Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed a controversial bill Friday evening to prevent teacher, firefighter, police and other public unions from collective bargaining. New research suggests it was an unpopular move among the state’s voters.

That’s according to a poll released Tuesday from RABA Research, which shows about 80 percent of respondents opposed the bill, while 78 percent were hoping Utah Governor Spencer Cox would veto it.

Sponsored by Representative Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, HB267 was arguably the most controversial bill this legislative session, drawing widespread opposition from the state’s teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees.

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Now, RABA’s polling suggests the bill is unpopular among a majority of Utah voters, not just public employees and union advocates. The poll was conducted Feb. 14-16 and surveyed 502 registered Utah voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

It’s part of recent, nationwide polling from RABA — a bipartisan polling firm founded in 2016 whose name stands for “red America, blue America — to gauge public opinion around labor policy and unions.

“What we have found in recent surveys is respondents in all states have supported rights to organize, to collectively bargain, to have workplace safety issues addressed,” said John Davis, a partner at RABA Research.

That includes Utah, where thousands of teachers and other public employees signed petitions, spoke out during legislative committee hearings and gathered at the Utah State Capitol to protest HB267.

The opposition prompted Teuscher, along with the bill’s Senate sponsor, Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, to work on a compromise so unions could still collectively bargain. But support for it never materialized from union members, they said.

“The governor was disappointed that the negotiation process did not deliver the compromise bill that at one point was on the table,” said Robert Carroll, a spokesperson for Cox, in a statement Tuesday. “He will keep working to find ways to make sure our teachers and first responders feel heard and supported through legislation and other means.”

Utah voters skeptical of union bill

About 52 percent of respondents in the RABA poll identified themselves as Republicans. Just 14 percent were Democrats, with the remaining 34 percent saying they were “something else.”

The poll also found that Cox’s approval rating hovers around 50 percent, while at least 33 percent of respondents say they have an unfavorable opinion of the governor. Other polls have shown the governor with a higher rating among voters — in 2023, the Deseret News reported his approval rating was at 63 percent, and after Cox endorsed Trump this summer, the outlet foundthat 59 percent of Utah voters supported him. Cox’s office on Tuesday provided Utah News Dispatch with recent data from Morning Consult that showed his favorability rating at 60 percent.

The Legislature, meanwhile, received a 48 percent approval rating.

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“Those are pretty good numbers, this wasn’t weighted against them politically,” said Davis with RABA. “This isn’t a poll that skews Democratic, this isn’t a poll that skews towards political opposition for the governor or legislature.”

The poll described HB267 as a bill that would change Utah laws to “weaken employment protections for health care workers, educators, first responders, and other essential workers. Do you support efforts that would reduce wages and safety protections for Utah’s workers?”

About 80 percent of respondents answered “no.”

Utah lawmakers repeatedly pushed back on the idea that HB267 made the workplace less safe. Unions representing Salt Lake City’s fire and police departments, as well as a number of school districts, are the only public unions that engage in collective bargaining. Therefore, the bill wouldn’t actually impact most of the state’s public employees, they argued.

“When 90 percent of the unions don’t use collective bargaining, then they go out and say, everybody’s unsafe. That seems like a broad brush comment that isn’t accurate. I mean, how can it be accurate if they aren’t using collective bargaining now?” said Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, after the bill passed.

Utah’s union advocates begged to differ.

“Utah is less safe now,” said Jack Tidrow, president of the Professional Firefighters of Utah, after the bill received final passage in the Senate. Even though most public unions don’t collectively bargain currently, they could have if wages or workplace safety begin to deteriorate. Now, that leverage that unions once had is gone.

The RABA poll was conducted before Cox signed HB267, but noted that he had the power to veto. About 78 percent said he should reject the bill.

“It is pretty clear,” said Davis. “Nearly four in five respondents were opposed to this kind of legislation.”

HB267 received final approval from the Legislature February 6 after a narrow, 16-13 vote from the Senate. Cox’s office announced he had signed the bill at about 7:00 p.m. on Valentines Day, despite facing calls to veto for days.

Though the elimination of collective bargaining — the process where a union meets with an organization to negotiate terms of employment on behalf of all employees — garnered the most controversy, the bill enacts several other changes to the state’s public unions.

It will restrict some government resources from going toward union activity, including preventing taxpayer funds from paying a public employee for the work they do for a union. And unions wouldn’t get special exemptions for using public resources, like property (if other groups or people have to pay to use a public room or space, so does the union).

People who are employed by a union, but aren’t actually employed by the entity the union represents — for instance, someone who works for a teachers union full time, but isn’t actually employed by the school district — will no longer have access to the Utah Retirement System.

And the bill offers professional liability insurance for teachers, which in most cases is only currently offered through a union, Teuscher says. That would offer teachers “extra protection” for things like employment disputes, he said.

The bill takes effect July 1, 2025.

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.