Florida teachers have it bad and that ain't good.
Teacher unions, such as they are, on the eve of destruction.
Folks back home in Chicago are telling us that the weather isn’t too bad. Temperatures are in the 40s and 50s and guys wearing shorts have been spotted walking around.
We are entering our second week on Anna Maria Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida and locals are complaining about the cold.
It was sunny and 70 yesterday.
So go figure.
We were visiting old friends the other day who moved down here decades ago.
We saw them last year and it was around this time that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was preparing to make his announcement that he would be running for the Republican nomination for president. Our friends warned us about the faker. “He’s coming for you,” they said.
His campaign was proven to be a disaster in the face of the MAGA cult.
When I reminded them of our conversation they were insistent. “Oh, he’s not finished with you yet. Don’t be fooled.”
I’m concerned they may be right.
As two-week snow birds we love it here. But for working teachers this is a hell-hole.
Teachers are leaving the state in huge numbers.
Florida has been a right-to-work for nothing state since long before DeSantis.
But DeSantis’ attacks on public education combined with the already weak teachers unions, his book burning, Gay-bashing, anti-wokism and blatant racism have all made teaching here an almost impossible task.
Florida’s Constitution says that the “right of persons to work shall not be denied or abridged on account of membership or non-membership in any labor union or labor organization.”
That means an open shop.
Legislation signed into law last May by DeSantis aims directly at unions for public employees, including one of his favorite political targets: teacher unions.
The law, which took effect July 1, sets restrictive limits and regulations upon unions for public employees – with exceptions for law enforcement officers and firefighters. Public sector unions are now barred from receiving their members’ dues straight from paycheck deductions.
Now, teachers must manually begin to pay their dues to their union.
Unions cannot be recertified if less than 60% of employees eligible to join aren’t dues-paying members, and a new complication in collecting dues makes it harder for unions to retain members.
With the threshold raised to 60%, any union that doesn’t clear the new requirement must appeal to the state to hold an election.
“It’s meant to keep unions – and really the employees – from being able to have a powerful voice because we’re constantly having to spin our wheels and jumping through all these hoops,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.
There’s been payroll deduction in Broward County for decades for multiple things,” one teacher union activist said. “We’re technically the only entity in Broward unable to still have payroll deduction.”