Surrounded by leaders of many of South Florida’s unions, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said organized labor was the backbone of the South Florida economy, and praised worker groups for being part of a coalition standing up to growing challenges to American democracy.
“We need to stand together, even taller, she said. “This is not just about benefits. It’s about democracy itself, noting what she called “attacks on voting rights,” food and health care benefits, and other changes..
Levine Cava pointed out that about 90% of the County workforce is unionized and boasted of reaching contract agreements in record time.
“I am a proud labor union mayor,” she said.
Levine Cava noted a recent Gallup poll showing most Americans have a strong positive view of labor unions — nearly 70% — a streak of support not seen since the 50s and 60s. But the pollster reported that while unions are seen favorably by Democrats and Independents, less than half of Republicans are supportive.
Labor rights have been under assault by President Donald Trump, who has issued executive orders stripping half a million federal workers of collective bargaining rights, the New York Times reported.
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“We have a governor and a president that has squarely put unions in a bull’s eye,” said Frederick Ingram, the national secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers. “The same people who are fighting immigrant rights are fighting labor rights, the same people who are fighting LGBTQ rights,” said Ingram, who grew up in Liberty City.
On August 28, a new executive order eliminated collective bargaining rights from workers at NASA, NOAA, and other agencies. The Trump administration cited a statutory provision that can limit union representation based on national security.
Earlier this year, Trump fired the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, leaving the panel without a quorum and unable to seek enforcement in private sector labor disputes.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican controlled Legislature have made it tougher for public sector unions to retain bargaining rights by requiring a “recertification” that is not applied to police and fire unions. Some 69.000 public employees have seen their unions decertified since SB 256 went into effect, the Florida Phoenix reported. When a union loses certification, the contract protections it won are lost.
Alongside the effort to remake labor laws, Trump’s immigration policies seem to have had profound effects on the labor force. More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.
Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce and that data shows 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she added.
The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U.S. illegally reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023.
“Rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated,” Ingram said. “Stay organized, stay unionized. All politics are local, and elections have consequences.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
This story was originally published in the Key Biscayne Independent, a WLRN News partner.
