Last-Minute Effort to Ban Paid Union Leave Fails

03.11.2010 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) Republican Senator Margaret Dayton tried to resurrect her proposal to ban paid leave for teachers doing union work yesterday. The Utah House shot down her bill on Tuesday, but Dayton tried to add it as an amendment to the education budget bill, SB 2.

“I just think this is another opportunity for us to acknowledge the fact that we have a union-endorsed cut to the classroom and we need to make sure that we don’t support that because this is money directly out of the classroom to fund teachers,” she argued.

The amendment failed on a close 10-to-12 vote, but Dayton has pledged to bring her proposal back again next year. She claims union representatives in other industries aren’t paid by their employer while doing union work, and she opposes taxpayer dollars going to support union activities.