Posts tagged Florida
How Representative Are Pennsylvania’s Public Sector Unions?
April 21, 2026 // In one sense, this is a small ask of union officials, who are already legally bound to fairly represent all employees once the union is certified as representative of a given workplace—whether those employees voted for the union or sign up to become union members. In most states with unionized government workplaces, state agencies, counties, and cities can withdraw recognition from a union and refuse to bargain if they doubt that the union truly represents a majority of their employees. Yet, according to election data obtained by the Commonwealth Foundation, many of Pennsylvania’s government unions won the right to represent workplaces (or “bargaining units”) without majority support from employees. In fact, public records from 302 government union representation elections, conducted from 2011 to 2025, reveal that one in every seven unions won without majority support.
Commentary: Nilesh Umapathy: SB 1296 is about accountability — not anti-unionism
April 9, 2026 // The PERC ruling shows what happens when someone pushes back — the union is forced to open its books and cover the member’s legal costs after it tried to silence them. Critics of SB 1296 will no doubt raise concerns, but most will miss the point. This is not an anti-union coalition. LaBedz herself is not anti-union. She is a member who was punished for exercising her rights. This is a coalition demanding accountability.
Op-ed: Florida made public-sector unions more accountable — Oregon did the opposite
April 7, 2026 // In 2023, Florida passed a law requiring a recertification election for public-sector unions that fail to maintain the support of 60 percent of their dues-paying membership. What followed was revealing. Between June 2025 and January 2026, there were 218 such recertification elections in Florida. In 192 of them — 88 percent — fewer than half of eligible employees bothered to vote. Under existing rules, the unions were certified anyway. For example, at the University of South Florida, exactly 41 employees out of 2,169 eligible cast votes for union representation. Nonetheless, the union now holds exclusive bargaining authority over all 2,169. At Florida A&M, three votes out of 202 eligible employees had the same effect. In one Broward County unit, two votes bound 51 employees to their union. The new bill will change that.
Florida Wells Fargo Workers Successfully Remove CWA Union
March 30, 2026 // Employees at the Lakewood Plaza location of Wells Fargo in Spring Hill, FL, have successfully forced Communications Workers of America (CWA) union officials out of power at their workplace. The effort to remove the union kicked off earlier this month, when bank employee Virginia Fenton filed a petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a union decertification vote at the Spring Hill Wells Fargo branch. Fenton filed the petition with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Florida Leads Again on Public Unions
March 25, 2026 // That’s hardly a vote of confidence from Ms. Weingarten of the value her union provides to its members. Under the proposed regime, a union could be recertified by winning a simple majority of half of the voting union members, or a bit over 25% of the bargaining unit. Do labor leaders really think they can’t rustle up a quarter of their members to ensure the union preserves its role in representing workers? The latest bill follows 2023 legislation that triggered a decertification vote when less than 60% of the employees eligible for representation in a bargaining unit are paying membership dues. That legislation also ended the state’s power to deduct dues from public-employee paychecks.
Spring Hill Wells Fargo Staff Set To Vote On Ousting Union Following ‘Broken Promises’
March 24, 2026 // The federal agency has scheduled a “decertification” election for Monday, March 30, which will determine whether the union loses its authority to represent the branch’s employees. The push for the vote was led by employee Virginia Fenton, who received legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation to navigate the filing process. The move comes after Fenton successfully gathered enough signatures from her colleagues to meet the federal threshold required to trigger a secret-ballot election.
Florida Legislature approves restrictions on public sector unions
March 11, 2026 // The measure (SB 1296) would require that public sector labor unions could only be re-certified if at least 50% of all of the employees in the bargaining unit vote and that the vote itself wins 50% plus-one support. Currently, those unions only need a majority of those who voted.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backs a new bill targeting unions; those who support him won’t be affected
March 3, 2026 // In 2023, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 256, a measure designed to attack public sector unions by making it harder for them to collect dues, while simultaneously forcing them to show that at least 60% of their members were paying their dues. Any union that failed to meet that 60% threshold faced a decertification vote.
Commentary: Florida Teachers Unions Have Lost Their Way
February 26, 2026 // If a union gets exclusive authority of a bargaining unit, it should be chosen by at least 50% of the employees. That's the principle behind House Bill 995 and Senate Bill 1296, now moving through the Florida Legislature.
Op-ed: When taxpayers incentivize jobs, the state should protect workers’ privacy in union votes
February 26, 2026 // Now, Rankin County Republican State Sen. Josh Harkins, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, has introduced legislation to protect the investments of state and local taxpayers in economic development projects that rely on taxpayer incentives. The bill ensures that Mississippi workers are entitled to a private ballot for any unionization vote. In a recent op-ed, Harkins explained: “Senate Bill 2202 is straightforward: for companies that choose to accept future state economic development incentives, any decision about union representation should be made through a private, secret-ballot election. The bill does not prohibit employees from organizing. It does not outlaw unions. It does not interfere with an employee’s right to choose union representation if a majority wants it. It simply sets an expectation that the decision is made in a way that protects (worker) privacy.”