{"id":4131,"date":"2012-01-11T12:10:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T17:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=4131"},"modified":"2012-01-11T13:04:25","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T18:04:25","slug":"why-florida-is-not-likely-to-pick-a-fight-with-unions-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/01\/11\/why-florida-is-not-likely-to-pick-a-fight-with-unions-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Florida Is Not Likely to Pick A Fight With Unions This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Scott Olson \/ Getty News Images<\/p>

Teachers and other union members camped out at the Wisconsin state house last year to protest a law stripping collective bargaining rights.<\/p><\/div>\n

What a difference an election can make.<\/p>\n

Last year Legislatures across the country\u00a0— buoyed by a Tea Party sweep in 2010 elections — challenged teachers and other public employee unions over their ability to collectively bargain pay and other benefits. Florida Gov. Rick Scott wanted to limit collective bargaining in his initial 20-page education plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The battle was nationwide news in Wisconsin<\/a> and later in the year in Ohio<\/a>, where voters easily overturned a state law stripping collective bargaining rights for public employees.<\/p>\n

That fight doesn’t appear to be coming to Florida this year, according to an education expert who previously advocated the legislation.<\/p>\n

Patricia Levesque, director of the Foundation for Florida’s Future<\/a>, said she’s heard no talk of trying to strip collective bargaining rights in the Legislature this year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I don’t,” Levesque said when asked if she thought the issue would come up in the Legislative session that opened Tuesday. “I haven’t heard that the collective bargaining issue will come up.”<\/p>\n

Levesque supported the idea as recently as August<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The issue is more complicated in Florida than other states because collective bargaining is a constitutional right<\/a>. That means lawmakers would have to challenge all public employee unions — including politically popular professions such as law enforcement.<\/p>\n

It also means that a supermajority of lawmakers and voters must approve a constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n

Scott has struggled with low approval ratings<\/a> since taking office a year ago, and has recently changed his approach toward schools by advocating for $1 billion in additional funding. Some suggest Scott’s support for schools is politically motivated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are completing their once-every-ten years redistricting and dealing with a $2 billion budget shortfall<\/a>. Florida is also hosting a possibly decisive Republican presidential primary at the end of January.<\/p>\n

Add that all up and even advocates say collective bargaining is a fight best left for another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a difference an election can make. Last year Legislatures across the country\u00a0— buoyed by a Tea Party sweep in 2010 elections — challenged teachers and other public employee unions over their ability to collectively bargain pay and other benefits. Florida Gov. Rick Scott wanted to limit collective bargaining in his initial 20-page education plan. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1105,62,167,1027,1015],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4136,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions\/4136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}