7 SEPTEMBER 26 - OCTOBER 2, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | TACOWEEKMIAMI.COM THIS WEEK! SEPTEMBER 23-29 obtained by New Times. “If we are successful, this would be the largest public-sector decer- tification in American history and it will deal a big blow to the unions, costing them mil- lions of dollars annually!” Attached to the email was a video of Shawn Beightol promoting the Miami-Dade Education Coalition. Three months later, Withe informed do- nors that the Freedom Foundation had suc- ceeded in forcing the UTD into the recertification election. “This is huge news because it means the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to decertify UTD will march on,” Wiche wrote on De- cember 20. “Decertifying UTD would cripple one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions virtually overnight.” Wiche noted that the Freedom Founda- tion “had a donor generously step up and of- fer to match all donations for the Miami-Dade campaign from now until De- cember 31 up to $500,000.” The funds would “provide campaign support to the indepen- dent union run by teachers that is vying to re- place UTD,” he added. Is MDEC a Front for the Freedom Foundation? Hernandez-Mats maintains that the coali- tion is merely a conduit for the Freedom Foundation to continue its attacks on United Teachers of Dade. “It’s so obvious that they don’t even try to hide it,” she says. “They are 100 percent bought and paid for by Freedom Foundation.” Beightol counters that financial assistance from the foundation serves to level the play- ing field for MDEC. He notes that UTD has sent out dozens of mailers of its own, includ- ing an attack piece that contains a photo of him beneath a name tag that reads, “Hello, my name is Shady Shawn Beightol,” and that claims he’s “working with a right-wing group to destroy UTD, your contract, and working conditions.” “They complain that the Freedom Foun- dation brought in canvassers,” Beightol says. “They did the same thing when they brought in Chicago teachers and union canvassers. This is a political campaign, and it boils down to having troops on the ground knocking on doors and having a PR budget. If you don’t have that, you don’t have a shot.” Furthermore, UTD officials are allowed to speak at faculty meetings and are able to place campaign literature in staff mailboxes, while he and his coalition compatriots are barred from discussing anything about the union election with fellow employees when they are at work, Beightol says. “The district put a filter in place so any emails about the coalition are funneled into spam,” he complains. “When we’ve offered to have breakfast or lunch and meet with teach- ers to explain our position, we have been told no. We have it in writing.” As this issue goes to press, the coalition’s odds of defeating UTD don’t look favorable. To appear on the ballot, each group had to submit letters-of-interest cards from 10 per- cent of the workforce. MDEC took more than five months to col- lect the bare minimum of 2,400 cards. UTD turned in 11,000 cards in a mere three weeks. [email protected]
