§ 34-19-1. Declaration of policy.

     In the interpretation and application of this chapter, the public policy of this state is declared as follows:

(1) It is not unlawful for employees to organize themselves into or carry on labor unions for the purpose of lessening hours of labor, increasing wages, bettering the conditions of members, or carrying out the legitimate purposes of such organizations as freely as they could do if acting singly.

(2) The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor, agricultural or horticultural organizations, instituted for the purpose of mutual help and not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate object thereof; nor shall such organizations or membership in them be held to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under the antitrust laws.

(3) Negotiations of terms and conditions of labor should result from voluntary agreement between employer and employee. Governmental authority has permitted and encouraged employers to organize in the corporate and other forms of capital control. In dealing with such employers the individual unorganized worker is helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract and to protect the individual unorganized worker's freedom of labor and thereby to obtain acceptable terms and conditions of employment. Therefore, it is necessary that the individual employee have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of the individual employee's own choosing to negotiate the terms and conditions of the individual employee's employment, and that the individual employee shall be free from the interference, restraint or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or their mutual aid or protection.

Amended by Chapter 297, 2011 General Session