By Steve Wishnia

The job of laying metallic lath in the heat of a Texas summer is about to get harsher and more dangerous — while in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is quickly making himself the Crown Prince of Union-Busting. 

Texas is on the verge of enacting a law that would nullify scores of local regulations, including the Austin and Dallas ordinances that require construction workers to get 10-minute water breaks. Meanwhile, DeSantis has signed a measure intended to hamstring most public-sector unions in Florida.

On May 16, the Texas state Senate voted 18-13 to pass the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, with 18 of the 19 Republicans voting yes. Dubbed the “Death Star bill” by Lone Star State unions, it would pre-empt local regulations affecting agriculture, business and commerce, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, occupations, or property unless they are “explicitly authorized” by state law. Current state law says towns and cities with more than 5,000 people can enact ordinances as long as they’re not expressly forbidden by state or federal law.

Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy called the bill a “brazen power grab” that “tramples on the voices of local voters” in a May 15 statement. “We are the deadliest state to work in,” he continued. “Instead of solving local problems locally, local governments will have to come to Austin to seek permission to act from extreme state officials who have already shown that they have never met a worker-protection measure they like.”

The bill now goes back to House sponsor Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). The Senate amended the version the House passed in April to exempt current local laws regulating high-interest “payday loans,” and to prohibit local governments from restricting evictions. (Its Senate sponsor, Brandon Creighton, owns a real-estate agency in Houston’s northern suburbs.) If Burrows doesn’t approve those changes, the bill will go to a House-Senate conference committee. If he does, it will go to Gov. Greg Abbott, who has said he will sign it.

Florida Aims at Teachers

The Florida law, which DeSantis signed May 9, is a standard so-called “paycheck protection” measure. It will prohibit having dues automatically collected from paychecks, let employees quit unions at any time, and require unions to submit to intensive annual audits. It will also force unions to file a petition for recertification with the state if less than 60% of workers in their bargaining unit are dues-paying members.

The 60% recertification provision is aimed at the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest union. Under a 2018 state law, FEA locals already have to petition for recertification if less than 50% of the workers in a bargaining unit paid dues. The Senate Committee on Oversight’s March staff report on the bill found that during the 2021-22 school year, three of Florida’s five largest teachers’ unions, those in the Miami, Orlando, and Palm Beach areas, received dues from more than 50% but less than 60% of the workers they represented.

In his signing announcement, DeSantis said the law will protect workers from “pressure” to join unions. It does not, however, apply to police, firefighters, or corrections officers.

On May 10, the FEA and three affiliates filed suit in federal court, arguing that the bill violates educators’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech, freedom of association, and equal protection of the laws, and that it interferes with valid contracts they bargained.

“Gov. DeSantis has made it clear that he is targeting educators because we exercise our constitutional right to speak out against attempts by this governor and others to stymie the freedom to learn and to stifle freedom of thought,” FEA President Andrew Spar told an online press conference.

Meanwhile, the union is urging members to sign up for its “eDues” system, to have their dues directly deposited into their local’s bank.

Texas: ‘Job creators’ vs. ‘progressive’ cities

Rep. Burrows and Sen. Creighton argued that their bill would “streamline regulations so Texas job creators can have certainty” instead of having “progressive municipal officials and agencies” businesses impose a “hodgepodge of onerous and burdensome regulations.”

A coalition of 19 business groups led by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) supported the legislation, including the state affiliate of Associated Builders and Contractors, a nonunion-construction organization, and the Texas Apartment Association, a landlord trade group.

Since 2003, Texas has pre-empted local governments from setting a minimum wage higher than the state’s, which has been frozen at the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour since 2009. In 2018, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin enacted laws requiring employers to offer paid sick leave, but state and federal courts later ruled that the laws constituted illegal minimum-wage increases.

Those laws gave local governments power to subpoena businesses suspected of violations. “That’s very frightening to a small business owner, with no compliance officers,” state NFIB director Annie Spilman said in a statement in April. “We just don’t know what cities might propose next.”

“Ten years ago, the idea that cities were going to have Green New Deal legislation or pro-labor legislation was unheard of and unthinkable,” Burrows told the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation think tank in March. He cited an El Paso ballot initiative that would require 80% of energy used by the city government to come from renewable sources by 2030. (El Paso voters rejected the initiative by a 4-1 margin on May 5.)

Sen. Creighton is also sponsoring a bill to prohibit the University of Texas from giving professors tenure. The Senate passed it in April, but it has run into more opposition in the House.

With state law now voiding local labor-protection measures, the Texas AFL-CIO says, the best thing workers can do is organize to win those protections in a collective-bargaining agreement.