(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) –Today, the Florida House State Affairs Committee approved a Freedom Foundation bill to end government collection of union dues from teachers’ paychecks, sending Senate Bill 256 to the House floor.
Similar measures were also approved in the Arkansas and Kentucky state legislatures this session.
“Unions are multi-billion-dollar corporations,” explained Rusty Brown, southern director of the Freedom Foundation. “As such, they aren’t always a benefit to employees, for example when they care more about their own bottom line than their members. In situations where they become more of a burden, this bill empowers employees to easily hold their union accountable.”
Brown continued, “Senate Bill 256 ensures government employees have the opportunity to actually vote on whether or not they want to be represented by a union. Until recently, government unions held a monopoly on workplace representation, and they’ve made it exceedingly difficult and time-consuming to resign membership and stop having dues deducted from employee paychecks.”
Unions, of course, don’t like this bill because it gives Floridians the freedom to keep more of their own paychecks, which hurts the unions’ bottom line.
Teachers across the country have been leaving their unions in droves as they grow tired of the political propaganda the unions have increasingly pushed in the classrooms. Since the COVID school shutdowns began in March 2020, more than 141,000 teachers have quit their memberships in the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
“If you’re a teacher in Florida and this becomes law, the first thing that happens is you will see an increase in your take-home pay when the union dues stop being taken from your paycheck,” continued Brown. “Then, if you want to continue your union membership, you sign up for payment with the union directly as you would any other subscription or membership.”
“It’s 2023,” he concluded. “There’s no reason for the government to be involved in collecting union dues when every other organization has managed to collect their own payments for years. When the unions fight bills that make it easier for teachers to keep more of their own hard-earned paychecks, you know teachers aren’t the unions’ priority.”
