Florida Labor Letter – In the Courts and in the Streets (Week of 7/10)

Daniel Diaz |

Welcome to another edition of the Florida AFL-CIO’s weekly Florida Labor Letter for the week of 7/10. On the back end of America’s 250th Fourth of July weekend (which we hope you all enjoyed safely and memorably), Florida’s working patriots have returned this week to the summer grindstone ahead of the November midterms. Still, we hope as you aim to beat the heat that you are all taking plenty of breaks and long earned vacation days, staying cool or keeping your cool no matter what the week throws at you. Here is a review of what you may have missed while at the pool.

🏛️Legislative News

Florida’s STOP WOKE Act Struck Down in Federal Court

Photo Credit: Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald

As our third branch of government, a great deal of us look to our Judiciary as the last means to push back against the excesses of the executive and legislative when they go against will and principles of the people they serve. This is true no matter where you are in the nation, and as the U.S Supreme Court handed down a myriad of mixed rulings last week, upholding essential rights like Birthright Citizenship and potentially stripping others like TPS Status for Immigrant Workers (a great deal of whom have found refuge in Florida), American faith in our courts has been an uneasy one.

This is also true in our Sunshine State, but where some federal rulings have enabled our Legislature to run awry with attempts at discrimination like with the ram-through redistricting done earlier this year, others have allowed Florida’s working families to make the case against some of the anti-worker legislation steamrolled over the past few years and show them for what they really are.

This week, one of those cases was made successfully when a Federal appeals court this week struck down the higher education provisions of the 2022 Stop W.O.K.E Act. The STOP W.O.K.E Act for those in need of a reminder is a piece of culture war classroom censorship that has sought to muzzle our educators from being able to teach about topics such as race and gender in schools and workplaces.

An Orwellian step of government overreach when it passed, the bill’s true face has been revealed in previous rulings striking down its ability to control free speech in the workplace, though this time the court’s ruling cuts through the talking points to the defense of Florida’s higher education teachers, workers, and students:

“Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry—classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”

As noted by the ACLU, who served as Plaintiff in one of the cases:

“this decision the first time an appellate court has considered the constitutionality of this censorship movement, with implications for educators nationwide who are subject to related.”

The Governor for his part ironically pouted that the ruling is an example of judicial overreach, though we struggle to see the part where our system of checks and balances working to preserve our first amendment right is doing anything but preventing overreach. This is what government looks like when it works for the people, but we wouldn’t blame him for not being familiar.

🍊Florida Labor News

Workers Continue to Stand as TPS Status Still Lingers in South Florida

As mentioned earlier, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Immigrant Workers continues to stand on shaky ground in Florida made further so after the U.S Supreme Court ruled that Homeland Security’s decision to revoke and assign it is immune from review from the courts. For workers in South Florida, the removal of TPS could be devastating to the stability of the South Florida community and economy and more importantly, the lives of over 150,000 Haitian workers seeking refuge from a dangerous crisis at home.

Since February, we’ve spoken of how working families including those with UNITE HERE 355 and SEIU32BJ have gathered in solidarity to call for extensions since February, with minor reprieves given. This week, that trend continues, with U.S Immigration services today further extending the expiration deadline until July 24th hours after a rally in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood on Thursday and one today at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

The ongoing situation underscores not just the strength and tenacity of South Florida’s labor community, but also the need for a more permanent solution to the problem. We stand in solidarity with our kin as they navigate towards that end.

✊Solidarity Spotlight

WLRN Public Radio Ratifies First Union Contract!

Photo Credit: WLRN

Almost a full year after the federal government cut billions in funding for public media like NPR and its affiliates, and after months of bargaining in the state and environment that wrought SB 1296, the staff of WLRN-FM has proven that despite the pressures, public media continues to be an essential part of our local communities and its workers deserve to be considered and compensated all the same.

This Tuesday, Miami’s public radio, represented by SAG-AFTRA, ratified their very first union contract with a loud and clear 100% of the bargaining unit in approval. As best put by the workers themselves in a statement:

“At a time when public media and the journalism industry as a whole are under increasing pressure, it’s more important than ever to have a seat at the table. We’re much stronger with our contract in effect, and we can focus on the important work that South Florida relies on.”

Now I am biased as a product of public media myself, but I think its safe to say that Florida’s working families everywhere are glad to see another successful effort at Florida workers getting the pay, respect, and support they deserve. Locals can tune into WLRN at 91.3 FM in Miami, and in Palm Beach County on 104.7 FM.

🗓️On the Horizon

Florida AFL-CIO President Urges Members to Register to Vote for 2026 Midterms

Direct from the desk of Florida AFL-CIO President Kimberly Holdridge:

There’s a lot at stake in the 2026 midterm elections for working families. Protecting the right to organize, expanding collective bargaining rights to build a more equitable work environment, and the education of our children are all on the ballot. In order to do that, we need to break the super-majority in Tallahassee and elect candidates willing to fight for our values!

Will you stand with us and help us keep building on the momentum of the labor movement? Visit https://dos.fl.gov/elections/for-voters/check-your-voter-status-and-polling-place/ to check your voter registration, access election information, and make a plan to vote! See below for important dates to note as we head towards primary season.

  • Statewide
    • Important Primary Election Dates!
      • Ahead of the general, Florida’s registered voters must first decide their candidates in the primaries.
        • NOTE: As a closed primary state, only registered partisans can vote in a party primary here in Florida.
        • NPAs should not count themselves down and out though, as they can participate in a number of races across the state involving primaries for non-partisan office such as school board officials and judges.
        • Every voter is encouraged to check with their local supervisor of elections to find out what races are happening near you to ensure you can make your voice heard.
      • Wherever you are on the aisle, you should know these important primary dates from the Division of Elections:
        • Deadline to send vote-by-mail ballots to UOCAVA voters: July 4, 2026
        • Deadline to send vote-by-mail ballots to domestic voters: July 9 – 16, 2026
        • Deadline to register to vote or change party affiliation: July 20, 2026
        • Deadline to request that ballot be mailed: August 6, 2026
        • Primary Early Voting (mandatory period): August 8 – 15, 2026
        • Primary Election Day: August 18, 2026
  • Digital
    • First Monday of every Month: FLARA Monthly Meetings:
      • The Florida Alliance of Retired Americans (FLARA) invites any and all to attend their monthly zoom meetings. FLARA meets on the first Friday of every month at 10 AM EST, and features guest speakers and relevant information for retirees from national and state governments as well as important information on demonstrations, partner activities, etc.
      • Those interested in attending FLARA meetings should contact tammy@flara.org in order to get the monthly invitation.

🛠️Business Board

Let’s Get Medicaid Expansion On the 2028 Ballot!

Attendees of our COPE Convention last month 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 MedicaidFlorida.org
  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.

  • P.O.W.E.R Trainings and Pledge: Labor 2026 represents not just a statewide, but a national opportunity for change to build a better future for all of those in organized labor. To achieve victory, we’ll need as much help as we can get! Ahead of November, take the P.O.W.E.R pledge to:
    • Protect: Protecting the vote and ensuring every member can safely cast their ballot.
    • Organize: Organize new labor strongholds led by workers.
    • Win: Win crucial races that determine the future of workers’ rights.
    • Engage: Engage our baseline through authentic peer-to-peer contact.
    • Right Now: Mobilize Right Now. Action today creates victory tomorrow.

📸Bonus Bulletin

Summer Movie Recommendation: I Love Boosters

Credit: NEON

Looking for a movie to get your organizing blood flowing or just wind down after a day in the heat? Here’s a recommendation! (Note: This suggestion reflects the recommendations of the author and author alone and not the movie tastes of the entire FL AFL-CIO staff.)

It’s not often that a movie hits a chord with organized labor so resonantly, but that’s what Boot’s Riley’s latest film I Love Boosters did when it flew under the radar earlier this May! Though its premise seems simple, following exploits of community activists shoplifting clothes from a major fashion retailer, it grows into a much more broader narrative on where the real thievery takes place between corporations and their workers. It’s best summarized by Dominic Griffin of the Baltimore Beat:

“the beauty in “Boosters” is how magnificently it illustrates the sum total of these gripes as one multipronged struggle that can only be overcome through solidarity and collective bargaining amongst the aggrieved.“

On top of the core message, it also features some absurdist comedy and visuals that inspire the viewer as much as they emphasize the looney-tunes like relationship between some companies and the people that make them run (and what can be done to change it.)

That concludes this week’s roundup! 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

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