- Salt Lake City librarians unionized after city leaders approved a historic collective bargaining agreement.
- The deal includes wage increases, benefits and union participation rights for employees.
- City officials expect no tax increases from the new wages and benefits.
SALT LAKE CITY — Library employees in Utah's capital city are officially the first municipal library staff to unionize after city leaders approved a resolution to support their first collective bargaining agreement.
"This is a historic day for the city," said Salt Lake City Council Chairman Alejandro Puy, moments before the body unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding that the Salt Lake City Library Board and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1004 reached on behalf of eligible library employees.
It also marks the end of a long journey that included an unforeseen obstacle from the state.
City librarians brought their request to unionize to the library board in April 2023, seeking improvements to wages, safety, inaccessible or expensive health care and other "long-standing issues" related to the job. They were, at the time, the largest group of city employees not represented by a union.
"We recognized that there were a lot of injustices and a lot of (inconsistencies) in our system — and we wanted to change that," said Christina Ordonez, a city library employee, at the time.
The library's board of directors agreed to allow workers to unionize in December 2024, following lengthy discussions to create a union. City leaders signed off on that agreement a few months later, but the efforts to finalize an agreement stalled when Utah lawmakers passed HB267.
The bill, which Gov. Spencer Cox signed a little more than a week after the City Council's 2025 vote, banned public sector collective bargaining altogether. However, the governor signed a bill to overturn that same law in December, after a referendum seeking to overturn the law easily surpassed the threshold to make it onto the 2026 ballot.
This allowed library leaders and staff to finalize the collective bargaining agreement that the City Council signed off on Tuesday.
The deal includes wage increases and additional benefits, and it allows eligible employees the right to participate in union activities if they choose to do so, along with protections for joining a union and other protections. It also outlines provisions for collective bargaining negotiations and what are considered unfair labor practices, such as locking out employees.
City officials said there aren't expected to be any tax increases tied to the new wages and benefits.
"Strong unions help create stable jobs, better services and a workforce that can stay and grow in our city," Puy added. "Supporting workers is not just the right thing to do; it's good for Salt Lake City's long-term success."
