Florida Sues Biden Administration for Leveraging Funds in Union Law Dispute

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis listens as Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody speaks during a press conference at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 18, 2022. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A lawsuit filed by Florida’s attorney general on Oct. 4 accuses the Biden administration of threatening to withhold more than $800 million from the state over a new law regulating unions.

Signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 9, the law in question, Senate Bill 256, enacted a list of new legal constraints for unions—one of which prohibits unions representing teachers, transportation workers, and other public sector employees from deducting dues from members’ paychecks.

Another provision stipulates that at least 60 percent of eligible employees be dues-paying union members and that unions that fail to meet that threshold will have their certification revoked.

Meanwhile, employees seeking union membership must sign authorization forms, and those who wish to revoke their membership may do so at any time.

“Florida passed laws to protect workers from being strong-armed by unions,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said on Oct. 4 in a statement.

“Biden, intent on driving our country into the ground, continues to try to force states to implement his bad policies. As long as I am Florida’s attorney general, Washington will never decide how we run our state,” Ms. Moody added.

“We’re pushing back against this overreach to protect our state’s autonomy and Florida workers.”

The lawsuit, filed in Fort Lauderdale, charges that the Biden administration has misinterpreted a “vague and general” section of the Federal Transit Act to leverage transportation infrastructure funding to secure Florida’s agreement not to enforce provisions of its new law that the Secretary of Labor views as a threat to collective bargaining rights.

“To be clear, Florida has no intention of abolishing the collective bargaining rights of transportation workers,” the complaint notes. But the Department of Labor’s “ultimatum,” it adds, should be declared unconstitutional by the court.

Defendants named in the lawsuit include Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, among others.

In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, a Department of Transportation spokesperson said that the department “cannot comment on pending litigation.”

The Department of Labor did not respond to an inquiry.

Mr. DeSantis, in signing the new regulations into law, touted them as a win for Florida teachers.

“For far too long, unions and rogue school boards have pushed around our teachers, misused government funds for political purposes, taken money from teachers’ pockets to steer it for purposes other than representation of teachers, and sheltered their true political goals from the educators they purport to represent,” he said in a statement.

“No longer will politically motivated school boards and special interests wield their power over Florida’s teachers,” he added.

But critics of the law claim it was meant to punish the governor’s political opponents, pointing to its exemption of unions representing law enforcement officers, firefighters, and corrections officers—groups that have supported Mr. DeSantis and other Republicans—as evidence.

Almost immediately after it was signed, the law was beset by legal challenges, including a lawsuit filed that same day by three teachers’ unions.

“In a bid to punish the ‘school unions’ and other public employee unions who have opposed him, Gov. DeSantis pushed for ‘unprecedented’ changes to Florida’s collective bargaining law to harm disfavored unions while exempting those unions representing law enforcement, corrections, and firefighter employees who have supported him,” the lawsuit said.

That case remains ongoing.

In recent weeks, President Joe Biden—who has touted himself as the “most pro-worker and pro-union” president in history—has emphasized his support for union workers amid the uptick in various labor strikes across the country.

Last week, he became the first sitting U.S. president to join a picket line when he visited striking members of the United Auto Workers union near Detroit.

“You’ve heard me say it many times: Wall Street didn’t build the country. The middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class. And that’s a fact,” he told the workers.

“You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now,” he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.