“The United Teachers of Dade (UTD) and Karla Hernandez-Mats vehemently fought against increased accountability at the state level and now we know why: they couldn’t get 60 percent of the teachers they claim to represent to actually sign up for membership,” said Allison Beattie, director of labor relations at the Freedom Foundation.
“UTD is the third largest teachers’ union in the country, and now they’re heading toward the largest union decertification vote in American history.”
“If United Teachers of Dade spent half as much time paying attention to their members’ interests as they have been pushing a political agenda with Randi Weingarten and running for office with Charlie Crist, they probably wouldn’t even be in this position,” continued Beattie.
“We were approached this summer by a number of teachers in Miami-Dade County who were unhappy seeing their hard-earned paychecks going into the pockets of union officers while those same officers have consistently negotiated away pay and benefits” continued Beattie. “The Miami teachers asked for our assistance running a campaign to spread their message as they set up an alternative, apolitical association of teachers that would be free of their incumbent union’s corruption, keep union dues out of politics, and focus solely on workplace representation.”
“We’re not surprised UTD couldn’t make the 60 percent threshold, because they’ve lost focus of their mission – representing rank and file teachers,” continued Beattie. “The union sends 46 percent of its budget to unions like the AFL-CIO, National Education Association, and Randi Weingarten. Now they’ve spent the last few months scrambling to get their unsatisfied customers back just in time for a deadline report, and they couldn’t do it.”
“The unions fought SB 256 specifically because they knew if public employees were given the opportunity to think about where they’d rather spend their money, it would probably go toward groceries and gas, rather than lining the union pockets,” concluded Beattie.
