Miami-Dade teachers union is in a fight for its life – via the mailbox
Teachers unions all over the state, including in Miami-Dade, are in a fight for their lives this summer.
Not only must certain public sector unions like United Teachers of Dade win an election to survive, they now must also get at least half of all eligible employees — regardless of their union status — to respond via mail.
If the union fails to get at least half of Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ 16,588 teachers and 6,491 support professionals to mail their ballots back to the Public Employees Relations Commission in Tallahassee, it will be decertified as a result of a bill that was signed into law last month.
The law is the latest effort from the Florida legislature to place stringent restrictions on public sector employee unions, though most of the regulations exclude “public safety” employees like law enforcement officers, firefighters, correctional officers and paramedics.
Ballots were mailed to the district’s eligible employees, also known as the “bargaining unit,” May 27. They will start counting the ballots on July 7.
United Teachers of Dade President Antonio White called the election the latest attempt to “dismantle public sector unions” in Florida, adding that “they’re counting on people not returning them.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans backing the law have been plain about their intent. At a bill-signing event in Fort Myers, DeSantis said the bill will “provide once and for all for the decertification of partisan teacher unions.”
With landslide victories in past recertification elections, no union official is worried about getting a majority of respondents to vote for the United Teachers of Dade, which has been a recertification requirement for years. However, the 50% participation requirement by mail is a major new hurdle in an era of smartphones and email, especially in a district where only 45% of those eligible are members of the union.
Still, White told the Herald he’s “not at all” worried about turnout crossing that threshold.
“I sleep well at night, because I know that every time they attempt to do something that affects the majority of the people and affects people’s pocketbooks, they wake up,” White said.
With 23,079 people in the union’s bargaining unit, United Teachers of Dade would need at least 11,540 returned ballots to meet the turnout requirement.
White and staff have been working feverishly to get the word out to union members and non-members alike to fill out their ballots, which they say can resemble junk mail. With the last day of school for students passing on Thursday and the last in-school day for teachers on Friday, the time to message in-person with the ballots in-hand was limited.
The union’s main selling point: Decertification of the union would lead to the dissolution of the contract between Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the United Teachers of Dade. That contract currently sets pay, benefits and workplace rules for employees.
“Everyone lives under that contract and abides by that contract. Those protections, everyone gets those. Without our contract, we don’t have them anymore. So, this is not the time for people to sit idly by,” United Teachers of Dade First Vice President Dannielle Boyer told the Herald.
Broward Teachers Union is in a similar situation. With 55% of its bargaining unit in the union, it’s also required to undergo the recertification election process.
“We’ve done it before, we’re going to do it again. Educators are smart. They want their union, [though] not all want to pay into it,” Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco told the Herald.
Why is the election happening?
This latest law, Senate Bill 1296, was the third major change in Florida law relating to public sector unions in recent years. Though it takes effect July 1, and the election began well before that date, unions are taking caution and proceeding as if it applies to them.
In 2018, the legislature passed HB 7055, which required all public sector unions with dues-paying membership under 50% to undergo an annual recertification election. After a successful election, United Teachers of Dade raised its dues-paying population from 42% of the bargaining unit to 52% within a year-and-a-half timespan.
Five years later, the legislature passed SB 256, which increased the threshold of dues-paying members required to avoid a recertification election to 60% and blocked unions from pulling dues directly from teachers’ paychecks.
Since United Teachers of Dade had been collecting dues directly from its members’ paychecks — current dues come out around $988 per year — it had to start its own collections team. The change also reset their dues-paying membership back to zero from 14,400.
White said that since SB 256, teachers unions in the state have gone through about 260 recertification elections and have won every one of them.
But the 50% turnout requirement presents uncharted waters.
The by-mail nature of the election comes with its own challenges, too. Both White and Fusco framed it as a deliberate play for their extinction.
“Of course they could [hold the election online]. Then that would make it where we’re actually in the 21st century. They want to go outside the box to something that is not the norm, and people aren’t paying attention to,” Fusco said.
Union leaders say that the process for recertification is unsustainable by design.
Aside from the cost of the election, $30,000 to $40,000 split between the United Teachers of Dade and the school district, White said the time and labor going into advocacy about the election takes the union’s focus away from its core mission.
“You really can’t continue to do that sustained over a long period of time, but whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I think the membership is going to grow, we’re going to get to 60-plus percent, and then they’ll have a new problem: We’ll have even more resources to fight bad policy than we had before,” White said.