Florida State University’s faculty union is still certified to represent its members after narrowly crossing a new, increased threshold.
A new law regulating unions was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last May before it went into effect in July, requiring public unions to cross at least a 60% threshold of employee members who pay dues compared to the initial 50% requirement. Otherwise, the union is decertified for failure to meet the new standard.
The legislation also prohibits the use of paycheck deductions for most public-sector union dues.
FSU’s United Faculty of Florida President Matthew Lata, a music professor at the university, says the chapter’s membership team sent out a message to all members Tuesday morning to clarify its status.
“We did in fact hit 60%,” Lata said in an email to the Tallahassee Democrat. “The potential caveat is that there are still members who did not sign up for eDues or any other method of payment.” (eDues allows members to have dues automatically taken out of their bank account.)
To be sure, other unions around the state are having similar problems hitting that membership benchmark: United Teachers of Dade, for example, was nearly decertified. And now lawmakers are considering bills that would carve out some unions from the law’s onerous requirements.
Lata says some of his current members were dropped from the rolls in October, but if any faculty member paid dues since the faculty union’s last recertification — which was March 8, 2023 — they can be counted as current members. That exception puts UFF-FSU over 60%, he added.
FSU’s faculty count is over 2,700, according to the university’s Office of Institutional Research. This means the union needed at least 1,620 members to meet the new threshold.
The new union law also requires unions to submit an annual registration renewal application that must include an annual audited financial statement.
New union law creating ‘uncharted territory’
UFF-FSU Membership Committee Co-Chair Anne Barrett explained in a statement that there is a chance the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) — which adopts and enforces regulations related to bargaining units — will not accept the faculty union’s supporting evidence about its current membership status.
She says the process is “uncharted territory,” and one of the contributing factors of confusion could be related to those who were members of the faculty union but did not transition to eDues or pay by check.
“PERC is likely to delay steps in our recertification process because they are handling a gigantic workload with nearly all the public unions undergoing the same process — and they have no incentive to help us by speeding things along,” Barrett said in her statement.
“I imagine state UFF would pursue legal recourse in any number of possible scenarios that could unfold. My impression is that much of the process is unclear,” she added. “Next year, when we do it all again, we hope it will be clearer.”
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Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on X: @tarahjean_.
