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Education unions and the state are slated to go to trial in October in a lawsuit challenging restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature placed on public employee unions.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker on Friday scheduled an Oct. 25 trial in the lawsuit filed last year by unions representing public school and university employees.
The law, passed in 2023 and revised this year, prevented government agencies from continuing a decades-old practice of deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks.
Lawmakers also made changes related to “membership authorization” forms and rules affecting the recertification of unions.
Walker last month issued an 80-page decision that largely sided with the state Public Employees Relations Commission, which is in charge of carrying out the controversial restrictions.
But Walker ruled that a trial should be held on one count that alleges the ban on dues deductions from paychecks violates what is known as the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
That allegation stems from existing collective bargaining agreements that included agencies deducting union dues from paychecks.
