USF grad student union decries Florida “union busting” bill

Share
University of South Florida
USF. By Seán Kinane / WMNF News. 2016.

Last week the Florida House passed a bill that critics call the “union busting bill;” our guest says it will hurt members in graduate assistants unions like the one she is co-president of at the University of South Florida.

The bill would decertify public sector unions that have less than 50 percent dues-paying members. So far the bill has not advanced in the state Senate.

WMNF News interviewed Erin Sauer with Graduate Assistants United at USF.

“Our union has less than 50% membership as do many teacher unions around the state, faculty unions at universities and colleges, staff unions like AFSCME — so, sanitation workers, janitorial staff, the EMTs, I’m sure many of their chapters have less than 50% membership. It’s very hard to maintain 50% membership. Particularly for GAU, for the graduate student union, because our labor force turns over so quickly. People are only there for two to five years.

“So, it’s hard to keep up with that. And because we live in Florida, union membership is not automatic. So we have to go around and have personal conversations with people. And using our volunteer time find people in our (bargaining) unit and get them to join or ask them to join and sign membership cards. None of that happens automatically.”

Listen to this segment of the show:

 

One Response to “USF grad student union decries Florida “union busting” bill”

  1. Sam Badger

    As a USF grad student, this bill really is terrible. We got a decent contract last year but could lose it all.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

The Rhythm Revival
Player position: