United Teachers of Dade fighting to survive: Union facing decertification

United Teachers of Dade is the state’s largest public employee union, and it’s fighting to survive right now.

A new state law could result in the union being decertified. If that were to happen, the contract UTD recently negotiated on behalf of teachers, paraprofessionals, clerical workers and security monitors would become null and void.

The union took the first step in keeping its certification Tuesday as it delivered thousands of “showing of interest” cards to the state government in Tallahassee.

“This morning we submitted over 11,000 signed cards!” said UTD president Karla Hernandez-Mats to cheers at a news conference.

The new law requires public employee unions to have at least 60% membership from the bargaining unit or they face decertification. Police and fire unions are exempt.

“If unions are good for police and fire, then unions should be good for everybody,” Hernandez-Mats said.

She said UTD is at about 58% membership. Because it fell short of 60%, the state required UTD to submit a “showing of interest” card from at least 30% of the possible membership. The union far surpassed that amount Tuesday.

“And this is just the next step as we show our state government that they are not going to take away workers' rights, they that are not going to disenfranchise educators and Miami-Dade Public Schools, that we deserve better, and that we are going to earn that respect because we are going to fight back and we’re gonna win,” Hernandez-Mats said.

“We need a union, we want a union, we want to be the union, we believe in unionism,” said Shawn Beightol, a chemistry teacher at Ferguson High School.

Beightol leads UTD’s potential competition, a group called the Miami-Dade Education Coalition, funded largely by the right-wing Freedom Foundation.

One criticism leveled at Beightol’s group is that exists to divide the teachers so that no union reaches the 60% threshold. 

“We’re gonna work our butts off to be the union because we’re gonna do a better job regaining the lost ground UTD has surrendered through decades of anemic negotiating, we’re gonna get it back, and we’re gonna represent the teachers for half the amount of money because we’re not gonna be sending our money to national agendas that have little to do with our local classrooms,” Beightol said.

Beightol admits his group is taking money from the Freedom Foundation, but also pledges that the Miami-Dade Education Coalition will not take political stands, will not endorse political candidates, and will not affiliate with the national teachers unions.

Hernandez-Mats calls it a fraudulent organization and points out the Freedom Foundation actually wrote Florida’s anti-union law.