Greetings Brothers, Sisters, and Kin!

My name is Danny Diaz, the FL AFL-CIO’s Communication’s Coordinator taking over from Michael Newberger.

I would like to welcome to the new edition of the Florida AFL-CIO’s weekly e-newsletter: The Florida Labor Letter! Building on the good work of my predecessors that went into our prior E-messenger program, we at the state federation hope to return to using this newsletter to provide you a weekly roundup of the latest and greatest from the Florida labor community, and keep you alert and engaged with the latest news, resources, and actions taking place from across the Sunshine State and nation at large! As the 2026 Legislative Session kicks off, what better time to start getting involved than now?

Future Florida Labor Letters will likely not have this lengthy of a pre-amble, but I did want to emphasize that this newsletter is built by and for the members of our statewide Florida labor community. If you have anything you’d like to suggest in the way of feedback or actions, events, and news you’d like to share in solidarity with your fellow brothers and sisters, please feel free to contact me at ddiaz@flaflcio.org or info@flaflcio.org for general inquiries. Without further ado, let’s get into it!

Legislative Session 🏛️: Week of 1/16

This week marked the official kickoff of the Florida 2026 Legislative Session. Appropriately, it was also the official kickoff of our 2026 Working Families Lobby Corps! Members from FEA, IBEW, APWU, and more joined us in Tallahassee to get right to work, advocating directly to their legislators and speaking on a number of important issues for working families.

Members received in-depth briefings on the early important legislative developments, such as the re-energized push by the governor and legislature to reduce and remove property taxes, all while mandating counties continue to maintain certain spending levels, but with even fewer resources to fund them. With a state over-reliance on property and sales tax, a smaller hose to fund our communities means less water for public services like after school programs, parks and recreation, infrastructure repair and so much more. All the while taxes will increase elsewhere to compensate, squeezing already tight working families even harder.

This effort manifested this week in the second committee passage of HJR 203, which would gradually increase the homestead exemption for non-school-related property taxes by $100,000 each year for 10 years until they are fully exempted. Members of the Working Family Lobby Corps spoke against the bill in House State Affairs week with local communities to emphasize the risks that this legislation poses to working families, emergency and public services, school districts, and more. You can watch the full committee and public comment on The Florida Channel here and stay tuned to our socials for a closer look when our first episode of our Legislative Session Updates begin early net week!

Florida Labor News 🍊

SEIU-FPSU: Remembering Brother Alphonso Mayfield and Honoring His Legacy

​Last week, we heard the news of the sudden and tragic passing of Brother Alphonso Mayfield, President of the Florida Public Services Union. We join the FPSU in mourning this tremendous loss, would like to offer our sincerest condolences his wife, Alexis, and daughter, Eden and ask that you keep them in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

Born in Mississippi and raised in a working class family, Alphonso Mayfield understood deeply and acutely the plight and troubles of the working class and dedicated his life to the betterment of his community, combating economic and social injustice, and fighting fearlessly for the rights of his SEIU siblings. Mayfield served as Interim President of the FPSU since 2009, officially elected in full in 2010. We are grateful for his unwavering dedication and leadership not just to the FPSU, but also as a respected member of the SEIU International and SEIU Florida State Council.

As the Florida Public Service Union navigates this sudden transition, we welcome the appointment of FPSU Interim President Afifa Khaliq and share in her vision of honoring Alphonso Mayfield’s legacy and vision for the future of the FPSU. You can read her full letter here.

NEW AFFILIATE: IATSE Local 305

Please welcome the members of IATSE Local 305 to the Florida AFL-CIO family! Based in Miramar, Florida, IATSE Local 305 represents highly skilled Television Broadcast Technicians who bring professionalism, creativity, and technical excellence to productions across Miami Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County. Their members play a vital role in ensuring that the stories, events, and broadcasts that inform and inspire our communities are delivered with quality and care.

Local 305 is led by a team of President Wil Trinidad and Business Manager Adam Leifer, whose leadership and commitment to the craft have helped strengthen the local’s presence and impact. Supporting their work are Vice President Tim Mason and Secretary/Treasurer Brent Cohen, whose stewardship and dedication help ensure the local’s continued success.

We are honored to welcome these workers and their leadership into our federation. Their addition strengthens our collective voice and expands the reach of Florida’s labor movement at a time when solidarity and coordination matter more than ever.

To learn more about IATSE Local 305 and the important work they do, please visit https://iatse305.com

Solidarity Spotlight ✊

South Florida Nurses call off strikes after reaching deal with Healthcare Systems of America

Members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) demonstrated the power of solidarity last week when they exercised their authority to issue a strike as part of negotiations over their new contract. Advocating for safer staffing measures, nurses from Florida Medical Center (Ft. Lauderdale), Palmetto General Hospital (Hialeah), and Coral Gables Hospital (Coral Gables) were set to begin the strike on January 9th when members of Health Systems of America (HSA) realized that ironically: labor means business!

“Safe patient care means safe staffing,” said Patrice Aljoe, RN at Florida Medical Center. “…New measures in our contract are going to empower nurses to take even better care of our patients.” Read the full release on their website here!

On the Horizon ⏰🗓️

Here are some key dates and actions to keep on your radar in the coming week(s):

• January 20th: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
  • On this day we celebrate legendary civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the midst of continued federal and state attacks on voting rights, worker protections and civil liberties state and nationwide, we join our siblings nationwide with a renewed commitment to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King in fighting for a better, more equal life for all.
  • Leading up to the official day, the National AFL-CIO is putting on the 2026 AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference from January 15th – 18th. Members can watch the events, speeches, and more online at aflcio.tv or themlkconference.org
• Tuesday 1/20 @ 5:30PM: Labor for Brian Nathan, State Senate Dist. 14: Voter Registration Phone Bank.
  • Join us to call into State Senate District 14 in order to call unregistered union members. We will notify them of their registration status and educate them about their union brother Brian Nathan’s run for the vacant Senate District 14 seat. Brian Nathan is fully endorsed by the Florida AFL-CIO! Learn more about his campaign here!
• CALL: Tell the U.S Senate to Pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act!
  • Thanks to the efforts of union members in Florida and nationwide last December, the U.S House passed Protect America’s Workforce Act. It now resides in the U.S Senate. Join the national call campaign to tell your senators that it’s their turn to fight for their state’s workers and their union rights! Remember: Worker’s rights are a bipartisan issue!

Business Board 🛠️

• 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 to take your labor skills and knowledge to the next level!

Bonus Bulletin 🌅

ICYMI: The FL AFL-CIO Legislative Session Updates return next week! Check out our new Trailer below and stay tuned to our socials and YouTube for the first episode, premiering early next week!

That wraps up your Florida Labor Letter for the week of 1/16! In Solidarity from your Florida AFL-CIO!

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

Please email Daniel Diaz at ddiaz@flaflcio.org

With a long history of endorsing and fighting to pass bills during each session, we are now turning our attention to the ballot box. The Florida AFL-CIO has unanimously adopted a resolution proudly endorsing the Florida Decides Healthcare Ballot Initiative campaign

September 25th Disclaimer: The Florida Decides Healthcare Ballot Initiative has postponed their efforts until the 2028 General Election, citing petition roadblocks imposed by the passage of 2025 HB 1205. Our endorsement remains and is preserved in full below.

Most of us know that Trump’s Big B.S Bill will cut Medicaid and other healthcare spending for millions of Americans, especially for the elderly, children, and women. Unfortunately, based on current state programs and years of inaction by the Florida Legislature, our state and our people will be more negatively impacted than the rest of the country. Florida has long had some of the worst numbers in the nation for the number of children and the elderly who do not have full access to healthcare. Now, the situation is going to get worse.

Millions of Floridians are Losing Healthcare

Today, nearly 1.4 million Floridians are stuck in the Medicaid coverage gap — earning too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford insurance. The federal reconciliation law that passed this year in Washington still preserves the 90% federal match for to cover the costs for states that expand Medicaid, but it failed to extend enhancements to ACA tax subsidies for people accessing healthcare through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). This will dramatically drive-up ACA out of pocket premium costs, pushing millions more into this coverage gap.

Starting in January of 2026, when these tax credit enhancements expire, another 2.3 Floridians will lose their ACA coverage, meaning 3.7 million will fall into the Medicaid coverage gap. Florida will be hit harder than any other state by these changes. Tragically, experts predict 1 in 5 Floridians will be uninsured.

An Economic Crisis

Florida is already leaving over $4 billion in federal funds on the table every year. These are dollars Florida taxpayers have paid and should be coming to the state. Soon, that number will balloon to $10.5 billion annually because of the more than doubling of Floridians falling into the coverage gap. These tax dollars, collected from Floridians, will continue to help residents in New York and California— unless we take action. The loss of these funds threatens over 40,000 jobs.

Combine the threats to ACA premiums, the straight loss of Medicaid funds, over a decade of inaction of providing healthcare for children through state programs and we are looking at an upcoming healthcare disaster of epic proportions.

Everyone will be impacted

With millions losing health care coverage, more and more will get healthcare in the emergency rooms. This is the most expensive type of healthcare, and this drives up costs for every single Floridian. Experts are warning that the changes on the horizon will drive up healthcare premiums for everyone, including union members who have fought for employer sponsored group coverage at the bargaining table.

The Solution: Medicaid Expansion on the Ballot

One silver lining of Trump’s Big B.S Bill is that it maintained the federal Medicaid Expansion match (which brings fully twice as much into the state as the state spends.) This means that Medicaid Expansion is still the very best option to mitigate some of the damage on the horizon. There’s just one problem…the Florida legislature has repeatedly refused to do expand medicaid. Florida is just 1 of 10 states that has not updated its Medicaid eligibility requirements since 2013 because, since the days of Rick Scott—who plead the 5th over 75 times in the single biggest Medicare fraud cases in history—the Republican line has been “Medicaid expansion is Obamacare –> Obama is bad –> no to Medicaid expansion. For 15 years bills have been filed in Florida on Medicaid expansion, and there has never been a single hearing. Now, with these new threats on the move, it is time for the people to do it ourselves.

Medicaid Expansion Will:

• Provide Medicaid and healthcare services to 3.7 million Floridians, including parents of young children, women of childbearing age, part-time workers, seniors, caregivers, and people with chronic illnesses
• Save an estimated 7,000 lives a year, reduce maternal and infant mortality, improves breast cancer outcomes, and reduce opioid deaths
• Keep our $10.5 billion in federal taxes here at home
• Provide a huge boost to our economy by helping to attract and retain doctors and nurses
• Lowering costs for healthcare for all by promoting preventive care and reducing strain on emergency rooms
• Keep hospitals open, especially in rural communities where access to care is already limited

The Florida AFL-CIO Joins the Fight for Medicaid Expansion

Florida Decides Healthcare is a citizen’s initiative campaign to put Medicaid Expansion on the ballot as a Constitutional Amendment, and they are battling serious headwinds. For years, the Legislature has chipped away at the ability for Floridians to use the citizen’s initiative to make changes to the state constitution. They have made the process more and more difficult, stripping us of our constitutional right to direct democracy by a thousand paper cuts. In 2025, the Legislature passed the coup de grâce in the form of HB 1205. Wanting to finally make the initiative process impossible, the legislature imposed new onerous regulations, seemingly insurmountable processes and confusing procedures. But Florida Decides Healthcare is fighting on, and we are joining them.

With a long history of endorsing and fighting to pass bills during each session, we are now turning our attention to the ballot box. The Florida AFL-CIO unanimously adopted a resolution and is proud to fully endorse the Florida Decides Healthcare campaign. Working with a massive coalition of organizations, we are going to do everything we can to secure a victory. Let’s get ready to rumble!

In Solidarity

The AFL-CIO’s Department of People Who Work for a Living (DPWL) recently held a series of hearings across the country to provide a platform for working people to express their views on the current administration’s policies, the impact of those policies on their lives and what working people want from their government. The hearings found that working people are concerned about ongoing cuts to federal jobs, programs and services. Workers objected to the Trump administration’s callous disregard for career civil servants, many of them veterans, and the administration’s attacks on the institutions, programs and regulations that protect working people.

Get the report here.

The hearings featured testimony by workers and their representatives regarding the Trump administration’s attacks on the federal workforce. Witnesses expressed anger at insulting and dehumanizing characterizations of federal workers’ public service, and chaotic and lawless mass firings. They were also concerned that, due to staff reductions and other cuts to federal programs, public servants will not be able to serve their communities properly at agencies already struggling from high demand and limited resources. Witnesses cited how these cuts will have an outsized impact on seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and rural communities.

The hearings featured testimony by workers and their representatives on the wide-ranging assault by the Trump administration on workers’ rights and protections beyond the federal workforce. For example:

• The Trump administration has moved to gut the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and other critical worker safety agencies, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), putting workers’ lives at risk.
• A variety of moves by the Trump administration to curb worker power—for example, by stripping collective bargaining rights, abandoning project labor agreements and crippling the independence of agencies tasked with protecting workers’ rights—will have long-term downstream impacts that lower pay, benefits and other standards for all workers across the country.
• Frequent attacks on institutions, initiatives and services that have provided equal access protections to underrepresented populations will hinder efforts to combat systemic workplace discrimination, denying workers a fair shot at a job or advancement. The Trump administration’s mass deportation program, with its disregard for due process, threatens the constitutional rights of every worker and poses serious disruptions in key industries and local economies.
• Instead of taking a targeted, evidence-based approach to tariffs to protect domestic employment, the Trump administration has adopted a chaotic approach to tariffs. While some tariff actions taken to date have the potential to support workers, particularly in the steel, aluminum, auto and shipbuilding industries, the reckless, untargeted, on-again, off-again approach to other tariffs, including those with our most significant trading partner Canada, threaten to swamp the positive impacts.

Witnesses also expressed concern about the Trump tax plan and Congress’s approach to budget reconciliation. Medicaid and other government health programs support jobs and provide a crucial lifeline for communities and families across the country. The current budget resolution calls for dramatic cuts to these programs to give wealthy Americans a tax break. Workers expressed outrage that these potential cuts will cause millions of people—particularly from vulnerable groups—to lose their health care, and put further strain on an already overburdened health care system.

The DPWL hearings brought to light a growing frustration with the Trump administration’s anti- worker policies and the need for a new direction from the White House and Congress, with policies that support workers’ freedom, ensure fairness and provide security.

Get the report here.

Below you will find the current listing of state and federal candidates that the Florida AFL-CIO has endorsed in the 2022 elections.