For the first time in half a century, teachers in the nation’s third-largest school district have a chance to choose who will represent them in negotiations with the Miami Dade Public School District.
United Teachers of Dade has had a monopoly on labor representation ever since the Dade County Classroom Teachers Association merged with the local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers in the mid-1970s.
But that could soon change. Nearly 27,000 educators have a chance to opt for a new alternative: The Miami-Dade Education Coalition, which promises to deliver more effective advocacy at a lower cost.
Teachers got the chance to vote on their choice of union representation after UTD failed to get 60% of eligible educators to sign on as dues-paying members.
Thanks to a 2023 law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade teachers have a chance to ask: Is our current representation worth nearly $1,000 in annual dues? Or could we be paying less and getting more?
The MDEC believes local teachers need local representation, and that UTD sends too much of its members’ dues money to statewide and national groups.
Right now, nearly half of UTD’s budget flows to affiliated groups like the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the AFL-CIO. And nearly half of what’s left goes to paying inflated salaries to union officers and employees.
The current UTD President, Karla Hernandez-Mats, brings home a lavish $293,127 annual compensation package worth nearly six times the average base salary for a Miami-Dade classroom teacher, which was $70,443 in 2022-23.
In 2022, she took time away from her duties to run alongside Charlie Crist in his failed campaign for governor, which raked in a $500,000 campaign donation from the national teachers’ union the week her selection was announced.
MDEC’s founders include longtime South Florida teachers like Shawn Beightol who want the union to stop pouring money into statewide or national politics and focus on improving local teacher pay and working conditions.
Beightol argues the UTD colluded with Miami-Dade Public Schools administrators to divert funding from teacher salaries to building construction and failed to deliver teacher benefit packages that kept pace with rising health care costs.
New representation might be able to drive a better bargain. If teachers choose MDEC, their new representatives will have a chance to immediately open new contract negotiations with the district.
They have promised to fight for changes that would cut back bloat in the school district central office, plow more funding into educator pay and benefits, and protect teachers’ planning and classroom time.
These are bold promises with the potential to elevate the teaching profession in Miami-Dade.
And Florida’s union decertification law means that if the new representation fails to deliver, local educators will have a chance to vote them out, too.
This is the power educators deserve.
