Senate passes bill ending automatic teachers union deductions

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – The Florida Senate passed a bill that prohibits unions from directly withdrawing funds from some public employee paychecks.

It passed Wednesday 23-17, with several Republicans voting against the proposal.

The bill, which previously passed through two Senate committees, was sponsored by Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill.

Under this bill, beginning July 1, a public employee who desires to join a union must sign a membership authorization form that contains an acknowledgement that the state of Florida is a “right to work” state.

The form would outline that union membership and payment of union dues is not required as a condition of employment.

The union is required to revoke an employee’s membership upon receipt of the employee’s written request at any time. The Senate approved an amendment that requires that information about the five highest compensated officer employees of the union be presented to the member up front.

The legislation allows the Public Employees Relations Commission to inspect specific employee organization’s membership authorization forms and membership revocation forms.

The bill requires the employee organization to be recertified as the bargaining agent if the number of employees paying dues to the employee organization during the last registration period is less than 60% of the number of employees eligible for representation in the bargaining unit.

It requires employers to submit their annual financial statements and renewal applications to be audited by an independent Certified Public Accountant, according to Ingoglia.

During debate, Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, who is a CPA, said he would not be supporting the bill because small unions will not be able to afford auditing requirements.

Gruters said financial statements are not quick, and only about 1,000 firms do these audits in Florida.

“For a CPA to do a financial statement audit, the entity has to have financial statements, and I highly doubt most of these groups with the smaller budgets that they have one,” Gruters explained.

Gruters said a simple language change could have addressed this, but ultimately it was decided a change was not needed.

“This tells me that the only intent of the bill is to kill off the unions here in Florida, and I cannot vote yes,” Gruters said.

Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, also opposed the bill during debate.

“If you’ve ever had someone in your life who’s fought for you, that’s what unions do for these people […] These are the people who have stood up for us, for our community for our state when we needed it most. Stand with these people who stood for us,” Book said.

The current legislation does not apply to law enforcement officers, correctional officers and firefighters.

Democrats proposed an amendment that would add EMTs to the bill, but it did not pass.

The Senate approved an amendment to make sure the bill would not affect federal government funding to unions.

In closing, Ingoglia said there is nothing in this bill that negatively impacts an employee’s ability to join, maintain membership in, pay for, or participate in their union.

“This proposal in this bill protects employees, and it saves Florida taxpayers by getting them out of the financial relationship between an employee and their union,” Ingoglia explained.

Republican Sens. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, Ed Hooper, R-Palm Harbor, and Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, opposed the bill.

DeSantis previously announced he wanted legislation that takes aim at teachers unions for automatically deducting union dues from teacher paychecks.

“First of all, you totally, you do not have to join teachers union. But if you do, the government, we don’t want to play a role in deducting anybody’s money so you write every month for the dues and you do it that way,” DeSantis explained in December.

A similar bill has passed through one House committee.