Union members protesting anti-worker legislation at the state capital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Photo: Associated Press
____________________
A regressive collective bargaining ban that strips Utah’s public sector workers of their long-held worker rights was passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor over opposition from all of the state’s unions. Beginning July 1, Utah’s teachers, firefighters, police officers, transit workers and other public employees will be banned from having unions negotiate on their behalf for wages, benefits and working conditions. The Utah law is on par with the restrictive, immoral and brutally unfair law passed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in 2011. That law, called Act 10, was overturned by a Wisconsin judge last year.
The move to strip Utah’s workers of their rights is only one of many attacks launched against union workers and their families since the start of the year.
Legislation to enact a national Right To Work (For Less) law has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate this session.
President Trump after taking office last month immediately fired board members at the National Labor Relations Board and other “independent” agencies that police workplaces and guarantee fair union elections and worker rights.
The Trump administration also has made drastic cuts to the federal workforce that are being challenged for their fairness by unions representing federal workers. Those cuts, which seem to be more about vengeance than diligence, have thrown employees out of work without cause and put the public at risk. Workers who guard the nuclear weapons stockpile were sent pink slips and several hundred employees from the Federal Aviation Administration were fired. These are just two out of the many disturbing examples.
“An attack on one union is an attack on all,” said BLET National President Eddie Hall. “These attacks within our public institutions hurt working people and set a dangerous precedent for what employers can do in the private sector. What we’re seeing in the federal government and in places like Utah is the billionaires and corporate America moving an anti-worker agenda.”