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miami dade
The Right-Wing Group Backing a New Anti-Union Strategy in Florida
A Miami-Dade school teachers’ vote is a test case for a novel experiment: whether a group dedicated to dismantling public sector unions can successfully seed a competing union.
Aug 15, 2024
Starting Tuesday, public school teachers in one of the country’s largest school districts began voting on whether to keep their current union—a longstanding local affiliate of a national teachers union—or join a newly formed employee organization that has the financial backing of a notorious anti-union advocacy group.
The vote is a test case for a novel experiment: whether a group dedicated to dismantling public sector unions can successfully seed a competing union. If it works, some worry that existing unions may be forced to ward off expensive and time-consuming copycat efforts elsewhere.
The Freedom Foundation, a right-wing group based in Washington state, is financing and promoting the new employee organization in Florida. Called the Miami-Dade Education Coalition (MDEC), it was founded to compete with the longstanding teachers’ labor union, United Teachers of Dade (UTD), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
The Freedom Foundation’s latest effort in Florida is tied to the right’s goal of busting unions throughout the country as a way of defunding progressive political campaigns, starting with those representing public sector employees.
The story began in spring 2023 with SB 256, a bill passed by the Florida legislature that raised the membership threshold for certain public sector unions to 60%. Under the new law, if less than 60% of eligible members have signed up for the union, it is vulnerable to automatic decertification.
Notably, the unions that were exempted from this new, higher membership threshold—representing corrections officers, police, and firefighters—all support Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who fought for the anti-union legislation.
“Tallahassee didn’t have a problem with unions playing politics as long as the politics were in favor of the governor and Republicans,” said Jim DeFede of CBS News Miami in an interview with an MDEC representative. “The unions that endorsed DeSantis got exempted from this bill.”
In the year since the law passed, more than 50,000 public employees have already lost union representation. Just this summer, all eight adjunct faculty unions at Florida’s public universities have been decertified.
The Miami-Dade teachers’ union avoided outright decertification by demonstrating a threshold of at least 30% interest from eligible members. However, their failure to reach the 60% threshold triggered the current election asking members to vote on which organization they want to represent them.
That’s where the Freedom Foundation comes in. After lobbying for the bill, the organization has been working for the past year and a half to get teachers in Miami-Dade County to choose its own pet organization, MDEC, over the UTD.
Ballots started to be mailed out Tuesday, according to the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC). Teachers have until September 24 to cast their votes.
“Unlike UTD, MDEC’s founding principles protect our independence from outside affiliations,” the organization contends. “MDEC is its own legal entity, and no outside organization has control over our local union.”
According to an FAQ on its website, MDEC insists that it is accepting “outside resources” from the Freedom Foundation “solely for the duration of the campaign.”
Last month, the Freedom Foundation brought together public school teachers from across the country to teach them how to decertify their unions and keep “the socialist dogma of their leadership [out of] our children’s classrooms.”
MDEC filed for registration with the state labor board last October, and received approval in February; one of the signatories on behalf of MDEC was Allison Beattie, the Freedom Foundation’s director of labor relations.
Another signatory was Matthew Hargraves, who previously served as an attorney for an unaffiliated teachers union in Florida—Santa Rosa Professional Educators, which broke away from the Florida Education Association.
In January, MDEC held a press conference to reiterate that it’s a legitimate union.
The president and co-founder is Brent Urbanik. In an interview with CBS News Miami, he agreed that the Freedom Foundation is “bankrolling” MDEC but did not disclose how much money the foundation has spent on the effort. Instead, he confirmed that it is paying for all of the mailings, canvassers, and legal expenses involved in getting the alternative “local union” off the ground.
Urbanik insisted that “Freedom Foundation is not necessarily anti-union.”
The other co-founder is Shawn Beightol, who ran for UTD president twice. Media reports have claimed that the Freedom Foundation proposed the idea of an alternative union, which has been corroborated by CBS News Miami.
“The think tank proposed replacing these entrenched, agenda-driven unions with local-only ones that focused on local issues [and] Miami-Dade educators were ‘elated’ with the idea,” according to The Lion.
The Freedom Foundation’s latest effort in Florida is tied to the right’s goal of busting unions throughout the country as a way of defunding progressive political campaigns, starting with those representing public sector employees. These coordinated attacks—bankrolled by billionaires—largely culminated in the 2018 Janus Supreme Court decision, which ruled that public employees are not required to pay for the costs of union representation.
Since the Janus decision, the Freedom Foundation has pushed state-level legislation that makes it harder for teachers to pay union dues, used what some union leaders have called “federal mail fraud” to trick members into leaving their unions, and aggressively pursued access to personal information in order to contact union members directly with anti-union campaign materials.
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Florida GOP Passes 'Vicious' Bill Banning Mandatory Water Breaks for Workers
"We will see fatalities, because of what Florida Republicans chose to do this week," said one workers' rights advocate.
Mar 08, 2024
Displaying "punitive cruelty" toward Florida residents who work outdoors, the Republican-controlled state House on Friday approved a bill that would ban local governments from requiring that workplaces provide water breaks and other cooling measures.
The state Senate passed the measure on Thursday, with Republicans pushing the bill through as Miami-Dade County was scheduled to vote on local water break protections. If signed into law by the Republican governor, the proposal will preempt the county's vote.
Roughly 2 million workers are expected to be affected by the legislation in Florida, where parts of the state experienced record-breaking heat last year. Meteorologists found that last month was the hottest February ever recorded globally, and the ninth straight month to set such a record.
Miami-Dade County officials estimate that 34 people die from heat-related causes each year.
"Every single year, it's going to get hotter and hotter," Oscar Londoño, executive director of worker advocacy group WeCount!, toldThe Guardian. "Many more workers' lives are going to be at risk. We will see fatalities, because of what Florida Republicans chose to do this week."
Londoño called the bill a "cruel... bad faith attempt to keep labor conditions very low for some of the most vulnerable workers."
Under the legislation, cities and counties will be prohibited from setting workplace standards that require drinking water, cooling measures, and recovery periods after grueling work in hot weather. Requiring companies to facilitate emergency responses or to post or distribute materials informing workers about staying safe in sweltering heat would also be prohibited.
"The vicious inhumanity at the heart of this legislation will cost the lives of and impose needless suffering on workers—especially workers of color and immigrant workers, who make up a disproportionate share of agricultural and construction workers—across the state," said Juley Fulcher, worker health and safety advocate with Public Citizen. "Gov. Ron DeSantis should veto this legislation."
There are no federal protections requiring that workplaces protect employees from the dangers of working in hot and humid conditions, even after scientists projected last year that heat-related deaths will continue to rise.
In 2021 the Biden administration called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop workplace heat safety standards, but it has not yet done so.
Republicans in Texas passed a bill last year that would have prevented cities from enacting and passing local ordinances, including those that require water breaks and other worker protections. A district court ruled that the proposal was unconstitutional last August, just before it was set to go into effect.
Fulcher said Congress must pass the Asuncíon Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury and Fatality Prevention Act, which was named for a worker who became unconscious after picking grapes for 10 hours straight in 105-degree heat in 2004. His employer did not call an ambulance but instead directed Valdivia's son to drive his father home. Valdivia died of heat stroke soon after at the age of 53.
The federal law would direct OSHA to immediately adopt interim heat standards while officials continue the process of adopting a final rule.
"With Florida joining Texas in preempting even the most minor workplace protections for excessive heat exposure," said Fulcher, "it's past time for the federal government to step up."
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'A Shame for the Children,' Says Amanda Gorman After Far-Right Parent Gets Poetry Banned
"One parent could get my poetry banned from classrooms. And yet one country can't ban assault rifles from massacring them," noted Gorman, who recited her poem, The Hill We Climb, at President Joe Biden's inauguration.
May 24, 2023
Amanda Gorman, the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate, reacted Tuesday after a South Florida school banned elementary students from reading the poem she recited at President Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration following the complaint of a parent who has repeatedly espoused white supremacist and anti-Jewish views.
"I'm gutted," Gorman said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Because of one parent's complaint, my inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb, has been banned from an elementary school in Miami-Dade County, Florida."
"Book bans aren't new," she continued, "but they have been on the rise—according to the [American Library Association], 40% more books were challenged in 2022 compared to 2021."
"The majority of these censored works are by queer and non-white voices."
Common Dreams reported last month that laws passed in Republican-controlled states have led to nearly 1,500 book bans nationwide during just the first half of the 2022-23 school year. This followed a record number of book bans last year, according to the American Library Association.
"What's more, often all it takes to remove these works from our libraries and schools is a single objection," Gorman added. "And let's be clear: Most of the forbidden works are by authors who have struggled for generations to get on bookshelves. The majority of these censored works are by queer and nonwhite voices."
\u201cSo they ban my book from young readers, confuse me with @oprah , fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives\u2026Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back \ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udfff DONATE here:\u2026\u201d— Amanda Gorman (@Amanda Gorman) 1684879662
While Gorman's poem can still be read by sixth, seventh, and eighth-graders at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, students in grades K-5 are barred from reading or reciting the widely acclaimed work, which promotes unity, reflection on the past, and hope for the future of the United States.
The restriction was enacted after Daily Salinas, a mother of two students at the school, lodged a complaint challenging five works—Gorman's poem, plus The ABCs of Black History, Cuban Kids, Countries in the News Cuba, and Love to Langston—over what she claimed are references to critical race theory, "indirect hate messages," gender ideology, and indoctrination.
\u201cThe Hill We Climb is making headlines, but please don\u2019t forget there are three other titles - titles clearly written for elementary school readers - that are restricted too.\n\nWe need to get The ABCs of Black History, Love to Langston, & Cuban Kids back on K-5 shelves too!\u201d— Florida Freedom to Read Project (@Florida Freedom to Read Project) 1684953943
"One parent could get my poetry banned from classrooms. And yet one country can't ban assault rifles from massacring them," Gorman noted on Twitter.
In her complaint, Salinas—who erroneously attributed Gorman's poem to "Oprah Winfrey"—objected to pages containing two passages of The Hill We Climb.
\u201cThese are the pages of my inaugural poem that an objecting parent cited as "not educational and have indirectly hate messages". And now because of that one complaint, my poem is now banned for elementary school students at a school in @MiamiDadeCounty.\u201d— Amanda Gorman (@Amanda Gorman) 1684881016
In a Monday interview with the Miami Herald, Salinas insisted she "is not for eliminating or censoring any books," but wants materials to be age-appropriate and for students "to know the truth" about Cuba—a socialist dictatorship with a higher literacy rate than the United States.
The Herald made no mention of Salinas' ties to far-right and white supremacist groups. A Twitter thread posted Tuesday by Miami Against Fascism shows Salinas rallying with the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group that promotes and perpetrates political violence, and Christopher Monzon, who allegedly assaulted anti-racist counterprotesters at the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
\u201cBut there\u2019s more\u2026 \n\nMiami book banning parent Daily Salinas also attended a Proud Boy organized rally in Hialeah in November 2022 in support of white supremacist Marco Rubio canvasser Christopher Monzon, who falsely claimed he was beaten for political reasons. 5/\u201d— Miami Against Fascism \ud83c\udf34\u2615\ufe0f (@Miami Against Fascism \ud83c\udf34\u2615\ufe0f) 1684867001
Miami Against Fascism also posted video showing Salinas and members of the far-right group Moms for Liberty—a Florida-based pressure group sometimes referred to as "Klanned Karenhood" for its crusade ban books in schools across the United States—interrupting a July 2022 Miami school board meeting.
Salinas also shared social media posts promoting white supremacist and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, including Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
\u201cSo the parent who got my inaugural poem The Hill We Climb banned for elementary students @BGEC_Bobcats has ties to WHITE SUPREMACIST ORGS. Anyone surprised?@MiamiDadeCounty This is a shame for the children in your school system who deserve to have access to poetry.\u201d— Amanda Gorman (@Amanda Gorman) 1684884414
The Miami Lakes school's restriction of Gorman's poem comes amid relentless attacks by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—who on Wednesday officially declared his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—and other GOP state officials on educational freedom from kindergarten through the university level.
DeSantis has replaced key state education officials with right-wing allies who toe his "anti-woke" line, and has been accused of stoking a climate of fear in which educators have removed books from classroom libraries to avoid running afoul of bans on titles dealing with race or LGBTQ+ issues.
Notable figures who rushed to defend Gorman include Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, who invited the 25-year-old poet to recite The Hill We Climb before a public audience, and the ACLU, which tweeted: "Schools should be fostering growth and the exchange of ideas—not preventing students from learning and understanding different perspectives."
"These unnecessary book bans join a host of other attempts to silence us," the civil liberties group added. "We must fight back."
\u201cThe poem that Amanda Gorman read at President Biden\u2019s inauguration, entitled \u201cThe Hill We Climb,\u201d has been banned in schools. The poem was a lecture on peace, love, unity, and freedom. This isn\u2019t free speech. Don\u2019t skip this without leaving a heart for her.\u201d— Mohamad Safa (@Mohamad Safa) 1684872214
In her statement Tuesday, Gorman explained that "I wrote The Hill We Climb so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment."
"Ever since, I've received countless letters and videos from children inspired by The Hill We Climb to write their own poems," she said. "Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech."
"What can we do? We must speak out and have our voices heard," Gorman stressed. "That's why my publisher, Penguin Random House, joined PEN America, authors, and community members in a lawsuit in Florida's Escambia County to challenge book restrictions like these."
"Together this is a hill we won't just climb, but a hill we will conquer."
"Together this is a hill we won't just climb, but a hill we will conquer," Gorman asserted.
Gorman was referring to a lawsuit filed last week claiming Escambia County School Board book bans are unconstitutional.
"It's quite apparent what [book bans] are about: It's an effort to erase certain segments of our population, to marginalize particular stories, to prevent kids from seeing themselves in the books they find on the shelf," PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said during an interview on MSNBC last week.
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