SB 1014 (Baxley) Employee Organizations is another union busting bill moving through the Senate that is targeted primarily against women and we need you and your club members to OPPOSE it!
This bill singles out K-12 public school teachers, who are primarily women, by mandating that their union dues will no longer be deducted automatically from their paychecks. Meanwhile, this bill does NOT apply to the male-dominated police and firefighters' unions!
Here are some other talking points about this terrible bill:
Besides being misogynistic, this bill highlights the anti-public teacher bias that exists in the Republican Florida Legislature. These legislators know perfectly well that by forcing K-12 teachers to manually pay union dues, union membership will decline not because of disinterest in the union, but solely as a result of the extra time-consuming step to manually send in the dues. In addition, they know that a delayed payment may miss the union registration date deadline.
Once union membership falls below 50%, the union automatically is decertified and loses its bargaining power. What better way to tape the mouths of those pesky opinionated women teachers who are always speaking up for themselves and their peers!
This bill also increases the administrative and financial burden by making teachers rejoin their union every year and sign a form acknowledging that they are aware Florida is a right-to-work state. So not only does this bill discriminate against women's right to unionize, it infantilizes them.
Finally, the bill removes the option to keep union membership anonymous by requiring that the union submit the membership roll, if requested, to the Public Employees Relations Commission.
This bill already passed one committee in the House and the Senate. If scheduled, there is only one more Senate committee stop (Rules) before SB 1014 would go to the Senate floor for a vote. I am asking you today to contact Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, Chair of the Rules Committee, and urge her to refrain from hearing this bill in her committee. Her contact information is shown below.
Senator Passidomo's Email
(850) 487-5028 passidomo.kathleen@flsenate.gov