School unions in Florida win a battle over a tuition reduction law

By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge on Wednesday backed two public school unions in a constitutional challenge to part of a 2023 Florida law that prevents the deduction of union dues from government employees' paychecks.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said the fee deduction ban unconstitutionally violates existing collective bargaining agreements between the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association and the Hernando United School Workers unions. He issued an injunction to prevent the ban from applying to these unions while the collective agreements remain in effect.

Citing the U.S. Constitution's so-called Contracts Clause, Walker wrote that the ban “does not constitute a reasonable interference with contracts because it affects the parties' existing negotiated CBAs (collective bargaining agreements) before they expire without cause.”

“The 'problem' being resolved here – that is, the provision of payroll deductions to collect union dues – was a statutory right when the existing collective bargaining agreements were negotiated,” Walker wrote. “All parties were aware of the existence of wage deductions as a potential term in their collective agreements. The parties were probably also aware of alternatives to wage deduction at this point. Given this knowledge at the time the existing CBAs were negotiated, and in the absence of an unexpected change in circumstances, it is unreasonable to materially prejudice those arrangements before their expiry by repealing an express provision of each agreement.”

The ban on dues deduction was part of a series of controversial changes that the Republican-controlled Legislature included in the 2023 law to impose additional restrictions on public employee unions. The changes also affected “member approval forms” and rules affecting union recertification.

Unions representing public school and university employees challenged the law last year, but Walker rejected much of the lawsuit in July. However, he left open the question of whether the ban on deducting contributions was unconstitutional.

In his ruling Wednesday, Walker said other plaintiffs, the Alachua County Education Association, the University of Florida division of the United Faculty of Florida and the Lafayette Education Association, lacked legal standing to pursue the dues deduction issue. This was in part because Alachua County and the University of Florida's union contracts expired during the litigation.

However, Walker ruled that the Pinellas County and Hernando County unions had standing to sue.

In passing the law, some legislative advocates argued that it would provide workers with greater transparency on issues such as their union dues. But opponents claimed the law was an attempt at “union destruction.”

Wednesday's ruling applies only to the Pinellas County and Hernando County unions. The defendants include members of the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law.

“No evidence in the record suggests a sudden change in circumstances that would justify interfering with the existing CBAs before their expiration,” Walker wrote. “The PERC (Public Employees Relations Commission) defendants claim that the payroll deduction ban increases transparency by ensuring that public employees are better informed about contributions and by improving interactions between employees and their union representatives. However, the record does not demonstrate that its goal of transparency is an urgent priority due to an unforeseen change in circumstances.”

However, the judge pointed out that the ban on deducting contributions could also apply to the two unions in the future.

“In the absence of any evidence of changed circumstances, this court finds it unreasonable to interfere with the existing CBAs before their expiration, particularly considering that under Florida law the CBAs cannot last longer than three years,” he wrote. “Some have already expired during the duration of this litigation and the remaining will expire relatively soon. When the remaining CBAs expire, public employers will be free to renegotiate them in a manner that addresses the state's transparency concerns. However, it is unreasonable to interfere with it before it expires.”