Two years after members of AFSCME Local 1279 in Jacksonville, Florida, had their union decertified by the state, they have won it back.
In 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rammed through anti-union bills with the help of a compliant anti-labor majority in the legislature. The new legislation banned dues deduction and required 60% membership, and it went into effect just before the annual recertification date of Local 1279 (AFSCME Florida).
“This was a massively disruptive piece of legislation that changed so much but, in our case, we had basically no time to prepare for it,” said Arthur Finley, a Jacksonville Public Library employee and president of Local 1279. “We lost our union at the start but, working with the council and other AFSCME locals in the area, we were able to get on track to win it back almost right away.”
AFSCME members fought back and, earlier this month, they completed their two-year effort by voting 98% in favor of ratifying a new contract.
It was a process that involved re-signing hundreds of members on new membership cards, implementing a new dues payment system, holding dozens of workplace events and meetings, and filling union show-of-interest cards twice. Lastly, the members also launched a 10-month effort to bargain a new contract.
“We have talked to every single worker in the bargaining unit at some point during this process,” said Galen Gingery, a security officer with the Duval Sheriff’s Office and vice president of Local 1279. “Overall, people have been supportive and understanding of the time it was going to take to get us back. By the time we sat down at the bargaining table we knew our co-workers were with us because we were doing those worksite visits, the townhalls and the one-on-one conversations just to get us to that point.”
Wins in the new three-year contract include a 10% wage increase, guaranteed minimum number of weekends off, an increase to personal leave time balances and much more. And with the return of the protections that a union contract offers, membership numbers are also beginning to rebound.
“When we didn’t have a contract to point to, it was of course hard to convince people to keep paying dues or to get new employees to sign up,” said Finley. “But plenty of members knew we had to keep fighting and that gave us the resources to make this new contract happen. And now that we have these wins to point to, we are seeing plenty of people joining because they know our future here in Jacksonville is bright.”