Salt Lake City (AP) – unions that serve teachers, firefighters, police and other public employees in Utah can no longer negotiate on behalf of their workers who received the final legislative permit on Thursday.
Republican politics, which prohibits collective bargaining for all professions of the public sector, said goodbye to the Senate at 16-13 after its sponsors had given up a proposed compromise that would have removed the complete ban. After the days of negotiations, some unions still rejected and prompted the legislators to drive the more restrictive original version that the house had already passed.
“If there will be no consensus, just let’s turned us upside down,” said Senator Kirk Cullimore, the Senate sponsor of the law.
Labor experts say that the proposal that leads to the governor’s desk would determine one of the most restrictive work laws of the country because the Republicans try to contain the political influence of the teacher unions.
The move to Utah comes when President Donald Trump prepared for the US education department in the most part of his power by lowering the expenses and putting the employees under pressure to terminate.
Public educators are the most common users of the state of collective bargaining and consider the directive as a direct attack on their organizational strength. The teachers’ unions were pronounced opponents of republican politics in Utah and in other countries in which the legislator tried to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, to expand school selection and to utilize the utilize of the transgender bathrooms and the participation of the sports in schools .
Upitetters could continue to join unions under the invoice. But the unions could not officially negotiate better wages and working conditions in their name.
The Republican governor Spencer Cox did not state whether he signs the measure or put on a veto. Speaker Robert Carroll said on Thursday that the governor had followed the discussion and would now take a closer look after the adoption.
The Utah Education Association, the largest union of the state’s public education, has asked Cox to prove his support for teachers by publishing a Swift Veto.
The legislative template did not happen with veto-caution margins, which means that the Republicans, if Cox were rejected, had to make more support to override his veto. All Senate Democrats and seven Republicans rejected the law on Thursday.
Cullimore and his house co-sponsor, MP Jordan Teuscher from South Jordan, said that collective agreements often prevented the employees from participating in their own contract negotiations and only allowing communication between the union representative and the employer.
Some conservative teachers who testified before the legislator said that the unions of the left -wing teachers should not have the entire negotiation power. Teuscher said that the invoice removed the middleman and that the employer can work with all employees directly if they pronounce concerns about the workplace.
The proposal, argued Cullimore, was neither an anti-union nor anti-teacher.
“We passed invoices here to support the payment of teachers directly when it was not carried out at the local level when the union was not done,” he said. “We took it to ourselves to make sure you feel respected.”
If COX signs the legislation, Utah together with North Carolina and South Carolina would be the most restrictive states for unions of the public sector.
“This draft law transforms an official into an indenient servant,” said Senator Kathleen Riebe, teacher and Salt Lake City Democrat, shortly before the vote. “The people who protect them, the people who take care of them and the people who let this city be guided, ask them not to pass this calculation.”
Firefighter Jack Tidrow, who has appeared in the legislator almost every day for two weeks to express his opposition, said the unions played a decisive role in keeping firefighters in the job. Utah is now less certain, he said reporters after the Senate had approved the measure.
