Organizers of Jacksonville’s teachers’ union have been racing to enroll new members to keep state recognition as the group negotiating contracts for thousands of school district employees.
"We have until September 8 to get to 60%-plus membership and avoid having another vote. … I don’t want us to take a chance on losing our union," Duval Teachers United executive board member Eva Kelley said in one of a series of messages the union posted to social media platforms in the past week urging employees to join.
DTU, which has negotiated contracts for school district employees since the 1970s, has been struggling to reach a 60% membership requirement that Florida’s Legislature created for public-employee unions in 2023.
"We need 230 teachers as of right
now," Executive Vice President Jessica Reyst said in a video posted early afternoon on Tuesday, September 8.
Member rolls for the group’s three units ― for teachers, paraprofessionals and office staff ― had been collectively short by more than 500 people when Reyst announced numbers in late August, but more than 100 new members were later added.
The union acts as bargaining agent for the three groups of employees, handing separate contracts for each. The contracts all run through 2027.
Reyst’s messages have listed DTU as short of the 60% threshold in each group, although a majority of teachers and paraprofessionals had signed on as members. The union must deliver its membership information, including data about dues payment, to the state by Thursday, September 10.
The membership threshold is significantly tougher than requirements for forming a union to negotiate contracts first advanced under the National Labor Relations Act in the 1930s. Those are formed when 30% of a group of employees petitions to do so and a simple majority of workers who choose to vote in an election casting their ballots in favor.
Florida's supermajority threshold was blamed by labor supporters for the loss of public unions in communities across the state, although many organizations have since worked to earn back their roles.
The membership crunch is hitting months after Florida's Legislature passed a new law addressing steps to decertify public-employee unions. That legislation was characterized by critics as a nail in the coffin for public unions, many of which have historically been aligned with Democratic politicians who are a longtime minority in the Legislature.
The membership struggle also follows efforts by DTU's leaders to recover from disruptions surrounding the indictments and February prison sentences of Terrie Brady and Ruby George, the longtime president and executive vice president who stole $2.6 million by falsifying leave records to "sell back" to the union vacation time they didn't have.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Duval teachers' union races to avoid losing certification
