Unfair Labor Practices: Utah

Federal law and guidance on this subject should be reviewed together with this section.

Author: Michael D. Stanger, Callister Nebeker & McCullough

Summary

• The Utah Labor Relations Act (ULRA) prohibits employers and unions from engaging in numerous unlawful actions, known as unfair labor practices. See Employer Unfair Labor Practices and Union Unfair Labor Practices.
• An employer commits an unfair labor practice if it engages in certain activities, including interfering, restraining or coercing employees in their exercise of their ULRA rights and refusing to bargain in good faith with a union representative. See Employer Unfair Labor Practices.
• A union commits an unfair labor practice if it engages in certain activities, including causing an employer to pay for services not to be performed and engaging in a secondary boycott of a neutral employer. See Union Unfair Labor Practices.
• Because of the significant overlap between actions constituting unfair labor practices under the NLRA and the ULRA, the NLRA will often preempt the ULRA and any Utah court's determination of whether such actions are, in fact, an unfair labor practice. See, Guss v. Utah Labor Relations Bd., +353 U.S. 1 (1957). See Employer Unfair Labor Practices.
• Nevertheless, in some limited contexts, Utah courts are still called upon to interpret the unfair labor practice provisions of the ULRA. See Utah Court Interpretations of Unfair Labor Practice.