Dean Comes Out Against SB830

Controversial bill targeted at public unions in Florida losing some support

Senate Bill SB 830 – Labor and Employment, is a bill that would prohibit a state agency from deducting from employee wages funds for political activity. A county, municipality, or other local governmental entity would be prohibited from deducting from employee wages funds for political activity.  This includes automatically deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks. According to SB830, union members would also have to give written consent before their dues are used for political purposes.

The Miami Herald has reported that, Scott made rare personal visits to the offices of four Republican state senators and pleaded with them to support the measure on Wednesday. All of them, it appears  were unpersuaded.

One of Citrus County’s own Senator Charlie Dean said, “I’m a conservative Republican, I support the governor and I support the (Florida Senate) president and (Florida House) speaker. But I also reserve the right somehow to make up my own mind.”  Senator Dean’s aide, Kevin Sweeny shared with The Huffington Post that the senator objected to the fact that the bill only singles out public employee unions for making automatic paycheck deductions. Within Florida, there are at least 364 groups or agencies that deduct money from employees’ wages at employees’ request for charitable donations, life insurance, taxes and other deductions. SB830 only focuses only on union dues.  Sweeny went on to say that, “(Senator Dean’s) main objections are that he doesn’t believe it’s his money to say; it should be left alone, what he would really like to see is if we’re going to take away the option for the state to take the money out of the checks, we should do it across the board.”

Another GOP Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, said the bill would, “It creates division and turmoil, and doesn’t create jobs.”

The Huffington Post reported that in an interview with Florida Senator Rene Garcia that Garcia met with Scott on Wednesday and that he too would be opposing the bill. Senator Garcia expressed that many of his constituents who were union members and they contacted him and wondered why the legislature was targeting them rather than going after all automatic deductions.

SB 830 was on the legislative calendar on Wednesday but delayed.  A Florida state labor official said, “This legislation is, at this point in time, for all intents and purposes, completely stalled.  We won’t call it dead, simply because there is a Republican supermajority. For that matter alone, I won’t call anything dead until the gavel goes down on the final day of the legislature.”

The HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. and The Miami Herald were used in this blog.

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