Posts tagged United Teachers of Dade
Commentary: Dade Teachers’ Union Looks to the Failed Policies of Chicago for Salvation
November 10, 2023 // Taking a look at financial statements from the NEA, its priorities are unmistakably clear. Almost a third of its budget is devoted to politics and political organizations. A quarter goes toward officer salaries and benefits, while a mere five percent is spent on representing NEA members. In real dollars, the NEA spends $13 per member per year actually representing its members. Last year, the union spent almost twice as much on benefits for its own employees as it did on representing NEA’s three million members. Teachers are smart, and the realization that more than half of their dues is sent out of the district to fund the NEA’s massive bureaucracy and political agenda is bound to trigger questions the union can’t answer.
Op-Ed: Will Miami Teachers Free Themselves from Union Shackles?
November 8, 2023 // UTD claims that its current membership stands at 57 percent of the Miami-Dade educator workforce, up from 52 percent this summer. However, this increase in membership — assuming there really is one — doesn’t indicate the union has successfully recruited new members or won recommitments from old ones. Instead, UTD has been expelling substitute teachers from the bargaining unit in an attempt to swing the percentages back in its favor. The union’s membership numbers have been trending in the opposite direction for years, which presented an opportunity for the Freedom Foundation. But any disenchantment the teachers have with the union is its own fault. If UTD ultimately dies, its wounds will be self-inflicted.
Florida unions scramble to avoid recertification
July 17, 2023 // “Florida’s recertification requirement doesn’t automatically remove unions—it makes them stand for re-election,” said AFFT Special Counsel David Osborne. “It’s only fair that public employees should get to vote on who represents them, and democracy would force union officials to reassess their model and prove their value to public employees,” he said. Overall, it is estimated that only 23 out of 65 total teachers unions in Florida passed the 60% threshold in 2022, while the rest varied from as low as 36% to 59%.
As Florida’s new union law goes into effect, it’s ‘do or die’ time for labor
July 10, 2023 // In the face of the double-whammy law — creating a new process for paying dues while simultaneously requiring more people to pay dues — public labor unions are launching all-out campaigns to get their numbers up. “Are we at 60%? No. I can't give you a definitive number,” said Se’Adoria “Cee Cee” Brown, the president of AFSCME Local 199. “However, I can say that there has been a push and we've signed up 700 new members since we started this whole campaign, and when folks realized, ‘Hey, this is real.’” The Local 199 chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union represents about 7,500 employees of Miami-Dade County: transit officials, animal services, staff at the Medical Examiner’s Office, administrative clerks in the court system.