For thee but not for me: Florida Republican lawmaker wants tighter rules for union elections

A Florida Republican lawmaker sponsoring a bill that would make it harder for public employees to form a union defended herself on Tuesday in part by claiming her bill would actually help public employees, not hurt them.

The bill (HB 1387) was advanced by the House Government Operations Subcommittee in a 10 to 7 vote Tuesday, with three Republicans joining Democrats in opposition.

“My goal with this bill is not to be anti-union. It’s not to weaken unions. It’s to strengthen the voice of our public employees,” said Florida Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, speaking to the subcommittee ahead of the vote.

Yet, her bill — like another major union reform bill approved in 2023 — explicitly exempts unions representing police and firefighters, many of which reliably endorse (and throw campaign contributions to) Florida Republicans like Persons-Mulicka for office. These unions directly lobby Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature on criminal justice, labor and other issues.

“This Legislature set forth a policy years ago and passed legislation that exempted public safety employees from many of the provisions that are covered in these statutes,” Persons-Mulicka explained, when prompted by Rep. Darryl Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale, to explain the exemptions. “I’m carrying forward and maintaining that policy decision within this bill.”

Opponents of the bill, however — including rank-and-file public employees — have decried such exemptions as favoritism.

The bill contains several proposals from an anti-union group called the Freedom Foundation, including a proposal to increase fines for public employee strikes to — no lie — adjust for inflation. Such strikes are illegal under Florida’s state constitution, and there has been no major strike of local or government workers in Florida since 1968.

The controversial legislation faces opposition from the Florida AFL-CIO (Florida’s largest federation of labor unions) and the the statewide teachers’ union, and is supported by the Florida Chamber of Commerce (representing business interests), Americans for Prosperity (part of the Koch network) and, unsurprisingly, the Freedom Foundation.

“I haven’t had any organizations come and sit down with me to talk through the details of this bill,” Persons-Mulicka maintained, when asked by Campbell who she’d consulted.

The most devastating part of the bill for public employee unions would alter union election rules in a way that would ultimately make it harder for them to remain certified, or for workers to form them in the first place. Under the proposal, a labor union would need to get a vote of support from more than 50 percent of workers who are eligible to vote. Currently, they just need a majority vote of support from those who vote, similar to elections for public officials.

According to Persons-Mulicka, 76 percent of public employee unions that have gone through the elections process over the last year — largely to recertify, rather than to form new unions — saw a voter turnout that ultimately resulted in less than 50 percent of eligible voters voting in support of unionization.

“It’s a big issue that needs to be addressed,” she said simply, speaking to her colleagues Tuesday. Even so, no worker covered by a union can be forced to pay union dues, under Florida’s right-to-work policy, anyway — and the state already has a process for workers to decertify their union, if they wish.

For thee but not for me

Ironically, if Persons-Mulicka had been subject to the same majority vote of support rule herself last fall, she wouldn’t be in office today.

According to state elections data, Persons-Mulicka received 49,192 votes last year, in a Florida House race that saw roughly 75 percent turnout. Although she got nearly 60 percent of the vote in the 2024 General Election, her district had 109,525 registered voters total as of last November — meaning, if she had been forced to get a majority vote of support from all voters in her district, she would not have made the cut.

Private sector union elections, which are overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, also don’t maintain such stringent voter turnout requirements.

“I don’t think there’s very many, if any, lawmakers that are elected by a vote of 50 percent or more of all registered voters or eligible voters,” Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association — the statewide teachers union — told Orlando Weekly in an interview.

“It just doesn’t make sense to say that we’re going to put a very un-American, very anti-freedom burden on educators, teachers who sacrifice so much for our students, on school bus drivers and school cafeteria workers, and so many others who work in our schools, at our college and university campuses, in our cities and counties.”

“It just doesn’t make sense to say that we’re going to put a very un-American, very anti-freedom burden on educators”

Researchers have found that public sector unions can help workers in the public sector by reducing racial and gender wage gaps, with the bulk of the public sector dominated by women and people of color. Unions can also negotiate ‘just cause’ — a protection against getting fired for no reason — as well as other job benefits such as paid leave and workplace safety protections.

“This bill does nothing to improve public schools, retain top educators, or strengthen Florida’s workforce,” said 34-year teacher Chris Pagel from Nassau County, during public testimony on the bill. “Right now, teachers and school staff across Florida are struggling, whether it’s paying bills, affording health care or keeping up with rising costs,” said Pagel, who’s traveled to Tallahassee to speak against anti-union bills before.

“Instead of addressing these issues, this bill adds more government mandates, strips away local control and makes it harder to recruit and retain quality educators.”

Teachers make up the bulk of Florida’s unionized public sector, which itself is just a sliver of Florida’s entire workforce. Florida’s teachers unions, largely under the umbrella of the FEA, were widely perceived as the target of Florida’s 2023 anti-union law, which has already decimated all of the state’s adjunct faculty unions, in addition to dozens of others representing city, county and state employees, ranging from state-employed nurses to school janitors and public utility workers.

Attorneys for various state agencies, who spent more than 12 years fighting for their union back in the early aughts, also saw their union decertified late last year as a result of changes made through the 2023 law.

Blue-collar workers at the University of South Florida lost their union, then saw their jobs unilaterally privatized by the university shortly after, freezing workers’ hard-earned pensions and putting long-term prospects regarding their wages and job security at risk. A small group of them just reorganized with a different union through the National Labor Relations Board, an agency of the federal government.

Just one rank-and-file public employee, a teacher from Miami-Dade County who worked with the Freedom Foundation last year to try and dismantle the county’s teachers union, spoke in support of Persons-Mulicka’s proposal Tuesday.

“The Florida Constitution guarantees a right to collective bargaining, but those rights do not begin and end with the FEA,” said teacher Renee Zayas, referencing the parent union of her county’s teachers union, United Teachers of Dade.

Zayas helped organize a group of teachers in her school district last year to form a new “union” bankrolled by the Freedom Foundation. Her labor organization faced off against UTD, a member of nearly 25,000 educators, in a union election and lost.

Zayas claims it was an unfair election, and that the school district threatened disciplinary action against teachers who supported her union instead of UTD. “We were silenced by the district at the request of UTD,” she testified Tuesday. “I was not allowed to talk to my colleagues in school without threat of disciplinary action.”

Another similar bill in the Florida Senate, sponsored by outgoing Sen. Randy Fine, has stalled not just once but twice when scheduled for an initial hearing. Two other bills similar to Persons-Mulicka’s — HB 1217 and SB 1766 — have yet to be scheduled for any committee hearing.

All bills must be approved by legislative committees, plus receive a majority vote of support (of those voting, mind you) in the Florida House and Senate in order to pass. The Florida Governor ultimately decides whether to sign a bill into law or veto. Florida’s 60-day legislative session lasts through May 2.

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This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2025.