Florida teachers unions head to trial over anti-union law

By KATE PAYNE The Associated Press

FILE - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tosses a signing pen to a spectator after signing several bills related to public education and increases in teacher pay at a news conference in Miami, May 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Rebecca Blackwell]

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s teachers unions are heading back to court Thursday in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of new requirements for certain unions.

A trial is scheduled to begin at a federal courthouse in Tallahassee in the case brought by the Florida Education Association and a slate of county-level labor groups against the state agency that regulates unions.

They sued over a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023 that requires more public workers to pay dues in order to keep their unions alive, while simultaneously making it harder for employees to pay those dues.

Under the measure known as SB 256, unions representing tens of thousands of educators have been under pressure to clear the new standards or lose their collective bargaining rights. That’s despite workers’ right to organize being enshrined in Florida’s constitution.

The new law requires certain unions to recertify if the number of dues-paying members drops below 60% of those eligible to join – and bars unions from automatically deducting dues from members’ paychecks.

“If you want to join, you can, but you write a check and you hand it over. That is gonna lead to more take-home pay for teachers,” DeSantis said at the bill-signing ceremony.

Notably, the law does not apply to unions representing law enforcement officers, correctional officers or firefighters. Leaders of the state’s teachers unions argue the measure was designed to punish the governor’s critics in organized labor while providing a carveout to help preserve the power of first responders who have supported him politically.

“There is no policy logic to the Act’s pervasive distinction between favored and disfavored unions,” attorneys for the unions wrote in a court filing. “But there is an unmistakable political logic.”

Teachers’ unions had railed against DeSantis’ approach to the coronavirus pandemic, which they argue forced educators back into the classroom in unsafe conditions and targeted school boards that tried to require masks on campus during a surge in new cases.

Union members have continued to criticize the Republican governor’s conservative agenda. During DeSantis’ 2022 reelection campaign, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor running against him was Karla Hernández-Mats, the president of United Teachers of Dade, the union representing workers in the state’s largest school district in Miami-Dade County.

In legal filings, attorneys for the labor groups have argued that the law infringes on the unions’ constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection, “while imposing no comparable burden on favored unions.”

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.