By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Unions including Florida A&M University professors and St. Lucie County teachers have challenged the constitutionality of changes approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature that can force public-employee unions to seek recertification.
The Florida A&M and St. Lucie County unions, along with the United Faculty of Florida and two educators, filed a lawsuit last week in Leon County circuit court alleging that the changes made in 2023 and this year violate constitutional collective-bargaining rights.
The lawsuit, which names as a defendant the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, is the latest in a series of legal cases stemming from the controversial changes.
The new lawsuit centers on part of the 2023 law that requires unions to be recertified as bargaining agents if fewer than 60 percent of eligible employees had paid dues. The lawsuit said the requirement was “exacerbated” by this year’s law (SB 1746), which added a 60 percent requirement for employees signing what are known as membership authorization forms.
“That means that, in some cases, (the part of the 2023 law) threatens an employee organization with decertification even though a clear majority of employees in the bargaining unit have paid dues,” the lawsuit said. “In addition, after SB 1746, an employee organization is threatened with decertification unless a 60% super-majority of represented employees have submitted signed, unrevoked membership authorization forms, containing various statements prescribed by defendant PERC (the Public Employees Relations Commission).”
The lawsuit said collective bargaining is a “majoritarian process” and that a 60 percent dues-paying threshold is invalid under the state Constitution.
“Florida has no compelling interest in abridging the collective-bargaining rights of employees and labor organizations based on whether a super-majority of employees in the bargaining unit pay dues,” the lawsuit said.
The changes particularly drew heavy debate during the 2023 legislative session, with union members from throughout the state converging on the Capitol. Republican lawmakers argued that the changes would increase transparency for union members, but opponents described them as an attempt at “union busting.”
Part of the controversy also has come from lawmakers and DeSantis exempting unions that represent law enforcement officers and firefighters from the changes. Those unions in recent years have often backed Republican candidates in elections, while teachers unions and other public-employee unions frequently support Democrats.
As an example of other legal challenges to the changes, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker is scheduled to hold a trial in October on part of the law that bars the deduction of union dues from workers’ paychecks.
Unions representing public school and university employees contend in the federal lawsuit that the ban on dues deductions from paychecks violates what is known as the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That allegation stems from existing collective bargaining agreements that included agencies deducting union dues from paychecks.
In July, however, Walker rejected a series of other arguments made by the unions.
Under the changes approved by DeSantis and lawmakers, unions that do not meet the 60 percent threshold have to go through a process that includes holding elections to try to get recertified, according to the Leon County lawsuit.
The lawsuit said the Florida A&M chapter of the United Faculty of Florida in April reported that 56.6 percent of employees in its bargaining unit were dues-paying members, below the threshold. It said the United Faculty of Florida submitted a petition for recertification but that the Public Employees Relations Commission had not scheduled an election as of last week.
The St. Lucie County union, Education Association of St. Lucie, includes three units that did not meet the 60 percent threshold, including a teachers unit where 57 percent of employees were dues-paying members, the lawsuit said. The union has submitted a petition for recertification but an election had not been scheduled as of last week.
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