DeSantis tramples Florida unions rights even as labor’s power explodes elsewhere

Members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 32BJ march on Feb. 21, 2024, in Miami. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a man of the people, a vocal champion in defense of labor unions. And he cares deeply about bread-and-butter issues and promoting workers’ rights.

DeSantis also labors tirelessly to secure better wages, salaries, and conditions for working and middle-class Floridians.

Okay, you can wake up now. None of the above is true. DeSantis could be all these things but any hint he supports labor unions is fiction, because he’s sold his soul to the Devil.

In the real world, the governor delights in screwing over labor unions. He has shown himself a gleeful nemesis to public-sector and other union workers. DeSantis is an unapologetic mouthpiece of the far-right, anti-union, anti-worker faction of the Republican Party.

He illustrated that animus by signing a sweeping anti-union law in 2023 that, a year later, is roiling the state’s labor landscape while throwing Florida unions into disarray.)

An investigation by WLRN found that more than 42,000 public service employees have lost union representation because of the new law. This includes “janitors, groundskeepers, park employees in the state, accountants, just office clerks,” WLRN’s Daniel Rivero reported . “They have lost their unions. It’s a lot of people. This law does exempt unions for police, firefighters and correctional officers from these new requirements … .”

This law means the unions “haven’t been able to hit the new dues-paying member requirements under the law, which is that 6 in 10 workers need to pay their dues or else the union dies.”

“The scope of the potential fallout is difficult to put into words without becoming a massive, eye-blurring list,” Rivero wrote.

Union purge

State officials say 20 bargaining units representing non-instructional employees have been decertified at campuses including Florida International University, University of Central Florida, Florida State University, University of Florida, University of South Florida, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, the University of North Florida, and the University of West Florida.

So have units representing municipal workers in Oakland Park, High Springs, Naples, Jacksonville, Sebring, Bradenton and other cities, plus four Association of Federal State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) units representing 42,000 state workers . And the eight unions representing 8,000 adjunct professors at public colleges and universities.

Public-sector unions play a critical role in the lives of the employees they represent. Unions help negotiate everything from break times to purchasing new equipment to working conditions and disciplinary or termination procedures. Without a union to negotiate or enforce a collective bargaining agreement, those negotiated worker protections can be reversed.

Why this strategy?

To destroy unions, because they provide the money, resources, and muscle for the Democratic Party and also to strip off basic workplace protections and remove collective bargaining rights for public employees, as AFSCME’s Roberta Lynch explains .

DeSantis claimed while signing the bill that SB 256 is a way to keep unions in check and curb the power they’ve had for too long. He also cited concerns that unions misused funds and bullied teachers.

At the end of the day, DeSantis, Republican lawmakers, policy wonks, and rightwing donors like Koch Industries and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation have depended on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC has been at the forefront for the past 50 years trying to dismantle unions and cement anti-worker laws state by state.

‘Egregious’ anti-union bill

ALEC, DeSantis, and the rest of the cabal always claim to support ​“worker freedom and flexibility.” But they have done the opposite, using a well-financed, coordinated strategy to make it “harder for them [unions] to organize, harder for local governments to support decent-paying jobs, and easier on big business,” In These Times reports.

“It should be national news,” said Karla Hernandez-Mats , president of United Teachers of Dade. “This is the most egregious, most anti-union bill ever proffered in the entire United States history.”

Meanwhile, unions elsewhere have increasingly exerted their might to secure hard-earned concessions from corporate leadership across the country.

By Bill Fletcher’s estimation, the wave of labor activism sweeping the United States began more than a decade ago.

“This didn’t pop up out of nowhere. What we’re witnessing is the result of a sort of insurgency that we began to see in 2011 with the Occupy movement and the Madison Rebellion that in many ways helped Barack Obama win a second term,” said Fletcher, a veteran labor union activist, author, and talk show host in an interview . “It demonstrated that something was going on at the base.”

The Madison Rebellion refers to a months-long occupation of the Wisconsin state capitol by tens of thousands of public-sector and other union members and their allies after former Gov. Scott Walker passed a law that stripped public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights and closed off the ability of union leadership to use a dues check-off system to fund union activities. The protests began on Feb. 15, 2011.

The law caused many teachers to leave the profession and severely damaged work standards for public employees. Nonetheless, the struggle to oppose the law in the winter of 2011 was indeed historic.

Frustration building

Vast income disparities, obscenely generous salaries for corporate heads, stagnant employee wages, and the polarization of wealth and opportunity have ignited deep and profound distrust and frustration among rank-and-file workers and employees, Fletcher said.

“The frustration has been building over decades and unions are taking advantage of that. Union leaders understood the need for social justice unionism beyond wages and salaries and looked at broader issues,” Fletcher explained.

The Teamsters’ 340,000 members received raises and other perks from UPS; 84,000 Kaiser Permanente employees won 21% pay increases; United Airlines’ 16,000 pilots secured pay increases of between 34% and 40%; and nurses, teachers, school administrators, graduate students, baristas, janitors, custodians, bus drivers, and other employees won concessions from their bosses.

“I’m very excited by the passion, energy, and zeal of the workers but, unless these gains are codified, I can’t say if this momentum is sustainable,” Marc Bayard, an associate fellow, director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ Black Worker Initiative and founding executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University, told me.

“The UAW victory was phenomenal because it’s important to stand up to the ‘Big Three.’ It’s very exciting in what the UAW is leading,” he said.

Bayard referred to the United Auto Workers’ successful strike last year against the Big Three Detroit automakers.

UAW’s victory illustrates organizational power used creatively, consistently, and effectively, Bayard said. Its leaders demonstrated core values: justice, fairness, and inculcation of a belief in people that countered the pervasive unfairness and imbalance of power.

“There’s a whole new message and culture in place, and unions and workers have reaped rewards of their advocacy and push for a share of the profits their hard work has produced,” said Bayard. “We have also seen clear messaging on new platforms.”

While some union members and leaders in Florida have thrown up their hands, others, like Hernandez-Mats in Miami-Dade, while viewing the law as nothing less than an attack on workers in Florida, insist all is not lost .

“It’s forcing us to educate people on the importance of labor and the importance of unions. And it’s going to make a difference. Not only is this making our educators angry and upset at the attacks that they’re receiving, but it’s also mobilizing people. It’s mobilizing people into action.”