Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.
Teachers, firefighters and other public sector workers in Utah are one step closer to defending their right to bargain collectively. They successfully gathered more than 300,000 petition signatures to protect Utah workers from House Bill 267, a ban on collective bargaining for public workers.
Utah Republicans are running an infamous play right out of the anti-union playbook: They’re trying to stop public sector workers from exercising their right to join a union. H.B. 267, pushed by the shady Washington, D.C., right-wing group American Legislative Exchange Council, would stop public employers from establishing contracts with unions, prohibit certain union activities on public property and prevent public employees who join unions from getting pensions. Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill on Feb. 14.
Public sector workers in Utah are fighting back by pushing for a ballot question in November 2026 that will stop the ban. In order to get that question on the ballot, they had to collect signatures from 8% of Utah’s voting population in a month—more than 4,600 signatures per day—in at least 15 of 29 state Senate districts. Thanks to the hard work of 5,000 volunteers who collected signatures at coffee shops, retirement homes and on street corners, they ended up getting more than double the required number of signatures.
“Overwhelmingly, the state of Utah was against it,” said Haley Kelley, a social studies teacher and member of the Granite Education Association. “We went to the Capitol. We emailed and called the governor and the legislators....Thousands of people did this, and they still didn’t listen. And so, we’ve got to get this on the ballot.”