{"id":34363,"date":"2023-08-08T17:24:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T21:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=34363"},"modified":"2023-08-08T17:24:56","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T21:24:56","slug":"firefighters-join-pba-in-union-rules-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/08\/08\/firefighters-join-pba-in-union-rules-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefighters Join PBA in Union Rules Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jim Saunders – The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n\n\n

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 A statewide firefighters union has joined the Florida Police Benevolent Association in challenging the way a state agency is carrying out a new law that placed additional restrictions on public-employee unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law, approved this spring by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature, included restrictions such as preventing union dues from being deducted from workers\u2019 paychecks. But in a move that drew debate, lawmakers exempted unions representing law-enforcement officers, correctional officers, and firefighters from the restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Police Benevolent Association, however, filed a challenge in late July to proposed rules issued by the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, which is responsible for carrying out the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed rules would apply the restrictions to PBA bargaining units made up of workers such as dispatchers and 911 operators who are not law-enforcement or correctional officers, according to the challenge. The Florida Professional Firefighters joined the case this week, and the Teamsters union, which represents a smaller number of public-safety workers, also intervened.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The case, filed at the state Division of Administrative Hearings, contends the exemptions from the restrictions were intended to apply to all workers represented by public-safety unions \u2014 not just law-enforcement officers, correctional officers and firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn an apparent disregard for and in contravention of the plain and unambiguous language of the exemptions \u2026 the proposed rules impermissibly limit the scope of the exemptions based on the classification of members within individual \u2018bargaining units\u2019 rather than applying the exemptions to the employee organization as a whole,\u201d the PBA\u2019s lawyers wrote in the challenge, filed July 27. \u201cUnder the proposed rules, the PBA and the members of the individual bargaining units comprised only of civilians, would not be exempt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Administrative Law Judge Robert Cohen has scheduled an Aug. 29 hearing in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The administrative case is one of a series of legal challenges to the law. Teachers unions and other public-employee unions have filed at least three lawsuits in federal and state courts arguing parts of the law are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to preventing dues from being deducted from workers\u2019 paychecks, the law requires union members to fill out new government-worded membership forms and will require unions to be recertified as bargaining agents if fewer than 60 percent of eligible employees are members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOP lawmakers were widely viewed as exempting public-safety unions from the restrictions because organizations such as the PBA and the firefighters union have supported DeSantis and other Republicans politically. Meanwhile, for example, teachers unions have been among DeSantis\u2019 biggest critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the PBA\u2019s concerns about the restrictions applying to members who are not law-enforcement or correctional officers surfaced in June, when the union filed an administrative challenge. The PBA later dropped that case before filing a renewed challenge in late July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a motion to intervene, the firefighters union cited non-firefighter members such as dispatchers and emergency-medical technicians and the dues-deduction issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn plain English, the exemption from the prohibition against dues deductions is a right of the union acknowledged by the Legislature when the union has been certified by PERC (the Public Employees Relations Commission) as a bargaining representative of certified firefighters,\u201d the motion said. \u201cIt does not say that all of those who are represented must be certified firefighters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge accuses the agency of what is known in administrative law as an \u201cinvalid exercise of delegated legislative authority.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Saunders – The News Service of Florida  A statewide firefighters union has joined the Florida Police Benevolent Association in challenging the way a state agency is carrying out… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[5623],"class_list":["post-34363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-firefighters-join-pba-in-union-rules-fight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}