SALT LAKE CITY — Organizers of the effort to overturn Utah’s law banning public unions from collectively bargaining say they’ve turned in more than 320,000 signatures to put a referendum on next year’s ballot.
That’s more than double the approximately 141,000 signatures needed to qualify for a referendum, though the signatures still need to be verified and it’s unclear whether the group has met the necessary thresholds in at least 15 of the state’s 29 Senate districts. Opponents of the referendum also have 45 days to convince signees to remove their signatures from the petitions — efforts that are already underway.
But the several dozen teachers, police officers, firefighters and nurses who gathered Wednesday at the Salt Lake County Government Center to turn in the last of the signatures weren’t too concerned and instead celebrated what they said is a broad repudiation of HB267.
“We didn’t just meet our goal; we doubled it,” said John Arthur, a sixth grade teacher at Meadowlark Elementary in Salt Lake City. “That number matters. It matters because it represents voices from across our great state. … This isn’t just a win for public workers, this is a win for all Utahns. Politicians came after public workers, and the public got to work.”
“I stand here filled with pride and gratitude for everyone here,” said Donavan Minutes, a Salt Lake firefighter and member of the IAFF Local 81. “More than 320,000 Utahns stood with us. That’s 320,000 people who believe in worker rights and collective bargaining. That’s people who should decide what’s best for Utah workers, not politicians who ignore us. This is what solidarity looks like.”
HB267 dominated discussion during the early weeks of this year’s legislative session. Lawmakers argued the bill levels the playing field for all public employees to negotiate their own wages and benefits and said it would protect taxpayer money. Bill sponsor Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, also said the bill would protect public funds by restricting employees from receiving paid leave for union activities.
“I don’t believe that you have to be a member of the union to be treated fairly,” House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said last month. “HB267 created a pathway for teachers to be able to get the protections they need and not be part of the union.”
Many saw the bill as retaliation against the Utah Education Association after the teachers union filed an injunction against a proposed constitutional amendment that was eventually struck down — something lawmakers have denied. Public employees have said the bill takes away a tool to advocate for better safety, wages and benefits.
“House Bill 267 is a blatant attack to silence us,” said Jessica Stauffer, president of Communications Workers of America Local 7765 and a nurse at the University of Utah Hospital. “It chips away at our fundamental rights, stripping power from the workers who keep Utah’s public services running. And, let’s be honest, House Bill 267 is really the pet project of some deeply out-of-touch legislators who completely ignored their own constituents.”
Organizers said a Sunday rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which drew some 20,000 supporters, and a Salt Lake protest of about 6,000 people against the Trump administration the week earlier contributed to efforts to collect signatures.
Utah’s referendum process allows citizens to overturn laws passed by the state Legislature through a popular vote. To qualify, organizers have 30 days to collect signatures from 8% of all active registered voters in the state, including 8% from at least 15 of the 29 state Senate districts.
If all 320,000 signatures are verified, they would represent about 18% of all active registered voters in the state. Nearly 9,400 signatures had been verified as of Wednesday morning.
Election workers now have 45 days to verify the legitimacy of those signatures. During that same time, groups like Utah Parents United and Americans for Prosperity-Utah are seeking to convince signees to remove their names from the list.
Corrine Johnson, president of Utah Parents United, told KSL.com last week she believes some people who signed the petitions didn’t fully understand what she sees as the benefits of HB267 and is urging people to take their names off of the list. She criticized the teachers’ unions for seeking to delay in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic and argued the union is there to support teachers, not students.
“We were not surprised that a large number of signatures were submitted,” Johnson said in a statement Wednesday. “But the real question is — did they reach the legal requirement in all 15 Senate districts? We’re closely watching that data and we are moving forward with efforts to help individuals remove their signatures from the petition.”
“This fight is about more than signatures — it’s about the truth,” she added. “Utah taxpayer dollars are being used to fund unions that are shaping education policy instead of parents. We support kids, not unions — and we believe the majority of Utahns agree.”
Union members urged signees to resist pressure to have their names removed, however, and said the support sends a message to lawmakers.
“I highly encourage them to listen to their constituents,” Stauffer said of the sponsors of HB267. “Some of the hearings that I attended, they suggested that we show up in person and talk to them one on one, and I want to know which lawmaker has time for 320,000 people to sit down and have one-on-one conversations.”
With the signature drive out of the way, referendum supporters now have to wait until June 21 to see if the issue will qualify for the next statewide election in November 2026.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
