Washington DC, United States: The Attorney General of Florida, Ashley Moody, is to take legal action against the administration of Joe Biden, according to the statement released by the Office of the Attorney General, Florida. The legal action will be taken for “retaliation against Florida’s new law to prevent unions from exploiting workers.”
The Office informed that the action will be taken over the unconstitutional interpretation of the federal rule by the government concerning collective bargaining rights, resulting in a loss of critical funds for Florida.
Emphasizing the implementation of laws for the betterment of the public of Florida, AG Ashley Moody said, “Florida passed laws to protect workers from being strong-armed by unions.”
“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. We’re pushing back against this overreach to protect our state’s autonomy and Florida workers,” she added while attacking the Biden administration for their take.
What actually happened between Florida and the Biden administration?
Earlier in 2023, a landmark package – SB 256, was passed by the Florida Legislature. The package was announced to benefit public workers, to allow them to get more informed on whether to join a union and to prohibit unions from forcing due withdrawals directly from employees’ paychecks, as per the Office of AG.
In this regard, the Biden administration issued an ultimatum to Florida and asked to abandon the reforms enacted through SB 256 or get ready to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
According to the official stats by the Florida Public Transportation Association, the administration has threatened over US$ 800 million to Florida.
The legal action will be taken by Attorney General Moody in order to safeguard the “state’s access to critical funding and its sovereign prerogative to regulate in the realm of collective bargaining,” informed the Office of the Attorney General Moody.
She, furthermore, blamed the Biden administration for putting in efforts to withhold federal funding over an unconstitutional interpretation of the Federal Transit Act.
Changes proposed through SB 256:
According to the official statement, this pact will bring some changes to collective bargaining in the state, which are:
- A membership authorization form must be filled out by a public employee who wishes to join or represent a union.
- The status of government employers as bill collectors and middlemen between unions and public employees will be eliminated.
- SB 256 law will reform how the Public Employees Relations Commission determines if a union is eligible to serve as the exclusive bargaining agent for a class of employees.
What complaint states:
According to the Office of the Attorney General of Florida, the complaint outlined that these reforms are designed for the public employees in Florida. These will ensure that the employees have “full constitutional right to make a conscious and deliberate decision regarding their constitutional right to participate or not participate in a union. They are also designed to ensure that public sector unions granted the significant power to act as the ‘exclusive bargaining agent’ for a class of public employees have the support of a critical threshold (60%) of those employees.”
It furthermore outlined that the law does not have any intention of abolishing the collective bargaining rights of the transportation workers.
Accordingly, the Biden Administration reads the phrase ‘continuation of collective bargaining rights’ in § 5333(b) to mean that Florida cannot enact reasonable regulations governing the collective bargaining process, such as those the Legislature enacted earlier this year in Senate Bill 256 (SB 256). The Department of Labour’s application of § 5333(b) to the State of Florida is flagrantly unconstitutional.