The Florida Education Association (FEA) is a statewide federation of teacher and education workers' labor unions in the US state of Florida. Its 145,000 members make it the largest union in the state. It is a merged affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), and is a member of the AFL–CIO.
The FEA was founded in 1886. After leading the nation's first statewide teachers' strikeThe claim of first statewide teachers' strike in the U.S. is also made by the Utah Education Association: "Teachers: Showdown in Utah". Time. May 24, 1963. in 1968, the FEA split into two separate federations in 1974. The two groups merged again in 2000.
Early history The Florida Education Association was established in 1886 as an affiliate of the NEA. It was an association rather than a labor union, and membership was initially limited to white teachers and administrators only. FEA worked to persuade school boards and the public to increase funding for schools, end discrimination against married female schoolteachers, and more.
Local affiliates of the FEA formed in almost every school district. However, membership remained low and varied widely from district to district, even though dues were not high. FEA, like much of the NEA at the time, was dominated by administrators rather than rank-and-file teachers. The administrators' influence often kept FEA from being an effective advocate for classroom teachers. But in larger school districts, the FEA was somewhat successful in obtaining occasional salary increases, improvements to facilities, and curriculum changes. However the FEA in its early years was seen more as a proponent of white teachers specifically. They opposed the efforts of African-American teachers to sue for salary equalization in the 1940s, with their frequent petitions of interventions designed to delay the outcomes of many cases that eventually prevented schools from maintaining separate unequal salary schedule for white and black teachers.Wilson, Sondra. In search of democracy : the NAACP writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins (1920–1977), page 187. Oxford University Press, 1999
Beginning of the modern era The modern era of the FEA can be traced to 1963. In that year, Pat Tornillo, a teacher in the Dade County school system, ran for the presidency of the Dade County Classroom Teachers Association (DCCTA). Tornillo won office by calling for greater organizational militancy and the desegregation of teaching staffs.Fish, "School Crisis Echoes '67 Deadlock", Orlando Sentinel, March 16, 1992; Mailander, "From Teacher to Union Boss", Miami Herald, September 17, 1996; Park, "The Old School of Power", Miami New Times, September 19, 1996; Rado, "For Florida Schools, 'Mr. T' is King of Blackboard Jungle", St. Petersburg Times, September 24, 1996.
Tornillo's election was indicative of a wave of militancy in the NEA. Since its inception, the NEA had rejected collective bargaining and strikes as unprofessional. But after the AFT won collective bargaining rights for teachers in New York City and formed the United Federation of Teachers, many NEA members began to push for the association to act more like a union. In 1961, about 200 of the NEA's largest urban locals formed the National Council of Urban Education Associations to push the national organization toward collective bargaining. The caucus was successful: The same year, the NEA Representative Assembly (RA) passed a resolution establishing the "Urban Project", adopting a policy of "professional negotiations" akin to collective bargaining, and requiring the NEA to provide staff, research and financial assistance to locals involved in "professional negotiations". By 1965, the NEA was providing nearly $885,000 a year to locals in support of "professional negotiations", up from a mere $28,000 in 1961.Hopkins, "A Review of Events in Professional Negotiations", Theory Into Practice, April 1965. In 1962, pro-unionization forces in the NEA pushed to remove the organization's prohibition against strikes. They were unsuccessful, but did win approval of a "sanctions" policy. "Sanctions" included waging a public relations campaign against the school district, encouraging teachers to not accept teaching positions with the school system, refusing to provide unpaid services (such as tutoring or supervision of clubs), and political action to defeat anti-union politicians. "Sanctions" could be employed against any school district which, in the opinion of the local association, had engaged in "unethical or arbitrary" policies or which had refused "sound professional practices"."Education: Teachers' Boycott". Time, August 17, 1962.
Tornillo eagerly embraced professional negotiations and sanctions, and in 1966 he forced the Dade County school system to open negotiations with the DCCTA. Although the national NEA was obligated to provide assistance, the FEA was not and refused to become involved in Tornillo's campaign for professional negotiations. The DCCTA won a contract, but FEA's reluctance to support the local association led Tornillo and other leaders to lobby the state association to become more militant.
1968 statewide teachers' strike
The DCCTA's actions set in motion a series of events which led to a statewide Florida teachers' strike in 1968.
Prodded by the DCCTA, the NEA undertook a study of the condition of Florida's public schools. The study, released in 1966, concluded that school funding had actually fallen while enrollment—and the need for more teachers, buildings, and supplies—had soared. Teachers were underpaid, benefits were poor, and school facilities in bad shape. The report electrified teachers in Florida, and Dade, Broward, and Hillsborough counties were placed under sanction.Farrell, "1968 Strike a Landmark for Schools", Miami Herald, February 2, 1998; Fish, "School Crisis Echoes '67 Deadlock", Orlando Sentinel, March 16, 1992; Thomas, "25 Years After Strike, Schools Still at Issue", St. Petersburg Times, February 21, 1993.
FEA began to lobby the state for more funding for public schools. State legislative action had often been the only way for NEA locals to win better pay and working conditions prior to the enactment of the professional negotiations policy, so FEA was no newcomer to politics. The association lobbied for a minimum teacher salary of $5,000 a year and a more equitable means of funding schools than property taxes. Republican Governor Claude R. Kirk Jr. promised to improve educational funding. The Democratic-controlled state legislature approved higher sales taxes. But Kirk vetoed the budget, and Republican legislators upheld the veto.
Outraged by the veto, Florida teachers went on a statewide strike—the first statewide teachers' strike in American history. An August 1967 rally at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando drew 30,000 teachers. Even though public employee strikes are illegal in Florida, FEA leaders began talking up a statewide strike. In September 1967, most of the teachers in Pinellas and Broward counties resignedThe teachers resigned in order to avoid the legal penalties which accompanied a strike. in protest, forcing schools to close. A court ordered the teachers back into the classroom, but hundreds stayed out.
Despite government action, the teachers struck again. Gov. Kirk called a special session of the legislature in January 1968, which led to higher sales and sin taxes. But most teachers felt the increases were not enough, and a special convention of the FEA voted against accepting the package.Selden, The Teacher Rebellion, 1985. In February 1968, FEA president Jane Arnold said the state association would support local teachers if they walked off the job. Thousands did. Schools closed in roughly two-thirds of Florida's counties. At the height of the strike, 25,712 teachers—about 40 percent of the state's teachers—walked out. The statewide Florida teachers' strike was not uniform, however. Strikes lasted only a few days in some districts, while in others teachers walked picket lines for weeks. In Pinellas County, teachers stayed out for six weeks. Small groups of teachers struck for as long as three months. Arnold and other FEA leaders were threatened with arrest. Tornillo was fined $30,000 and given two-year jail term (which, after appeal, he was not forced to serve).
In the end the strike was not successful. Gov. Kirk and the legislature refused to appropriate more money or raise taxes further. School districts hired substitute teachers as strikebreakers, and local businesses paid their employees to teach classes. Public support for the teachers, weak at the beginning of the strike, shrunk dramatically after the first several weeks. "'We thought they [the public] would be with us,' Arnold said. 'We thought it would unite the community and the teachers. It did a little bit of the opposite. ... A lot of teachers lost their innocence. They thought the community liked them.'" Local education associations began to negotiate their own settlements, often agreeing not to challenge school districts for terminating the most militant teachers.
Securing the right to bargain Although the 1968 strike did not achieve the goals the FEA had set, FEA members were radicalized by the strike and the association won other victories.
Later in 1968, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in Pinellas County Classroom Teachers Association v. Board of Public Instruction, 214 So. 2d 34 (September 18, 1968), that state law did not prohibit public employees (such as teachers) from bargaining collectively. However, the court also said that public employees did not have the right to strike.
A year later, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that teachers had a constitutional right to bargain collectively. In 1968, two newly employed teachers and the Dade County Education Association, Local 1875, AFT, sued the Board of Public Instruction of Dade County and DCCTA. In an ironic twist, AFT argued that the school board's collective bargaining relationship with DCCTA was unconstitutional under Florida's constitution. The AFT's strategy was to break DCCTA's collective bargaining relationship, then organize the teachers in Dade County itself. But after the lawsuit had been filed, Florida voters in November 1968 approved a new state constitution. In mid-1969, the Florida Supreme Court held in Dade County Classroom Teachers Association v. Ryan, 225 So. 2d 903 (July 9, 1969), that both the old and new Florida constitutions gave all employees—whether employed in the public or private sector—the right to bargain collectively. The court did not hold that public employees had the right to strike or that the state had a duty bargain with its employees or their organization, but the mere affirmation of public-sector collective bargaining rights was a major victory for FEA.
FEA splits External and internal pressures caused two organizational splits in the Florida Education Association in the 1970s.