Third-Largest Teachers Union Faces Demise of Its Own Making
4th April 2024
In a frantic attempt to preserve its monopoly over the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, attorneys for the Florida union currently representing the district’s 24,000-plus teachers and support staff are relying on a strategy that has the potential to backfire and leave its members without workplace representation altogether.
On March 18, United Teachers of Dade, using an argument that would invalidate its own petition, asked a hearing officer with Florida’s Public Employee Relations Commission to reject a competing union’s bid to participate in a forthcoming election to determine the bargaining representative for the South Florida educators.
The election is the result of a law passed by the state’s Legislature last May requiring a recertification vote for government employee unions whose paid membership falls below 60% of the total bargaining unit.