Florida Education Association - FEA Splits

FEA Splits

External and internal pressures caused two organizational splits in the Florida Education Association in the 1970s.

The external pressure came from the American Federation of Teachers. FEA had spent nearly $1 million supporting local associations in the 1968 strike, leaving it financially weakened. The strike had drawn the AFT's attention, and—sensing that teachers in Florida were ripe for organizing—the union had begun establishing local affiliates in the state shortly thereafter. The AFT convinced FEA president-elect Louise Alford to leave FEA and work for the AFT, and later persuaded Richard Batchelder (a former president of the NEA) to do the same. Soon the AFT had a number of large, militant locals in the state.

In 1974, the DCCTA disaffiliated from FEA and formed a new statewide teachers' federation, FEA-United. Tornillo began arguing that NEA and AFT should merge in the state of Florida to give educators more power. Tornillo's views carried a great deal of weight because DCCTA was the largest teachers' union in the state, and he was the leader of the militant faction within FEA. But Tornillo's views only worsened the friction between the NEA and AFT in the state. By the end of the year, DCCTA had merged with the AFT affiliate in Dade County and was calling itself the "United Teachers of Dade" (UTD), and Tornillo had convinced education associations representing other large urban school districts in Florida to join the AFT. With more than half of FEA's convention delegates now belonging to the AFT, a statewide merger was inevitable. FEA changed its named to FEA-United and affiliated with the Florida AFL-CIO.

But half of the original FEA affiliates refused to merge. The NEA established a new state organization, the Florida Teaching Profession-National Education Association (FTP-NEA), and roughly half the FEA's original members joined it.