On July 1, 2023, SB 256, a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in early May 2023, officially goes into effect.
On that date, employees of local governments will no longer have their union dues deducted from their paychecks, a set-it-and-forget-it reality that has been in place for decades.
Union members will need to take extra steps to set up payment plans to keep their dues up to date.
Then, by October 2023, public employee unions will need to share data with the state about how many union members have paid dues in the most recent membership renewal cycle.
If the public union does not cross the threshold of at least 60 percent of members paying dues, the union will be decertified, calling its very future into question.
The new law builds upon a 2018 law that was passed by Florida legislators, but which only impacted teachers unions.
Since 2018, the law required teachers’ unions to have at least 50 percent of members pay dues.
The new law expands that requirement to all public employee unions- with the exception of police, firefighters and correctional officers.
The law also raises the threshold from 50 percent of members paying dues to 60 percent or higher.
That number is a formidable obstacle for many teachers’ unions, a group that has butted heads with Florida lawmakers in recent years.
Out of the 67 counties in Florida, only 22 countywide teachers’ unions passed the new 60 percent threshold last year, according to state numbers released to the Florida Senate.
Some of the most populous counties in the state were barely on the right side of the previous 50 percent threshold.
In Orange County, only 54 percent of teachers union members paid dues during the 2021-2022 bargaining period.
In Pinellas County, it was 53.56 percent. Polk County, 50.34 percent.
For Miami-Dade County- the most populous county in the state- only 50.84 percent of teachers union members paid dues during the last cycle.
The union was barely staying afloat even before the new law even goes into effect, and it has now launched a campaign to increase its membership.
The teachers’ union leader said educators are already feeling pressure from a rush of state laws that have imposed new restrictions on what teachers can and can’t say in the classroom, and new laws that have led to some subject matter and books being restricted from classrooms and libraries.
