The Park City Education Association is among dozens of public employee unions opposing House Bill 267 as it advances through the Legislature.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher of Salt Lake County and Sen. Kirk Cullimore, who represents parts of Salt Lake and Utah counties. It primarily affects employees in public unions, such as teachers, police officers and firefighters, and bars members from engaging in collective bargaining.
Critics, including the statewide Utah Education Association, to which the Park City teachers union is an affiliate, have called H.B. 267 a “union busting” bill. Supporters in the Legislature assert the bill protects taxpayer money.
“The unions don’t just support teachers. They support kids,” said Mary Morgan, co-president of the Park City Education Association. “That really is a lot of the focus. That’s why we’re in this job in the first place. It’s always best practice to be able to collaboratively work with your boss. We recognize that they make the final decisions, but having those conversations and being able to sit down and work through issues is absolutely best practice. If that is in any way hindered, it only affects the kids in a negative way.”
H.B. 267 wouldn’t only affect teachers in the Park City School District, either. Every year, the union negotiates a licensed professional agreement, which encompasses working conditions for all contracted employees. Contracted employees, in this case, includes nurses, counselors and anyone else who is a licensed professional.
“That is basically your contract, not having to do with money,” Morgan explained. “It has to do with your work conditions. It has to do with time off and bereavement and a plethora of all these different things we put into practice every day.”
Additionally, collective bargaining has helped teachers protect prep periods, which allow instructors to create and fine-tune lessons to provide students with a better education, according to Morgan.
Every few years, the union also negotiates salaries. Morgan said ensuring higher salaries for teachers actually keeps the school district competitive, further benefiting students by attracting high-quality teachers.
“The bill will make it so that if things are not working, we will no longer be able to come to the table with the district and say, ‘Hey, can we negotiate on this? Can we talk about this?’” Morgan said. “For me or for the district or anybody else that is entering into collective bargaining, it makes it a class B misdemeanor to do that.”
Specifics regarding collective bargaining may change, however. In a debate on the Senate floor on Thursday, Cullimore told lawmakers a substitute of the bill would be introduced that would allow collective bargaining if certain conditions were met.
The substitute bill was publicized on Friday morning. It would require the “collective bargaining unit” to conduct a vote authorizing the union to speak on their behalf as a single, collective voice. 50% of employees would need to be in favor of collective bargaining for the process to be valid. The vote encompasses all employees, though, and not only union members.
“We don’t know how everything else in the bill yet will affect us,” Morgan said. “I don’t understand all of the legal ins and outs of that, but members will still be able to have some type of representation and we will still have legal representation from UEA. That kind of stuff doesn’t necessarily go away. Mainly, the big one is that we would no longer be able to negotiate our salary and our benefits.”
Morgan pointed to recent examples of collective bargaining that positively affected the school district, such as an agreement regarding how years of experience are applied to the pay scale when a teacher transfers districts and how paid time off payouts function when someone retires.
“It makes it so that we don’t have to hire as many subs, which is always best for students,” Morgan said, referring to decisions that have helped the district attract and retain teachers. “On the surface, it might seem like, ‘Oh, well, they’re negotiating for their own salaries or for their own benefits,’ but in reality, all of these things affect students, and we always have that in mind when we collectively bargain. We have a great relationship with the board and with the district office in Park City, so we were able to get a lot of things done, but now, I guess we’ll see.”
H.B. 267 passed the House on Monday in a 42-32 vote. All Democrats and a few Republicans opposed the bill.
“It’s just disappointing because we had so many people down at the Capitol, four full rooms down there, when they went to committee last week, and they just ignored what everybody said,” Morgan said. “UEA has over 12,000 signatures on a petition online, and they’re just continuing to say this is what their constituents want, but is it? They are basically silencing teachers and union members and police officers and firefighters and saying, ‘Too bad. You’re not going to have any say in anything anymore.’”
The bill passed its first reading in the Senate on Thursday in an 18-10 vote. Instead of a final vote on Friday morning, the Senate opted to “circle” the bill, essentially putting the process on pause indefinitely. Cullimore said he wanted stakeholders to have a chance to review the substitute bill over the weekend. The Senate will likely take a final vote on the legislation next week.