal email inboxes.
Member input is critical to ensure lawmakers hear directly from public educators about student behavior, staffing shortages, class size and funding needs.
