Welcome to another edition of the Florida AFL-CIO’s weekly Florida Labor Letter for the week of 11/13. It’s been over a week since the historic elections that rocked the nation (and history books), and many of Florida’s working families are taking the time to enjoy some well earned downtime.

Whether you are just getting back into the swing of regular life, taking some autumn PTO, or just plain enjoying the absence of any campaign texts, emails, or ads, we hope its enjoyable. In the meantime, here is your quick rundown of what you may have missed from this week in Florida labor!

🏛️Legislative News

Transitions, Preparations, and Organizational Session

Woah, Legislative news? Already?! Can’t we catch a break? Well, yes and no to that one!

Following last week’s election, law-maker elects and lame ducks will be preparing for their respective transitions into, and out of, office over the next several weeks, an important step in preparing both first time legislators and returning ones before next March’s legislative election gets underway. This week, we saw the incoming legislative (and state) leadership tee up for what that will look like.

Hey GPT, What’s an “Organizational Session?”

Don’t ask an AI chatbot that, we can tell you right here, and faster!

Organizational Session is the first gathering of the newly elected incoming legislature in order to prepare them for their upcoming tenure and the next legislative session! This orientation session is thankfully not very political and in fact is a pretty neutral and ceremonial affair, as members go about the business of:

• Getting sworn into office!
  • Unlike the federal government and the Governor, state lawmakers get sworn in pretty quickly, with their terms formally beginning as soon as they are elected! You can go ahead and start calling them “Rep” or “Senator” now. The rest will have to wait until next January.
• Electing, nominating, and appointing legislative officers (minority/majority leaders, whips, committee chairs, etc)
• Training/moving in incoming legislators (both returning and new) on everything from how to pass bills to moving into their offices and hiring staff.
• Adopting rules and procedures for the upcoming session.
  • Perhaps one of the bigger changes this year, with the end of a supermajority, new rules will begin to be submitted and adopted this year on everything from decorum to deadlines.

The 2027 Organizational Session kicks off next Monday, November 16th and will run through Thursday, Nov 19th .

Meanwhile, legislative and state leadership used this week to prepare to prepare, announcing new staff hires, transition teams, nominees for leadership, and even a preview of next year’s committees. Incoming Florida House Speaker Sam Garrison, for instance, recently revealed the creation of an “Advanced Technology & Digital Security Committee” to focus on AI, and the return of a “Public Integrity Committee” dedicated to renewed interest in rooting out public corruption (we have an idea of an office where they could start!)

Amendment 3 Passes, But Governor DeSantis may just have to Pass It On

One discussion that has yet to take place next week though is that surrounding the incoming legislative issue of Property Tax. Despite its significant bi-partisan opposition from coalitions across the political spectrum (including ours), voters last Tuesday passed Amendment 3 on Property Tax with 62% approval, forcing the legislature to address implementing it, and figuring out how to replace the funds it will remove from local governments. The big question is when?

Governor DeSantis, Amendment 3’s principal cheerleader, has signaled in the past week a desire to call for another special session before he leaves office. DeSantis argued for implementing a “taxpayer bill of rights” to set guardrails around the issue before he passes the buck onto Governor-elect Donalds, though the scale of Amendment 3, coupled with transitioning offices and an exhausted legislature have all pointed to a less than lukewarm reception among legislators, like Incoming Senate President Jim Boyd who have argued the issue can wait till the new administration takes office. One can only hope!

🍊Florida Labor News

Disney Subcontractor Reaches Settlement Following Union Busting Attempts

Labor wins this season don’t just look like electoral victories. As Orlando Weekly’s McKenna Scheuler reported this week:

“A leading third-party restaurant operator at Disney Springs and Epcot, the Patina Group, reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board last month in a two-year case involving multiple allegations of federal labor law violations. The case stems from an organizing drive launched in 2024 by workers at five nonunion Patina Group restaurants at Disney Springs: Morimoto Asia, Pizza Ponte, Maria & Enzo’s, The Edison and Enzo’s Hideaway.”

The workers, who were seeking to exercise their right to collectively bargain, were working to organize with Unite Here Local 737 when they became the subject of union busting retaliation and surveillance. The union filed complaints with the NLRB and stood their ground for over 2 years, calling attention once more to the issue and other labor violations earlier this summer, with the assistance of U.S Representative Maxwell Frost and then State Representatie Anna Eskamani.

Finally, solidarity won out as the NLRB’s general counsel ordered the Patina Group to cease its intimidation tactics as well as publicly acknowledge its employees of their RIGHTS to form/join a union as part of the settlement. You can read more on this excellent story here.

✊Solidarity Spotlight

Additional Thanks for Labor 2026

Last week, before we took off for some rest, we went over some brief highlights, results, and thanks after the Labor 2026 cycle. Before we go this week and as we continue to tabulate stats on everything from mail to turnout, our staff wanted to extend some additional thanks of their own to some of the workers and volunteers who helped us pull it all off, in no particular order, and including but not limited to:

• Richie Jones, President of SW Chapter and IUPAT Business Manager
• Maribeth Healey of IUPAT & Juliana Ramirez
• O.D Elliot, Kevin Byrne, & Jerry Lonergan with NALC
• Aaron Carmella with UFCW 1625
• Ella Wood with Unite Here Local 737 & the Central Florida AFL-CIO door-knocking empire
• Dakar Lanzino, National Press Secretary of the AFL-CIO
• Milinda Allen, Graphic Designer & Editor
• LaVerne Davis, Front Office/Mail/Printer extraordinaire at the State Federation office.
• The kind, dedicated, passionate and endless number of workers and volunteers who helped us canvass, print, design, phonebank, door-knock, and vote our way into breaking two supermajorities and gave Florida Labor a seat at the table in our state politics!

🛠️Business Board

Let’s Get Medicaid Expansion On the 2028 Ballot!

Attendees of our COPE Convention may recall one of our signature workshops by the Florida Policy Institute’s Chief Strategy & Development Officer, Holly Bullard, on the important topic of Medicaid Expansion in Florida. Off of the positive reception to her workshop, we wanted to make sure that all of you knew about the important and growing fight to finally get it done in Florida.

Over 15 years, Medicaid Expansion bills have been filed in the Florida Legislature, and have gone nowhere. This is all despite the fact that 75% of Florida voters support expansion, including a majority of Republicans. All the while, years of inaction have left over 3.5 million Floridians in a growing gap with no healthcare, increasing premiums, and billions left on the table in federal funds that could easily alleviate the issue. It’s time to change this un-necessary and awful reality, and Florida’s working families are key to getting it done.

Florida Decides Healthcare is leading a citizen-led ballot initiative to expand Medicaid and cover over one million Floridians who fall through the cracks: workers who earn too much for Medicaid but too little for private insurance. These are our siblings who show up every day and still can’t afford to see a doctor. With an unresponsive legislature, it’s time the voters forced action on the issue themselves. Since the legislature cracked down on citizens having a say in their own constitution last year, we’re hitting the ground early on this effort for 2028. Here’s how you can help:

Here’s the ask. It takes one minute:

1. Request your petition at https://floridadecideshealthcare.org/aflcio/
2. It arrives by mail. Sign it.
3. Mail it back. That’s it.

Your signature moves Medicaid expansion one step closer to Florida voters, and one step closer to healthcare for a million of your fellow Floridians. In a state that seeks to silence its voters, every single signature counts, so feel free to share the link with your coworkers, family, neighbors, and union siblings statewide.

All Florida workers deserve affordable healthcare. This is how we show up and make it happen.

• FREE Trainings from the National AFL-CIO: The National AFL-CIO provides free virtual training sessions leaders and members of all of its State Federations, Area Labor Federations, CLCs and Affiliates. This list of training courses is updated regularly and covers a myriad of topics such as honing political skills, issue specific communications, and more. This page is updated regularly, so please visit and bookmark this link to stay informed and learn more about what is currently available to sign-up for in order to take your labor skills and knowledge to the next level!

That concludes this week’s roundup! We’ll have more for you next week! Thank you for reading and as always, In Solidarity!

Got any tips, actions, or messages you’d like to see in this email?

Please email Daniel Diaz at ddiaz@flaflcio.org