This measure would limit Arizona teachers' union activity. Some worry it might affect police, too

There will be a lot of issues on the Arizona ballot come November — that became all the more clear after lawmakers ended their session over the weekend and added 10 more to the list, including what’s being called a school voucher "poison pill" to bans on DEI and traffic photo enforcement cameras.

Another measure is House Concurrent Resolution 2040, which would restrict teachers from engaging in union activity. It’s aimed at the Arizona Education Association — which is aiming to get another measure on your ballot that would put limits on the state’s ballooning school voucher program.

But Jim Small said buried in that proposed constitutional amendment is language that advocates fear could ban all public sector labor unions in the state — and that could include police officers and firefighters.

Jim Small is editor in chief of the Arizona Mirror and he joined The Show to talk more.

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Jim.

JIM SMALL: Good morning ...

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so what would this ballot measure do to begin with? It’s said to be aimed at the teachers’ union. Is that explicit here?

JIM SMALL: Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely aimed — ... it was drafted as retaliation against the Arizona Education Association, which is the state’s largest teachers’ union and has affiliates across the state in districts. And essentially, the teachers’ union came out and said that they were going to spearhead this ballot initiative to put some pretty strict reforms onto the universal school voucher program.

Republicans were very upset about that, so they drafted this proposal in response, which essentially would amend the Arizona Constitution to more or less really curtail what teachers can do, how they can unionize, how they can organize, how they can recruit new members. And most — I think the thing that is most concerning for the Arizona Education Association, is it would single out teachers and school district employees as people who could not have union dues deducted from their paycheck.

Completely voluntary thing that members of unions across government, across private sector do is have these deductions taken out, but they have to request it. And this would say that specifically school districts and school district employees, teachers or folks that drive buses or clean the campuses or maintenance people or cafeteria workers or librarians, none of them could have that money taken out of their paychecks.

LAUREN GILGER: Jim, does this have to do with teachers being allowed to strike as well, as they did very effectively a few years ago during Red for Ed?

JIM SMALL: It at one point the bill, the measure did include language that would go after teachers for striking and would punish them for it. That was taken out on the final day, but that is that is also something that Republicans were looking to, I think, in some ways kind of get some payback on because of something like Red for Ed, which was incredibly effective when teachers walked out in mass from classrooms.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, right. OK, so you’re reporting, Jim, that the language here in this measure could mean that there are impacts here for other public sector unions as well, right? Police and fire, tell us what you found.

JIM SMALL: Yeah, so and it’s something of an open question, and it essentially buried in the very kind of like last provision of this proposal to amend the Constitution. It has a sentence in there that it says no subdivision of the state, which essentially means the state government, cities, counties, fire districts, school districts, any kind of governmental body, they would all be barred from negotiating with a labor union for terms of employment ... for workers.

And it uses language that is seen across state law and and even across the the Arizona Constitution in multiple places, and it’s kind of boilerplate language that when lawmakers want to enact a statewide ban on something, they kind of grab this language and they dropped it into this bill into this proposal that is everything else is focused on teachers — or on school district employees and on school districts and what those two categories can do. And then all of a sudden at the very end, there’s this incredibly broad language that is just dropped in there that says, "Hey, guess what? This applies to everybody. No one across the state, no government across the state can do this."

And it’s an open question as to whether, because it’s in the context of this other proposal that deals with school districts and school district employees, whether it would be limited to that or whether, the court would look at that and say, "Well, words have meaning, right? Like if we’re going to limit everything else to school districts and school district employees and then suddenly there’s not a limit that’s placed on things, what was the Legislature really intending to do?"

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So up for debate, as you’re saying here, this is an open question. But you spoke with the head of the Arizona Police Association, right, who seems concerned?

JIM SMALL: Absolutely. Spoke with Joe Clure, who is the executive director for the Arizona Police Association, and he told me that this is something that is on their radar. They are concerned about this, they’re watching this. They’re having his his union and other public safety unions and and other unions that represent government workers in in other different sectors are looking at this trying to make sense of it, trying to figure out what exactly it means.

And there is a real palpable fear there that because it’s written so broadly, and because it employs language that is widely understood by lawmakers, by courts and by other governments to limit what they’re allowed to do, that it could have some impact and and that it could lead to someone trying to say, "Hey, guess what? If voters pass this, this actually undoes everything that happens for police and for fire and for, you know, maybe transportation workers and things like that."

LAUREN GILGER: Interesting. You did speak with another union leader who said, no, this is OK, it seems clear this is only going to apply to schools though, right? Like it’s it’s not everyone who’s up in arms here.

JIM SMALL: Yeah, it’s not. I think that there is even division within land and and, you know, I got the sense from talking to ... John Laredo, who is the executive director of the Arizona Labor Unity Table, which kind of is a coalition of different different labor groups. And his view of it was like, "Look, I think that this thing is probably, ... was his words, "is probably limited to just school district employees."

But he even he acknowledged that it it’s written in a way that is confusing and is vague, and that other labor activists and labor leaders are looking at and really trying to make sense of it and trying to, I think get their arms around what this could potentially mean.

You know, at the end of the day, all of these labor unions are going to be opposing this. They were already they were fighting it at the Legislature, they’re going to fight against it at the ballot. But I think that this just gives them maybe a little bit of extra motivation to get behind this and and to make sure, you know, that they do put their resources out there in a way that that really works to to try to defeat this thing at the ballot box.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, OK. Jim, last 20 seconds here or so, you think — does it seem as if this could end up in court?

JIM SMALL: I think it’s entirely possible. You know, I spoke with one attorney who works for labor unions, who had to be a little circumspect when he talked about it because his clients were weighing potential legal options against this measure. Whether it’s against this provision or against other ones, unclear.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Jim Small, editor in chief of the Arizona Mirror, joining us. Jim, thanks so much.

JIM SMALL: My pleasure.