Florida teachers unions score major victory over DeSantis
More than 100 local teachers unions facing decertification have managed to survive new requirements imposed by an anti-union law championed by the governor in 2023.
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It’s been nearly two years since Florida’s major anti-union reform law (SB 256) took effect, and Florida’s teachers unions — widely perceived as the target of the law — have scored a milestone victory in bucking the intended consequence of weakening the state’s organized labor movement.
Under the 2023 law, approved by state lawmakers largely along party lines, most of the state’s public sector unions (with the exception of police, firefighter, and correctional officer unions) are forced to ensure at least 60% of the employees they represent are full, dues-paying members, or else, the union faces the risk of decertification.
Unions with a membership density of less than 60% are then either decertified (and their collective bagaining agreements nullified), or they can petition the state for a recertification election within a limited time-frame. Doing so requires gathering signed cards of support from at least 30% of the employees they represent.
As of Monday, the Florida Education Association, a statewide union affiliated with the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, announced that at least 100 of their barganing units have successfully recertified.
“Nearly 125,000 educators in Florida spanning job titles, socioeconomic backgrounds, political parties, religions and more know that when we stand together under our constitutional right as a union, we can make change happen,” said FEA president Andrew Spar in a statement. “Nearly two years after a law that sought to destroy a worker’s right to have a union and millions of dollars spent by out-of-state, fringe, anti-worker groups, educators are standing firm and proudly voting to keep their local unions.”
The 2023 law, modeled after similar anti-union policies pushed in other GOP-controlled states, also prohibited union members from paying dues through a paycheck deduction (the most convenient way to pay dues) and established broader requirements for the information unions are required to report to the state annually.
DeSantis, who championed the law ahead of his ultimately unsuccessful bid for U.S. President, claimed the law would bring about greater transparency for educators from their union leaders and hold union leaders accountable to their members.
Critics, on the other hand, have described it as “union busting” plain and simple. “The only thing transparent about it is that it is a union killer,” said Florida State University professor Jeff Beekman, during public testimony on the law in 2023.
While dozens of public sector unions have recertified under requirements established under the union reform law, those same unions will still have to go through the same, costly process moving forward each year if their union membership density remains under 60%.
Read my full story for Orlando Weekly on the milestone victory here.