Judge rejects most of Florida's union law fight

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge has rejected much of a lawsuit challenging restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature placed on public-employee unions — but a fight will continue about a ban on deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last week issued an 80-page decision that largely sided with the state Public Employees Relations Commission, which is in charge of carrying out the controversial restrictions. The Republican-controlled Legislature and DeSantis approved the restrictions in 2023 and made revisions this year.

Unions representing public-school and university employees filed the lawsuit last year and raised a series of constitutional arguments.

Along with preventing government agencies from continuing a decades-old practice of deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks, lawmakers made changes related to “membership authorization” forms and rules affecting recertification of unions.

Adding to the controversy, lawmakers exempted unions representing law-enforcement officers and firefighters from the changes. Those unions in recent years have often backed Republican candidates, while teachers unions and other public-employee unions frequently support Democrats.

The lawsuit included seven counts, with Walker ruling that the unions did not have legal standing to pursue two of the counts and granting summary judgment to the Public Employees Relations Commission on four others.

Walker, however, ruled that a trial should be held on one count that alleges the ban on dues deductions from paychecks violates what is known as the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That allegation stems from existing collective bargaining agreements that included agencies deducting union dues from paychecks.

“In short, the undisputed evidence is that the payroll deduction ban substantially undermines the bargain in the union plaintiffs’ CBAs (collective bargaining agreements) by eliminating an agreed-upon method of dues collection — payroll deduction,” Walker wrote.

Walker concluded that “the payroll deduction ban substantially impairs the CBAs,” but he said he also has to consider whether the “payroll deduction ban is drawn in an appropriate, reasonable way to advance a significant, legitimate public purpose.”

As a result, he said he needed to consider the issue during a trial, rather than ruling on it with a summary judgment.

Walker, however, backed the Public Employees Relations Commission on other issues. Among other things, the unions argued that the dues-deduction and membership-form changes violated constitutional equal-protection rights because they did not also apply to public-safety unions.

Walker wrote, for example, that the plaintiffs “assert that the membership authorization form provision violates the Equal Protection Clause by unjustifiably discriminating against 'disfavored' unions. Specifically, they argue that this provision burdens most classes of unions, which generally opposed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ successful 2022 gubernatorial campaign, but exempts public safety unions (at least those unions certified as bargaining representatives), which generally supported it.”

But Walker cited arguments by Republican lawmakers that the forms would help provide information to union members and said he was bound by a legal standard known as a “rational basis” review. He wrote that the “membership authorization form provision is rationally related to the legitimate government interest of ensuring public employees know their unions and their union rights” and that an exemption was allowed for public-safety unions.

“This court recognizes the frustration plaintiffs may feel toward this conclusion,” Walker wrote. “The Equal Protection Clause has long restrained the government from pushing one group below another, yet it permits the state of Florida to do just that to the bulk of its public employee unions. But this court cannot rewrite equal protection law or ignore the low bar that rational basis review presents.”

The changes drew heavy debate during the 2023 legislative session, with union members from throughout the state converging on the Capitol. Republican lawmakers argued that the changes would increase transparency for union members, but opponents described them as an attempt at “union busting.”

Unions argued that the ban on withholding dues from paychecks would force them to use other, more-difficult methods to collect money from members. The membership authorization forms drew criticism, in part, because of wording required by the state that many union members found objectionable.

Also, the changes required unions to be recertified as bargaining agents if fewer than 60 percent of eligible employees have submitted the membership authorization forms and paid dues.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Florida Education Association, the United Faculty of Florida, unions representing employees of the Alachua County, Hernando County, Lafayette County and Pinellas County school districts and the University of Florida and UF professor Malini Schueller.

Defendants are members of the Public Employees Relations Commission, members of the University of Florida Board of Trustees and the school boards in Alachua, Hernando and Pinellas counties.