The News Service of Florida.
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis and teachers unions don’t get along.
In addition to clashing with DeSantis over policy issues, the Florida Education Association statewide union was one of the biggest backers last year of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.
The conflict will continue during the coming week in the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, where teachers unions are challenging the constitutionality of a DeSantis-backed law that places additional restrictions on public-employee unions.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has scheduled a June 23 hearing on a request by the FEA and other unions for a preliminary injunction against parts of the law, including a prohibition on union dues being deducted from workers’ paychecks.
The unions also are targeting the constitutionality of part of the law that requires specific information to be included on union membership forms.
“(The section of the law), by compelling disfavored unions to convey a prominent, government-drafted, 91-word ‘right-to-work’ affirmation in the membership authorization forms that they present to prospective members, and compelling those public employees who desire to become members of disfavored unions to sign that affirmation, violates the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the unions’ lawsuit said.
But attorneys for the state said in a court document that the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed last month by DeSantis, is “the latest in Florida’s long history of regulating the terms of public employment” and makes “modest changes.”
“Its purpose is to ensure that public employees are aware of their rights to join (or not join) their unions and their rights to pay (or not pay) dues to those unions,” the document said. “It also ensures that public employees have some understanding of how their unions use those dues. Public employees are often not aware of these issues.”