From “Right-to-Work” to “No-Right-to-Exist”: Florida Public Education Sector Unions in an Age of Authoritarianism

2026-02-23 Katie Rainwater and Robert Cassanello

Editor’s Note

This article appears as SB 1296 makes its way through the Florida Senate this month. SB 1296, which requires 50% of a bargaining unit to vote in favor of representation for union recertification, would deepen the decertification of public sector unions occurring consequent to 2023’s SB 256, the topic of this article. A version of this article will appear in the Fall 2026 issue of New Labor Forum.

Since October 2023, more than one hundred public sector bargaining units in Florida have been decertified and, as of May 2025, an estimated 69,000 workers have lost union representation. [1] The decertifications followed from the supermajority Republican legislature’s passage of SB 256 in April of 2023. SB 256 is Koch-network authored legislation which banned payroll dues deduction and introduced new 60% density requirements for most public sector unions. We argue that these regulatory mechanisms are supplanting the Right’s former “Right-to-Work” strategy concerning public sector unions in favor of a “No-Right-to-Exist” strategy. In Florida’s Right-to-Work era (1974-2017), the state recognized public sector unions as collective bargaining agents but diminished their power and efficacy with a right-to-work provision, a no-strike clause, impasse proceedings strongly favoring management, and restrictions on the scope of bargaining. The use of state regulatory power to diminish union efficacy has expanded in the No-Right-to-Exist era (2018-present), with the decertification of public sector unions through the erection of onerous requirements for their continued recognition as collective bargaining agents.

Education sector workers have been an early and frequent target of the No-Right-to-Exist era state. As of April 2025, 32 education sector bargaining units have been decertified under SB 256, and more than 16,000 education sector workers have lost representation. Non-instructional staff and contingent educators in higher education bargaining units represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have been especially adversely impacted, with the decertification of 19 and 9 units, respectively. The Florida Education Association (FEA), a merged National Education Association (NEA)-American Federation of Teachers (AFT) statewide affiliate, has maintained certifications for all its 166 units but experienced a 15% decline in membership density in the year after SB 256 went into effect. Since passing SB 256, lawmakers in Florida introduced more severe union-busting legislation in 2025 (SB 1766, which died in committee) and again in 2026 (SB 1296) that would require majority bargaining unit participation in recertification elections and abolish employer provisioned release time.[2]

In this essay, we first delineate the characteristics of the Right-to-Work era and then describe the No-Right-to-Exist era that is supplanting it. We analyze how educator unions are faring under No-Right-to-Exist and discuss the implications for the future of public sector unionism in Florida. Based on our analysis, we reach three main conclusions. First, units that include K-12 teachers, full-time university or college faculty, or graduate-level teaching and research assistants remain certified at much higher rates than adjunct faculty and staff units. Second, units affiliated with FEA have remained certified at a much higher rate than units not affiliated with FEA. Third, most units are surviving through annual recertification elections rather than by avoiding elections through meeting the density threshold. No-Right-to-Exist era regulatory mechanisms have weakened Florida’s education sector unions, but they have not yet been fatal. If new legislation like SB 1296 is enacted, however, the continued existence of even relatively robust bargaining units will be imperiled.

The Right-to-Work (1974 – 2017) and No-Right-to-Exist Eras (2018 – Present) in Florida
In 1974, the Florida state legislature reluctantly passed the Public Employees Relations Act (PERA), which established a framework for public sector collective bargaining. [3] PERA was necessitated by Florida’s 1968 constitution in which, following a statewide teachers’ strike, a right-to-work provision was amended to give state employees the right to collectively bargain. [4] PERA fulfilled the state’s constitutional duty to create a collective bargaining framework, but it tilted the process in favor of employers to such an extreme degree that legal scholars have described the process as “a sham” or as akin to “collective begging.” [5] PERA fleshed out a no-strike provision contained in the 1968 constitution with hefty fines and penalties.[6] As an alternative to the strike, PERA established impasse proceedings which give the relevant legislative body the right to impose an agreement following a public hearing. [7]

Beyond PERA, the power of public sector unions at the bargaining table has been constrained by subsequent legislation, Florida Supreme Court rulings, and Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) practice. Legislation on the state pension system and educator tenure constrains public sector unions in bargaining these issues. [8] In 1977 and 1992 rulings, the Florida Supreme Court made it permissible for the legislature to underfund collective bargaining agreements and for public sector employers to unilaterally alter the terms of collective bargaining agreements in cases where agreements are insufficiently funded. [9] PERC has interpreted a 1997 statute on financial urgency as enabling state employers to modify labor contracts by simply declaring “financial urgency” without submitting evidence. [10]

Florida’s No-Right-to-Exist era began in 2018, when the state legislature passed HB 7055. This was an education “reform” bill spearheaded by former Governor Rick Scott, which required K-12 instructional unions with membership densities below 50% to hold annual recertification elections. [11] In creating recertification requirements for public sector unions, HB 7055 followed in the wake of Wisconsin’s 2011 Act 10, which required 51% of the members of public sector bargaining units to vote in favor of their unions annually for the unions’ certifications to be maintained. [12] Bills with Act 10-like provisions had previously been introduced in Florida in 2011 and 2017 as part of a spate of anti-union legislation based on models disseminated by Koch network policy mills and taken up across the U.S. following a 2010 Republican sweep of state governments. [13 ]

In 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis led the Florida legislature in passing SB 256. Based on model legislation disseminated by the Koch network organization Freedom Foundation, SB 256 requires all public sector bargaining units – except for those composed of law enforcement and firefighters – to undergo annual recertification through election if their densities fall below 60%. [14] Reviving provisions of a bill first introduced in Florida in 2011, SB 256 ended payroll deductions for public sector workers and required the annual submission of authorization forms with right-to-work language from 60% of bargaining unit members. [15] In 2025, a handful of lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced more anti-union legislation. Modeled on draft bills from FreedomWorks and pushed by DeSantis’s office, these bills would have required over 50% of the entire bargaining unit to vote in favor of the union for successful recertification.[16] In 2026, SB 1296, a bill with this provision, was again introduced and has a greater chance of passing both chambers.[17] Coinciding with the new density requirement, the state has introduced new mechanisms constraining the efficacy of public sector unions including the ban on payroll deductions, the elimination of arbitration in grievances for university personnel (SB 266), and post-tenure review (SB 2044). [18] SB 1296 would further limit unions’ efficacy with a ban on publicly funded release time for union officers. [19]

From Right-to-Work to No-Right-to-Exist in the Education Sector
How are Florida public sector unions faring under No-Right-to-Exist? To begin to answer this question, we assembled a dataset of all collective bargaining agents between 2023-2024 recognized by any of the 67 K-12 county public school districts, 28 public colleges, and 12 public universities in Florida (as of 2018 for K-12 instructional units subject to HB 7055, and as of 2023 for all remaining units). We reviewed PERC records to determine which units’ recognitions had been revoked as of April 2025 under the new density requirements that began in 2018 (for K-12 instructional units) and in 2023 (for all other units). Through a public record request, we secured 2024 density information from units in our dataset. [20] In total, our dataset is composed of 235 bargaining units – 169 in K-12, 29 in state colleges, and 37 in universities. [21]

PERC has generally defined communities of interest narrowly. While sometimes part of the same union, educators and staff are typically part of different bargaining units. Within the same workplace there may be multiple educator and staff units reflecting different employment classifications. For purposes of analysis, we have created the categories of “teacher unit” and “non-teacher unit” to classify K-12 bargaining units. The former category identifies units which consist of teachers (while also sometimes including other occupational categories) while the latter category identifies units which exclude teachers but may contain other educators (e.g. media specialists, paraprofessionals, substitutes) but mostly consist of various types of support staff including clerical staff, janitorial staff, maintenance workers, and bus drivers. For higher education, we identify four discrete types of bargaining units: “faculty” (full-time faculty, librarians and certain other employees), “adjunct” (adjunct faculty), “graduate” (teaching and research assistants) and “staff” (office staff, groundkeepers and more). As of 2023, most education sector bargaining units (166, or 70%) were represented by unions affiliated with the FEA, a merged NEA-AFT local, including those represented by UFF, a statewide union representing most faculty units. Several dozen units were also represented by AFSCME (27) and SEIU (20) while nine internationals represented up to a few units each (20 units total). There were two independent unions.

As HB 7055 passed, then—FEA president Joanne McCall commented, “We saw this coming and know it’s driven by politics…But it’s going to help us. So I say to the Republican Legislature, thank you, very much.” [22] Overall, teacher units—which were recognized in all but one of Florida’s 67 county districts as of 2018—responded to HB 7055 by building membership density.[23] When HB 7055 went into effect, United Teachers of Dade (UTD), which represents teachers in Miami-Dade County, as well as multiple unions representing instructional units in rural districts, were under the 50% density threshold required by the new law. [24] These unions signed up enough new members to avoid triggering annual recertification elections and grew the overall membership of the FEA by 12.6% from 2016 (123,135 members) to 2020 (138,641). [25] There was only one exception to this trend. A non-FEA unit, the Santa Rosa Professional Educators Association Inc., failed to meet the 50% density requirement in 2018 and has since been annually recertified through elections. [26]

Figure 1. Membership Density of Certified Teacher Units. N = 66

SB 256—which raised the density requirement by 10% and ended payroll deduction—has proven a more formidable obstacle for teacher unions. While all teacher units remain certified, two-thirds sought recertification through election in the 2024 cycle as their densities were under 60% (Figure 1).[27] Non-teacher K-12 units—103 total, in 60 of Florida’s 67 counties, in 2023—have been more adversely impacted by SB 256. Most non-teacher units (88%) moved to annual recertification elections in 2024 as their densities were below, in many cases well below, 60% (Figure 2). In addition, 6 units—2 represented by Teamsters, 3 by AFSCME and 1 by SEIU—were decertified and more than 4,500 workers lost collective bargaining rights.

Figure 2. Membership Density of Certified Non-Teacher Units. N = 97.

Like K-12 teacher units, faculty units (which existed in 18 of Florida’s 28 colleges and in all 12 public universities in 2023) and graduate units (which existed in 4 of Florida’s 12 universities in 2023) have remained certified. All graduate units and 11 (38%) of the faculty units are below 60% density and have recertified through elections (Figure 3). Adjunct faculty units, which existed in 7 of Florida’s 28 colleges and one of Florida’s 12 universities in 2023, were all decertified, with 8,435 workers losing collective bargaining rights. Prior to decertification, these units—all of which were represented by SEIU’s Florida Public Services Union—had much lower densities than the faculty units. Higher education staff units have similarly fared poorly. In 2023, there were 4 staff units at 2 of Florida’s 28 colleges and 20 units at 9 of its 12 public universities. Just 6 of these 24 unions remain. The 18 other units— 6 of which were represented by AFSCME and 2 of which were represented by Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU)—have been decertified with more than 4,700 workers losing collective bargaining rights.[28]

Figure 3. Density of Faculty and Graduate Units. N = 30.

We can draw three conclusions about how public sector education unions are faring in the No-Right-to-Exist era. First, teacher, non-teacher, faculty, and graduate units have remained certified at much higher rates (100%, 94%, 100%, and 100%, respectively), than have adjunct and staff units (0% and 25%, respectively). Second, units affiliated with the FEA have remained certified at a much higher rate (100%) than units not affiliated with FEA (54%). Third, most units (74%) are surviving through annual recertification elections rather than meeting the density threshold. While all education sector recognition elections have been decided in favor of the union, voter turnout is typically low, even in Miami-Dade County where UTD faced a Freedom Foundation funded challenger.[29]

As Florida Goes
No longer content to limit the efficacy of public sector unions through a right-to-work law and laws constraining unions’ collective bargaining power, the state of Florida has begun stripping unions of their recognition as collective bargaining agents through onerous new density requirements. For most (86%) of Florida’s 235 education sector units, the 60% density requirement of the No-Right-to-Exist era has not proven fatal. While some of these units are maintaining densities above the 60% threshold, nearly three-quarters are persisting through annual recertification elections. For these units, the No-Right-to-Exist era regulatory mechanisms are functioning like Right-to-Work era mechanisms in that they reduce union efficacy – in this case, by requiring unions to expend considerable resources on recertification elections – without causing decertification. Nevertheless, the existence of these units would be severely imperiled if proposed legislation requiring a majority of the bargaining unit to vote in recertification elections, like SB 1296 under consideration this legislative cycle, is enacted.

For the 32 decertified units (14%) that lacked the capacity or will to collect cards for a recertification election, No-Right-to-Exist era regulations have ended their existence as collective bargaining agents. All decertified units are non-FEA affiliates, and most are in the higher education sector where the faculty FEA affiliate union declined to bring non-instructional staff into the union and never successfully organized adjunct faculty.[30] Consequently, these workers unionized with AFSCME and SEIU instead of the FEA affiliate, UFF. The contrast case with K-12 FEA-affiliate non-teacher unions (100% of which have persisted) suggests that staff and part-time workers fare better when part of the same unions as full-time educators. Full-time educators’ unions tend to have higher density and more resources than staff or part-time educators’ unions. When part of the same union, for reasons of solidarity or fortification, full-time educators may be more likely to share resources and strengthen weak units. While the demise of many higher education units affords an opportunity for these units to be rebuilt as part of UFF, UFF has taken no move in this direction. One union of staff formerly represented by AFSCME has reorganized as a non-collective bargaining unit with the Communications Workers of America.[31] The staff of another former AFSCME unit can no longer reorganize as a public sector union as their jobs have been outsourced, and they are now employed by a private contractor. [32]

While the Right-to-Work era state sought to make public sector unions weak, the No-Right-to-Exist era state seeks to wipe out public sector unions altogether. Public sector unions in Florida – and, amid voucher expansion and an assault on higher education, public education in general – are in great peril and deserve the support of the labor movement. As we have seen when DeSantis-governed Florida gave way to Trump-governed America, as Florida goes, so goes the nation.

Notes

[1] McKenna Schueler, “Latest Florida bill targeting unions came from Gov. DeSantis’s office, records show,” Caring Class Revolt, May 13, 2025, https://caringclassrevolt.substack.com/p/florida-bill-targeting-unions-came.
[2] In 2025, FEA membership numbers remained almost constant, regaining just 70 of the 20,377 members that had been lost. U.S. Department of Labor, “LM2 Labor Organization Annual Report-Florida Education Association,” 2023-2025, “SB 1766: Public Employees Relations Commission,” § 1-27 (2025), “SB 1296: Public Employee Relations Commission,” § 1-30 (2026).
[3] William F. McHugh, “The Florida Experience in Public Employee Collective Bargaining, 1974-1978: Bellwether for the South,” Florida State University Law Review 6, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 268–69.
[4] Raymond G. McGuire, “Public Employee Collective Bargaining in Florida – Past, Present and Future,” Florida State University Law Review 1, no. 1 (Winter 1973): 40.
[5] Alaine S. Williams, “Alternatives to the Right to Strike for Public Employees: Do They Adequately Implement Florida’s Constitutional Right to Collectively Bargain,” Florida State University Law Review 7, no. 3 (Summer 1979): 483; David M. Orta, “Public Employee Collective Bargaining in Florida: Collective Bargaining or Collective Begging,” Stetson Law Review 23, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 269–70.
[6] W. Gary Vause, “Impasse Resolution in the Public Sector-Observations on the First Decade of Law and Practice under the Florida Pera,” University of Florida Law Review 37, no. 1 (1985): 126-132.
[7] Williams, 479-481.
[8] David C. Miller, “Taking the ‘Urgent’ out of Financial Urgency in Florida Public Sector Labor Law,” Stetson Law Review 47, no. 3 (Spring 2018): 370; “Senate Bill No. 2100-Ch. 2011-68,” § 1-44 (2011); “Senate Bill No. 7044-Ch. 2022-70,” § 1-7 (2022).
[9] Orta, 287, 271-273.
[10] Miller, 370.
[11] “House Bill No. 7055-Ch. 2018-6,” § 32
[12] Don Taylor, “Can Renewal Emerge from Destruction? Crisis and Opportunity in Wisconsin,” Labor Studies Journal 40, no. 4 (2015): 399–400.
[13] Paul Abowd, “ALEC Anti-Union Push Includes Key Players from Michigan, Arizona Think Tanks,” Center for Public Integrity, May 17, 2012, https://publicintegrity.org/politics/alec-anti-union-push-includes-key-players-from-michigan-arizona-think-tanks.
[14] McKenna Schueler, “Florida’s Brazen Assault on Public Sector Workers Puts Unions in Survival Mode,” In These Times, June 5, 2024, https://inthesetimes.com/article/florida-target-public-sector-workers-anti-union-senate-bill-256-decertification-teachers-desantis.
[15] “CS/CS/SB 830: Labor and Employment,” § 1-6 (2011); “Senate Bill No. 256-Ch. 2023-35,” § 1-9 (2023).
[16] McKenna Schueler, “Florida Republicans File Bills to Make It Harder for Government Workers to Form and Keep Unions,” Orlando Weekly (Orlando, FL), February 27, 2025, https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida-republicans-file-bills-to-make-it-harder-for-government-workers-to-form-and-keep-unions-38953017.
[17] “SB 1296: Public Employee Relations Commission,” § 1-30 (2026).
[18] Senate Bill No. 256-Ch. 2023-35; “Senate Bill No. 266-Ch. 2023-82,” § 3 (2023); Senate Bill No. 7044-Ch. 2022-70.
[19] “SB 1328: Public Employee Collective Bargaining,” § 1-14 (2025); “SB 1766: Public Employees Relations Commission,” § 1-27 (2025).
[20] When filing for recertification, bargaining agents are required to provide their current density on PERC Form 1, Attachment A. While we sought the 2024 recertification petition for each unit, some units did not file recertification petitions in 2024 because the processing of a former petition was delayed or they had been granted an extension. In cases where did a unit did not file a 2024 recertification petition, we used 2025 data (32 cases). In 4 cases, unions had not filed a 2024 petition and have not yet filed their 2025 petition, for these cases we used the 2023 density data.
[21] We created this dataset by, first, reviewing the PERC database of the 2,055 bargaining units that earned recognition in Florida between July 1, 2023 (when SB 256 went into effect) and December 18, 1975 when the first public sector union achieved recognition (a list of all bargaining units with links to their certification and decertification orders can be generated here: https://perc.myflorida.com/co/certfilter.aspx). We then removed from the set all bargaining units with employers outside of the education sector and all unions in the education sector decertified prior to 2017 arriving at a list of 283 units. We then excluded all education sector bargaining units with employers other than county school districts, universities, and colleges (10 units) and units that were determined by PERC to have been defunct for years prior to SB 256 (6 units). Finally, we excluded the 32 law enforcement bargaining units with education sector employers from the set as these workers are not subject to SB 256.
[22] John Kennedy, “Will New Teacher Union Law Backfire?,” Gainesville Sun, April 2, 2018, https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/politics/state/2018/04/02/will-new-teacher-union-law-backfire/12846748007.
[23] FEA, “Local Profiles: A Growing Union Family,” Advocate, June 6, 2017. Notably, one of these units recognized by the county districts is the Santa Rosa Professional Educations Inc, an organization affiliated with an allegedly anti-union organization which prevailed in a 2017 challenge against the existing FEA affiliate in Santa Rosa. See Jessica Bakeman, “National, Local Politics Infuse Union Fight over Panhandle County’s Teachers,” Politico, June 6, 2017, https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/06/06/national-local-politics-infuse-fight-over-small-panhandle-countys-teachers-112433; In 2019 Jefferson County Education Association had their certification revoked because the entire school system went to charter schools, it left the entire schools system without representation. PERC, “Jefferson County Education Association-Case No. CQ-2019-001,” 2019; PERC, “Jefferson County Education Association-Case No. CQ-2019-001,” June 5, 2019.
[24] Jerry Iannelli, “Union-Busting Bill Would Cripple Miami Teachers While Leaving Police, Firefighters Untouched,” The Miami New Times, March 23, 2017, https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-union-busting-bill-would-cripple-miami-dade-county-teachers-union-but-leave-police-and-fire-untouched-9225606.
[25] U.S. Department of Labor, “LM2 Labor Organization Annual Report-Florida Education Association,” 2016-2020.
[26] PERC, “Santa Rosa Professional Educators Case No. EL-2019-017,” 2019; PERC, “Santa Rosa Professional Educators Case No. EL-2021-015,” 2021; PERC, “Santa Rosa Professional Educators Case No. EL-2022-018,” 2022; PERC, “Santa Rosa Professional Educators Case No. EL-2023-010,” 2023; PERC, “Santa Rosa Professional Educators Case No. RC-2024-074,” 2024.
[27] U.S. Department of Labor, “LM2 Labor Organization Annual Report-Florida Education Association,” 2020; U.S. Department of Labor, “LM2 Labor Organization Annual Report-Florida Education Association,” 2024.
[28] This is based on data from 18 of the 20 units. We have no data for 2 units.
[29] Florida Education Association, “Florida Education Unions Celebrate Collective Bargaining Wins,” FEA Press Releases (blog), June 9, 2025, https://feaweb.org/release/florida-education-unions-celebrate-collective-bargaining-wins/.; Clara-Sophia Daly, “Miami-Dade Teachers Vote to Keep Their Union. A Right-Wing Organization Vows to Defeat It,” Miami Herald, October 28, 2024, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article294430484.html.
[30] Norman Markel, UF Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, April 20, 2009, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00080902/00001/audios.
[31] “First Florida HBCU Forms Union During Black History Month,” Communication Workers of America News (blog), February 13, 2025, https://cwa-union.org/news/first-florida-hbcu-forms-union-during-black-history-month; https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00080902/00001/citation (Interview with Norman Markel)
[32] McKenna Schueler, “‘We Were Forced into It’: After Union Dissolution, University of South Florida Privatizes 400 Jobs,” Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, November 1, 2024, https://www.cltampa.com/news/we-were-forced-into-it-after-union-dissolution-university-of-south-florida-privatizes-400-jobs-18877831