By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge Wednesday backed two public school unions in a constitutional challenge to part of a 2023 Florida law that prevents the deduction of union dues from government employees’ paychecks.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said the dues-deduction ban unconstitutionally violated existing collective bargaining agreements for the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association and the Hernando United School Workers unions. He issued an injunction to prevent the ban from applying to those unions while the collective bargaining agreements remain in effect.
Walker cited what is known as the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution and wrote that the ban is “not a reasonable impairment of contracts because it impairs the parties’ existing bargained-for CBAs (collective bargaining agreements) before they expire without justification.”
“The ‘problem’ to be resolved here — i.e., providing for payroll deductions to collect union dues — was a statutory right when the existing CBAs were negotiated,” Walker wrote. “All parties were aware of the existence of payroll deductions as a potential term in their CBAs. Presumably, the parties were also aware of alternatives to payroll deductions at that time. Given this knowledge at the time the existing CBAs were negotiated, and absent an unanticipated change in circumstances, it is unreasonable to substantially impair these agreements before their expiration by nullifying an express term of each agreement.”
The dues-deduction ban was part of a series of controversial changes that the Republican-controlled Legislature included in the 2023 law to place additional restrictions on public employee unions. The changes also involved “membership authorization” forms and rules affecting the recertification of unions.
Unions representing public school and university employees last year challenged the law, but Walker in July rejected much of the case. He left open the issue, however, of whether the dues-deduction ban was unconstitutional.
In his ruling Wednesday, Walker said other plaintiffs, the Alachua County Education Association, the University of Florida chapter of the United Faculty of Florida and the Lafayette Education Association, lacked legal standing to pursue the dues-deduction issue. In part, that was because the Alachua County and University of Florida union contracts expired during the lawsuit.
Walker ruled, however, that the Pinellas County and Hernando County unions had standing.
In passing the law, some legislative supporters argued that it would provide more transparency to workers about issues such as their union dues. Opponents, however, contended that the law was an attempt at “union busting.”
Wednesday’s ruling only applies to the Pinellas County and Hernando County unions. Defendants include members of the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, which is responsible for carrying out the law.
“No evidence in the record demonstrates a sudden change in circumstances to support impairing the existing CBAs before their expiration,” Walker wrote. “The PERC (Public Employees Relations Commission) defendants claim the payroll deduction ban increases transparency by ensuring public employees are more informed about dues and increasing interactions between employees and their union representatives. But the record does not show their goal of transparency is an urgent priority resulting from an unanticipated change in circumstances.”
But the judge noted that the dues-deduction ban could apply to the two unions in the future.
“Absent any evidence of changed circumstances, this court finds it is unreasonable to impair the existing CBAs before their expiration, especially considering that the CBAs may last no longer than three years under Florida law,” he wrote. “Some have already expired during the pendency of this litigation, and those remaining will expire relatively soon. When the remaining CBAs expire, the public employers are free to re-negotiate them in a way that incorporates the state’s concerns about transparency. But it is not reasonable to impair them before their expiration.”
