International Women’s Day: All Eyes on Utah …

Young women activists of the French Workers Party, who wil be organizing a public speak-out on May 8.

By Mya Shone (*)

All eyes on Utah, a land-locked mountain Red state with a population — 3.5
million — only a little smaller than Los Angeles. More than three-quarters of
Utah’s population is white (78.6%) and four out of ten people (42%) are of the
Mormon faith.

Yet here in Utah, where Donald Trump won almost 60% of the popular vote in
the 2024 election, the working-class is fighting for its rights. On March 5, Utah
labor unions announced that they will run a ballot referendum to repeal HB267, a
ban on collective bargaining for public sector unions that would have gone into
effect May 7.

The public is on our side

“We believe that the people should have a voice and should be able to vote to
repeal this legislation,” said Renee Pinkney, president of the Utah Education
Association (UEA), the state’s largest teachers union. “We believe that the public
is on our side,” Pinkney added with confidence as polling shows that 80% oppose
“changing our state’s laws to weaken employment protections for health care
workers, educators, first responders, and other essential workers.” (RABA
Research, Feb. 17, 2025)

A fierce battle lies ahead with Utah’s onerous referendum process, the
toughest in the U.S. The UEA, however, has been through this before and knows
how to win. In 2007, the Utah Education Association, supported by teachers’
unions nationally, repealed a school voucher program when a vast majority —
62% voted to preserve public education.

A force for change

On March 8, 1857, 168 years ago, garment workers in New York City,
predominantly immigrant women, staged a protest against inhumane working
conditions and low wages. Police attacked and dispersed them but the upsurge
led to the creation of the first women’s labor union, the Women’s Trade Union
League (WTUL).

In 1908, an even greater number, 15,000 women garment workers joined by
suffragettes, marched again through New York demanding shorter working hours,
better pay, an end to child labor, and the right to vote.

In 1909, the Socialist Party of America held the first National Women’s Day and
one year later, Clara Zetkin, leader of the “Women’s Office” of the Social
Democratic Party in Germany, proposed an International Working Women’s Day.
More than one million women and men worldwide participated in the first
International Women’s Day marches. The power of women to effect change is
seen most notably in 1917 when women in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) took to the
streets for Bread and Peace. As the strike spread, the slogan broadened to Bread,
Land, and Peace and became the first note of the Russian Revolution.

An attack on unions is an attack on women

The National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, whatever the weakness of its
enforcement, guarantees the right of employees to organize and bargain
collectively with their employers, but only in private-sector workplaces.
Despite this, the highest rate of union membership — 32.2% — is in the public
sector (federal, state, and municipal employees) and of these public sector
workers, the highest rate of unionization — almost one third — is among those in
education, training and library occupations.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 77% of K-12
(kindergarten through high school) teachers in the U.S. are women with the
proportion rising to 89% — almost nine out of 10 — for elementary school
classrooms.

Let’s return to Utah with 31,164 teachers, most of whom are women, in its K-
12 public schools. Utah also has eight public colleges. The University of Utah alone
with its more than 20,000 faculty and staff is the state’s largest employer!

A nationwide struggle

It is a well-known fact that union workers on the average earn 25% more than
nonunion workers and are more likely to receive health care and pension
benefits. This makes the battle ahead in Utah critical for the well-being of women
and their families.

North and South Carolina have had longstanding public sector bans in place
while some states, such as Texas and Georgia, make exceptions for police and fire.
Utah thus becomes the third state to pass a ban on public sector collective
bargaining. With Trump in office, anti-labor forces see Utah as a stepping stone to
gain momentum. The fight ahead in Utah is a nationwide struggle in which we all
must become involved.

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Mya Shone is a member of the Editorial Board of The Organizer Newspaper, the monthly publication of Socialist Organizer. To learn more about Socialist Organizer, go to http://www.socialistorganizer.org.