Florida Republicans pass anti-union bill, reject Democrats’ attempts to soften its blow

PT Car Washer

Well-Known Member
There are threads about immigration in the current events forum. This is about union issues.

So why did the teacher's union sue the state of Florida to overturn a law banning pornography in elementary schools? Why do you defend that sick crap?

People like you give all union members a bad name. Shame on you.
Dodging the question? A favorite tactic of yours.
 

Wally

BrownCafe Innovator & King of Puns
So why did Florida taxpayers pay for private jets to fly illegal migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyards?
Why did the libs in Martha's Vineyards expel those poor non-whites with due haste? They moved faster to purge "those people" than a fourth quarter no-huddle offense! Somewhere else they were perfectly fine with, in their town, not so much?
 

PT Car Washer

Well-Known Member
Why did the libs in Martha's Vineyards expel those poor non-whites with due haste? They moved faster to purge "those people" than a fourth quarter no-huddle offense! Somewhere else they were perfectly fine with, in their town, not so much?
The citizens on Martha's Vineyards helped them find jobs and a place to stay. They realized the migrants were victims of a DeSantis campaign stunt.
 

Wally

BrownCafe Innovator & King of Puns
The citizens on Martha's Vineyards helped them find jobs and a place to stay. They realized the migrants were victims of a DeSantis campaign stunt.
Lol, they cleaned them out of their hoity toity hamlet. They can't be looking at those people!
 

nWo

Well-Known Member
Like you’ve been told, I’m going to guess the Republicans in Florida feel it is unfair for the taxpayer to have to cover the cost of hiring another person or persons to deduct and manage, sending dues to a union hall. Apparently they feel any costs should be absorbed by the union or the members. I can tell you from experience the cost is minimal as in about three or four dollars per person per month. And that’s only if they use a credit card or bank card with a Visa or MasterCard logo if they pay cash or check there’s no costs because the dues clerk already is being paid anyway.

Lmao.
 

Thebrownblob

Well-Known Member
Why is your ass getting laughed off? Is Florida not a mostly Republican state? It would appear most constituents are OK with this or don’t care. And what knowledge do you have of how much I deal with people who don’t have the right to have dues withdrawn from their paychecks by the employer? If you don’t like it try to persuade your state to change it by voting.. if you even live in Florida. I don’t live in Florida I can’t do a single thing about it.
 

nWo

Well-Known Member
Public sector unions in the US have been facing significant challenges from anti-union groups and Republicans at the federal and state levels in recent years, but have also mounted significant organizing campaigns to stave off membership and funding losses.

Some 33% of workers in the public sector were union members in 2022, over five times the union density of the private sector in America. At more than 7 million workers, public sector unions represent nearly half of the 14.3 million union members in the US.

Florida was already a “right-to-work” state where workers can opt out of union membership and pay union dues while still receiving representation under a collective bargaining agreement. Only 4.5% of workers in Florida were union members in 2022, one of the lowest union densities in the US.

Now the new legislation sets a new threshold for unions to avoid having to recertify through a new union election if dues-paying members fall below 60%. The bill also requires unions to undergo annual audits, prohibits automatic dues deductions from employee paychecks, and mandates universal language on union authorization cards that reaffirms Florida’s right to work status.

Unions have criticized the legislation as an anti-union bill aimed at dismantling public sector unions and threatening union contracts and the benefits they provide to workers.

The bill was strongly backed by the Freedom Foundation, a conservative thinktank, which sent out mailers to public employees in Florida about the law.

“When you look at this legislation that the Freedom Foundation wrote here in Florida, it’s clear their main target is the teachers’ unions in Florida. They want to make it so that teachers’ unions are decertified, so that teachers have no voice in the workplace and no contract in which they operate under,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, which represents educators and has over 150,000 union members in Florida.

Unions have fought back in the state.

The Florida Educators Association attempted to obtain an emergency injunction to stop the effect of SB256 because it impugns union contracts already in existence, but lost that request, though the union still has a challenge to the legislation proceeding in federal court and is currently working on a state challenge. Spar also said the union was working on a challenge against a government-mandated union membership form that will not count dues-paying members unless they sign and submit the form.

“That’s what’s happening in Florida. The state of Florida is literally saying you’ve joined your union, you’re paying dues to your union, but we don’t count you as a union member. It makes no sense,” added Spar.

The recent legislation in Florida is part of broader anti-union efforts aimed at weakening public sector unions across the nation, but also of union action to fight back.

Many conservative stronghold states have passed right-to-work laws, with the majority of the 27 states with these laws passing legislation in the 1940s and 50s. The state laws allow workers to “free-ride”, working under a collectively bargained agreement by a union without paying dues for union membership.

In March 2023, Michigan became the first state to repeal a right-to-work law since Indiana in 1965 before Republicans restored it there in 2012.

The “right to work” movement was started and led by Vance Muse in the 1940s, a conservative activist, lobbyist and white supremacist from Texas who coined the phrase “right to work” and championed it in southern states with arguments to preserve Jim Crow-era laws.

In lock step with “right to work” efforts, Conservative and anti-union groups are currently pushing for the US supreme court to take on a case to expand the scope of the 2018 Janus v AFSCME decision that still permitted public sector unions to collect fees from non-members covered by collective bargaining agreements.

That 2018 Scotus decision overruled a 1977 decision that permitted labor unions representing public employees to collect some dues from workers who opted not to be union members, but still receive protection and benefits under a collective bargaining agreement, referred to as “free-riders”.

In August, a petition was filed to the supreme court in support of Alaska’s attorney general to try to claim under the Janus ruling that labor unions should have to acquire consent from employees every year for due deductions. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Freedom Foundation are among the anti-union groups that have written amicus briefs in support of the petition.

The effort in Alaska stems from the Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, attempting to issue an executive order in 2018 that would require annual opt-ins for union membership as part of the interpretation of the Janus ruling by the state’s attorney general, Kevin Clarkson.

“What we see in Alaska, what we see in other conservative states where Republicans have control, the state legislature and governor’s office or both, is a proliferation of attempts to roll back the ability of the unions to collect dues and to sap their financial resources,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education.

Wong added: “These are all orchestrated attempts to strip union strength at a time when overall union support is on the rise and union activism is on the rise, but also to undercut the impact of unions as we enter this critical 2024 political cycle.”

The Alaska supreme court ruled against Governor Dunleavy’s administration in June, ordering the state to pay $450,000 to the Alaska State Employees Association in damages, legal fees and interest, affirming lower court rulings.

In Kansas, anti-union groups have supported legislation opposed by unions to mandate public sector workers be required to annually receive notices that they can opt out of union membership and not pay dues.

In Wisconsin, labor unions are pushing to overturn Act 10, legislation signed by the Republican governor, Scott Walker, in 2011 that eliminated bargaining rights for most public employees, after liberals recently assumed a majority in the Wisconsin supreme court for the first time in 15 years.

In Iowa, Republicans took control of the state senate from Democrats in 2017 and with it passed a bill that took collective bargaining rights away from public employees, reducing the number of issues that unions could bargain over, with exemptions for police officers.

The legislation also made union dues collection more difficult and required public employee unions to recertify with new union elections before every contract expiration. In those elections, any worker who doesn’t vote is counted as a vote against the union. The bill was strongly lobbied for by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group heavily funded and supported by the billionaire Koch brothers.

In a narrow 4-3 ruling in 2019, the Iowa supreme court upheld the law in a judgment on a case challenging the constitutionality of the legislation.
 

nWo

Well-Known Member
Why is your ass getting laughed off? Is Florida not a mostly Republican state? It would appear most constituents are OK with this or don’t care. And what knowledge do you have of how much I deal with people who don’t have the right to have dues withdrawn from their paychecks by the employer? If you don’t like it try to persuade your state to change it by voting.. if you even live in Florida. I don’t live in Florida I can’t do a single thing about it.

Your post was a flat out lie regurgitated from some right wing maga newsource. The reason why the Teamsters are being targeted is because the Teamsters didn't endorse Desantis. And the taxpayers are on hook for millions because of it.
 

Thebrownblob

Well-Known Member
Your post was a flat out lie regurgitated from some right wing maga newsource. The reason why the Teamsters are being targeted is because the Teamsters didn't endorse Desantis. And the taxpayers are on hook for millions because of it.
That’s interesting because I don’t read right wing Maga new sources lol. And deSaints is not the only one pushing this a lot of other state representatives have to get the bill to him. Gonna have to vote those people out.

It is the DeSaints Maga? I thought they didn’t like each other. I cannot keep up.
 

nWo

Well-Known Member
That’s interesting because I don’t read right wing Maga new sources lol. And deSaints is not the only one pushing this a lot of other state representatives have to get the bill to him. Gonna have to vote those people out.

Okay. So your post is a lie but it wasn't regurgitated from a right wing newsource. It's a dumb right wing talking point with zero substance.
 

nWo

Well-Known Member
Screenshot_20231114-133629~2.png


The law was written by the Freedom Foundation with the goal of destroying unions.
 

Thebrownblob

Well-Known Member
Okay. So your post is a lie but it wasn't regurgitated from a right wing newsource. It's a dumb right wing talking point with zero substance.
Which part was the lie? Florida is not mostly Republican state? That I said, apparently the constituents feel this is either OK or don’t care? Perhaps that can be changed if the next election cycle shows different but at this point it doesn’t look like it. And for better or worse, we have quite a few companies that pay their dues monthly with their debit and credit cards at my local. Certainly not as convenient, but definitely not the end of the union. And instead of trying to cobble together a bunch of states rules, the pro act would fix most of this.

Perhaps the reason you cannot change anyone’s opinion in Florida is because of the manner in which present an argument?
 

nWo

Well-Known Member
Like you’ve been told, I’m going to guess the Republicans in Florida feel it is unfair for the taxpayer to have to cover the cost of hiring another person or persons to deduct and manage, sending dues to a union hall. Apparently they feel any costs should be absorbed by the union or the members. I can tell you from experience the cost is minimal as in about three or four dollars per person per month. And that’s only if they use a credit card or bank card with a Visa or MasterCard logo if they pay cash or check there’s no costs because the dues clerk already is being paid anyway.

The reason why the Republicans are targeting the Teamsters is because the Teamsters didn't endorse him. It is clear as day.
 
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