Despite adding over 800 new members, the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) in Miami-Dade County, Florida, still failed to meet the required right-to-work law threshold. This led to their decertification just a few days into the new year.
According to the law, every union must reach a 60 percent membership threshold of union-paying members. The UTD simply failed to do so. The Florida state Governor, Ron DeSantis, and other state Republicans support this law and are enforcing it across all boards.
The Freedom Foundation also supported this decision and aimed to decertify UTD and create an alternative labor organization.
However, UTD tried to prevent this from happening. They tried to regain lost members and even offered incentives to lure people in. They also collected “showing of interest cards” to meet the initial requirement by the government, but it wasn’t enough.
The Miami Herald wrote, “In a statement sent exclusively to the Miami-Herald on Tuesday (January 2nd), UTD confirmed that an audit conducted by an independent auditor showed that the number of eligible employees who were union-paying members fell short of the threshold, despite UTD adding more than eligible 800 new members, ‘an unprecedented growth in the past five months.'”
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Undoubtedly, the teachers and members of UTD were unhappy with this development. A teacher, Shawn Beightol, said they have a piece of paper that they call “a contract that’s really not worth much more than toilet paper. When the Miami-Dade Education Coalition succeeds at replacing the United Teachers of Dade, you’re going to see your dues drop.”
To the members, the UTD is important to help them fight for their rights and dues. However, the Freedom Foundation disagrees. According to Allison Beattie, the director of labor relations, they spend too much time pushing political agendas.
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“If United Teachers of Dade spent half as much time paying attention to their members’ interests as they have been pushing a political agenda with Randi Weingarten and running for office with [failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Charlie Crist, they probably wouldn’t even be in this position,” she said.
“Now, they’ve spent the last few months scrambling to get their unsatisfied customers back, and they couldn’t do it,” she concluded. The Freedom Foundation also mentioned that UTD has spent most of its time attacking the group and spreading misinformation on purpose.
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A statement by the foundation reads, “UTD quickly recognized the threat MDEC posed and immediately began attacking the Freedom Foundation for the high crime of sending information to teachers in the district informing them of their rights while also spreading misinformation that MDEC would be run by the Freedom Foundation.”
UTD president Karla Hernández-Mats is not happy with the decertification. Nevertheless, he has no choice but to accept it and move forward to the new organization. He complained, saying, “We barely have five months to move the entire bargaining unit and the union over to a new form of dues membership collection. It is a heavy, heavy lift. We’re talking about over 13,000 members.”
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