Josh Christenson writes for the New York Post about dubious actions involving a Florida teachers union.
An American Federation of Teachers-affiliated union in Miami-Dade County, Fla., has been hit with a pair of complaints accusing officials of coercing educators to join up in a bid to bolster lagging membership numbers.
United Teachers of Dade (UTD) allegedly sent organizers into county public schools last month to pressure two teachers into paying membership dues, according to copies of the complaints exclusively obtained by The Post.
The first filing claims the union broke Florida law by directing the complainant to the school teachers’ lounge during work hours — and then demanding the teacher join the labor group even though she had left it in July.
A vice principal at the school had called the teacher and requested her to report to the lounge, where an organizer was waiting to ask the educator about her union membership, according to the complaint.
“The UTD organizer would not have had the ability to locate and speak with [redacted] at that time without the assistance of the School’s administration,” the filing states.
“I used to be a UTD building steward, and I was so disgusted with the union that I left it,” the teacher responded, according to the complaint. “Why would I want to pay dues?”
The second complaint alleges that an organizer at a Miami-Dade public school made “loud and shaming remarks” about a teacher “in the presence of her colleagues” in an attempt to “verbally pressure” her into paying union dues.
The teacher was approached as she was trying to use the faculty lounge’s restroom and made “repeated assertions that she d[id] not want to pay dues or be a member” of UTD, the filing states.
The organizer nevertheless “bullied and belittled” the teacher by raising her own voice and remarking on the situation to at least five others in the lounge.
