JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A local teachers union has a warning this Labor Day weekend: It\u2019s at risk of losing its certification.<\/p>\n
This is the first year Duval Teachers United has had to hit 60% membership or else face a recertification vote – and it\u2019s currently about 900 members short two days ahead of Tuesday\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n
That 900 figure is a combination of teachers, paraprofessionals and school office staff.<\/p>\n
Each category of workers needs to separately hit 60 percent membership to avoid a recertification vote.<\/p>\n
Because of a new state law passed this year, the stakes of a recertification vote are higher than ever before. That\u2019s because 50 percent of current members would have to cast a ballot in order for the election to count.<\/p>\n
DTU President Tammie Brooks-Evans explained if the vote fails, teachers and staff would lose their current contract with the district, putting at risk many of the benefits the union has fought to earn.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike having bereavement leave goes away. Being paid for doing some of the extra jobs you do as part of working as a school safety patrol sponsor or band director. There are supplemental things within that contract that they would no longer have to honor,\u201d said Brooks-Evans.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Brooks-Evans argued the crisis facing the union is no accident, as state lawmakers have steadily raised the goal post on teachers\u2019 unions year after year.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they just find themselves very unhappy because teachers keep meeting that goal. So, then they just move the goal line to try to make it more difficult for them to maintain their collective bargaining agent,\u201d said Brooks-Evans. <\/p>\n \u201dKeep in mind that when we started bargaining this year they were offering $14 million and we got $27 million for (employees) pay raises.\u201d<\/p>\n But State Representative Dean Black (R-Jacksonville), who sponsored some of those new union restrictions in recent years, argued DTU should take a look in the mirror before blaming the legislature for its membership woes.<\/p>\n He pointed to the fact the union\u2019s former President and Vice President were just convicted in February after it was revealed they\u2019d stolen $2.6 million from the union.<\/p>\n \u201cStole millions of teachers\u2019 dollars. Stole their money. I think that probably has a lot to do with it,\u201d said Black.<\/p>\n The union is asking teachers and school staff to head to their website to sign up to become a member. <\/p>\n You can sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A local teachers union has a warning this Labor Day weekend: It\u2019s at risk of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-392521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}