Gov. DeSantis is taking a carrot and stick approach to Florida teachers. On the one hand he is offering them a big raise. On the other hand he is promoting a “paycheck protection” plan which takes aim at teachers unions in the state. Under the new plan, union dues wouldn’t be automatically deducted from paychecks. Instead, teachers would have to send unions a check every month.

DeSantis is framing his plan on union dues as “paycheck protection” for teachers and said it would “be a more accurate reflection of who wants to be a part of this or not.” In his remarks, he coupled the union changes with what he called “the biggest increase” in teacher pay the state has ever done.

“It’s more of a guarantee that the money is actually going to go to teachers,” he said at the retreat, “and not be frittered away by interest groups who get involved in the school system.”

State Republicans have attempted to pass bills like this on at least two previous occasions but after the red wave in Florida last month this should pass.

The Legislature has considered similar proposals since at least 2011, but they have not passed. A proposal (HB 1197) during the 2022 session was approved by the House but did not make it through the Senate.

The proposals have drawn fierce opposition from unions and Democrats, as such changes could make it harder for unions to get funded.

“This is a union-busting bill,” then-Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, said during a debate in January.

Prior version of this legislation would have impacted other unions, including those for police, corrections officers and firefighters. But the current House bill exempts those groups making this primarily about teachers’ unions. DeSantis also suggested that unions that no longer represent a majority of the people they are negotiating for should be decertified.

DeSantis also indicated he supports setting a threshold for unions to represent teachers. That threshold would involve at least 50 percent of teachers being members of the unions.

“If they don’t have a majority of the teachers who are actually signing up to pay dues, it should be decertified,” DeSantis said. “You shouldn’t be able to continue as a zombie organization that doesn’t have the support of the people you are negotiating for.”

Later in his statement, DeSantis predicted that teachers’ unions in Florida would fight back hard in coming years. “I think a lot of the teachers’ unions were surprised at how much effort all of us put in to these races,” he said. He continued, “Well guess what they’re going to do. They’re going to double down and they’re going to come at it even harder, guns blazing, because this is an entrenched interest. They get their money from being able to be involved in these systems.

“You’re doing it because you think it’s good for your community or your kids or your grandkids or whatnot, they’re doing it because they have personal interests at stake, political, partisan, financial interests at stake. They are not going to just go quietly into the night”

DeSantis then told a story about a debate he did during the election where his opponent bussed in union members. “I did this debate in the governors race and we did it in this auditorium and there was like a hundred some people, two hundred people,” he said. “My opponent wheeled in people from Broward teachers union, okay. They all had the same shirt on…What was said was, okay, you guys are here but it’s not about the crowd, don’t interrupt, don’t hoot and holler, don’t do any of that.

“So what do they do? They scream the whole time. Anytime I would talk they try to drown me out…And whatever, I mean I can handle it. I just did whatever but I’m thinking to myself ‘These are people that are in our school system and that’s the way they’re conducting themselves?'” He added that the union members were “behaving like kids” because “an adult would want to have a forum where people can exchange ideas.”

I think it’s fair to say there’s no love lost between the governor and the unions and elections do have consequences. Here’s the video of DeSantis statement Monday. I have this cued up to his discussion of pay raises and paycheck protection. His discourse on unions comes a bit later.