Florida Teachers Unions Have Lost Their Way

Recently, a video surfaced of a speaker at a Florida Education Association (FEA) press conference encouraging students to walk out of school to protest federal law enforcement. Union officials have since attempted to distance themselves from the remarks, but the episode should not come as a surprise. The FEA’s parent organization, the National Education Association, recently adopted a resolution at its annual conference explicitly supporting efforts to help students organize similar protests.

The walkout controversy reveals a much deeper problem: teacher unions in Florida have abandoned their mission of representing workers and have become political organizations that put ideology ahead of students and the teachers they claim to represent.

What happens when a union is forced to hold a recertification election is even more revealing. Only five of the 125 union recertification votes held for employees in Florida’s K-12 schools between March 2025 and January 2026 secured the support of more than 50% of the vote. Under current law, unions that did not meet this standard won recertification anyway. Even when a majority of the workforce declined to participate, the outcome still conferred exclusive bargaining authority.

For instance, there are 2,034 instructional personnel eligible for the union in Santa Rosa County. Only 364, less than 18% of their total eligible membership, actually voted to recertify the union as the bargaining authority. In Gadsden County, it’s even worse, with only 15% of the 293 eligible instructional employees choosing to vote to recertify the union. And in Seminole County, 1,098 votes out of 4,407 possible, less than 25%, secured the union’s recertification.

The same trend is occurring at universities across Florida. At the University of South Florida, the United Faculty of Florida secured exclusive bargaining authority over 2,169 employees. How many voted for the union? Forty-one. That's less than 2% of the workforce. At Florida A&M University, three votes out of 202 eligible voters certified a union to represent all graduate assistants.

This is a system where a handful of activists control workplace representation for thousands of employees who never asked for it.

Here's what makes this so consequential: certified unions in Florida don't just represent their members. They exercise "exclusive representation" and have sole legal authority to negotiate for every employee in the bargaining unit, whether those employees want union representation or not. Workers who think their union isn't serving their interests can't negotiate directly with their employer. State law prohibits it. The union speaks for everyone, even if almost no one voted for the union.

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.

The bills require unions to secure support from a majority of all eligible employees, not just those who happen to vote. Unions that maintain at least 60% dues-paying membership get automatically recertified. Those below that threshold would face an election to prove they represent the workers they claim to speak for.

Critics say this sets the bar too high. But consider what these unions control: negotiations over pay, benefits, working conditions, and grievance procedures. They file lawsuits in employees' names. They consume taxpayer resources through collective bargaining and, in some cases, paid leave for union activities unrelated to contract negotiations.

Given that level of authority, shouldn't we require genuine support from the people being governed?

The legislation includes other common-sense reforms. Right now, public employees can take paid time off for union activities that have nothing to do with collective bargaining—political campaigns, fundraising, lobbying. The proposed bills preserve paid leave for legitimate work like contract negotiations and grievances but require unpaid leave for political activities. Employees could still voluntarily pool their time off for colleagues doing union work. This protects taxpayers while preserving employees' organizing rights.

Some will say these reforms are anti-union. They're not. They're pro-worker and pro-accountability. Unions with broad support have nothing to fear—they'll be automatically recertified. Only unions that have lost the confidence of the workers they represent will face scrutiny.

The recent student walkouts show what happens when unions lose their way. Instead of focusing on teacher pay, classroom resources, or working conditions, the FEA pushed a partisan political protest that could saddle students with disciplinary consequences on their permanent records. 

Teachers and families deserve better. They deserve unions that focus on delivering a world-class education, not unions that exploit their positions to advance political agendas with almost no accountability. 

These bills restore democratic accountability to workplace representation. When a union speaks for Florida's teachers and public employees, it should do so with legitimate support, not on the strength of three votes from a bargaining unit of 200.

That's not asking too much. It should be the minimum standard for any organization claiming to represent working Floridians.