Teachers unions could disappear under DeSantis ‘union busting’ law
Orlando Sentinel | By Steven Walker |
Florida’s teachers unions must now fight for their survival under a tough, new state law that makes it far harder for them to remain active and will force live-or-die votes as soon as this summer.
The president of the statewide teachers union said he has “great concern” that a number of local unions will soon shutter and that thousands of teachers could lose representation.
The union that represents teachers in Seminole County Public Schools is one that this summer faces a recertification election, or a vote to prove it has enough support to represent the district’s teachers.
Under the new law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed May 1, math is not on the union’s side.
The Seminole Education Association now counts 33% of the county’s teachers as members. But in the upcoming recertification vote, it must win more than half the votes from all of Seminole teachers, who number about 4,400. Under the old law, it needed to win only a majority of those who voted, a far easier threshold to meet.
“Even if everybody, 100% of our members, vote yes, we are decertified after the election,” said Thomas Bugos, the Seminole union’s president.
If decertified, the union can no longer represent teachers in salary negotiations or other matters. School districts could then decide on their own whether to offer teachers raises and, if so, how big the pay hikes should be.
Bugos said the future looks “scary” for teachers unions, and the teachers they represent, because of the new law. He views the new rules as part of an ongoing state attack on public education.
“The teachers that have dedicated their lives to this — we’re forcing these hoops and obstacles in front of them to make their job even more difficult,” he said.
The Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, the union for Orange County Public Schools, Central Florida’s largest school district, faces a vote this summer too. But it has boosted membership to 60%, so it hopes it will survive the election.
Sen. Jonathan Martin, the Fort Myers Republican who sponsored the bill, said during the legislative session that the changes would hold teachers unions more accountable to the people they claim to represent.
“These unions are all over the state of Florida, these collective bargaining groups, where the class that they represent doesn’t want to be a member of that class. They don’t. They’re not voting. They don’t care,” Martin said.
When he signed the bill, DeSantis said the new law would “provide once and for all for the decertification of partisan teacher unions.”
The Florida Education Association, the statewide union, has long supported Democrats and opposed DeSantis and other Republicans’ education policies. DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature have pushed other measures to curtail teacher unions’ power. In 2023, for example, the state ended payroll deductions for union dues, making it harder for unions to guarantee those payments, and increased the membership threshold to avoid recertification elections.
The conservative Freedom Foundation, an organization that played a role in the law’s creation, celebrated its passage.
The changes were “long overdue” to combat “zombie unions” that do not really represent most of a district’s teachers, said Aaron Withe, the group’s CEO, in a statement.
“A handful of activists shouldn’t control workplace representation for hundreds of employees who never asked for it,” Withe said.
The law, which also applies to nursing and municipal workers unions, exempts unions that represent police officers, firefighters and corrections officers, whose leaders typically support Republicans. Lawmakers who opposed it called it a “union busting” measure.
Local unions can avoid a recertification vote by having 60% of teachers paying dues, which automatically re-certifies the chapter.
But Andrew Spar, the president of the statewide union, said via text that a majority of local teachers unions now fall short of that threshold.
Teachers unions in Florida have gained 4,000 new members since the bill passed the Legislature in March, he said, but there’s still “great concern” that many unions could be decertified this year because of the new law.
“The Governor and his activist administration are being clear that they do not care about the workers of this state,” Spar said.
Unions are now trying to encourage more teachers to sign up.
Orange’s teachers union recently surpassed the 60% threshold, but not in time to avoid an election this summer, said Clinton McCracken, the union’s president. But if it can maintain that membership, it wouldn’t face another recertification election next year.
Dylan Reinsel, an AP U.S. History teacher at St. Cloud High School, urged his fellow teachers to join the union in a video shared this month by the Osceola County teachers union. In the video, Reinsel touted union benefits and said the DeSantis administration wants to tamp down the influence of those who push back against its policies.
“They’re counting on people sitting it out, so let’s prove them wrong. Join, stay in, talk to the teacher next door. Because once it’s gone, you’re on your own,” he said.
Burgos, the Seminole union president, said the new voting threshold is unfair. After all, plenty of the lawmakers who voted for the bill got into office winning votes from a majority of those who cast ballots on election day, not a majority of all voters in their districts.
And it has made unions focus on signing up more teachers instead of negotiating for better salaries and benefits, he said.
McCracken agreed.
“We were representing our members well and with fidelity and fighting for a better life for all of our teachers, which actually improves the learning conditions of our students. And for no reason, we have this extra burden on top of us from Tallahassee that was unnecessary,” he said.
