by Carmen Ward, President, ACEA, and Jason Bellamy-Fults, Recording Secretary, IBEW Local 1205, both proud members of the North Central Florida Central Labor Council
Unfortunately, working people in our community are currently facing formidable labor struggles at the local, state, and national levels. Below are some updates and ways that you can be of support.
Support our Alachua County teachers!
When it comes to bargaining in the public school system, things are very complicated. Most employees are represented by the union, Alachua County Education Association (ACEA), if they are education support professionals (e.g., food service workers, bus drivers, facilities staff, and paraprofessionals) or instructional employees (i.e., teachers). The ACEA negotiates with the School Board’s appointed district team for both units within ACEA.
Usually, we have a season of bargaining that lasts 6 to 8 months. We started in February of 2024. The ACEA education support professional team has been done with the 2024-25 bargaining since Jan. 15 when they ratified the joint agreement and so did the Board. This ratification came after an impasse from the union, a federal mediation settlement agreement where the district refused to budge from the 1.6% increase and only agreed to also make it retroactively in place to the beginning of the contract.
The ACEA instructional team has been bargaining for the 2024-2025 school year salary and working conditions for nearly 14 months.
On Jan. 15 the School Board’s proposal failed to be ratified by the instructional team bargaining unit. ACEA returned to the bargaining table in January of 2025. The union has proposed in the most recent proposal for a 3.5% salary increase and many equitable supplements or differentiated pay.
The district returned to the table with a smaller offer than the previous tentative agreement: only a 1% retroactive raise for instructional employees. According to ACEA’s research, this 1% represents the lowest instructional raise amount offered in the state. It is concerning that employees during an employee shortage are not given priority. We are losing employees every day and Alachua County Public Schools needs to be competitive with its salary for the rank-and-file employees that serve the students in the public school system.
The district and the union return to the bargaining table on April 3, and our bargaining meetings are public meetings but do not allow for public input. To support our teachers, there is public comment at the Board meetings. The next one is April 15. If you can’t make it in person, you can call or email our School Board members at boardmembers@gm.sbac.edu. Our message is that we want our School Board members to make competitive salaries a budget priority. Currently our teachers feel like an afterthought.
In Tallahassee, the legislative session is upon us, which means, as surely as the sun rises, more abysmal anti-worker legislation is being brought forward by our legislators and their corporate sponsors. This year’s session includes: attacks on the state minimum wage, severely weakening child labor protections, further undermining the state’s already kneecapped public sector unions, and making Florida’s dreadful unemployment system even worse.
If you aren’t already, please make reaching out to members of your state legislative delegation a priority. Things are moving quickly in Tallahassee, but if you want to keep on top of what’s happening from a labor perspective, check out Caring Class Revolt’s and Florida For All’s substacks (tinyurl.com/Iguana2154 and tinyurl.com/Iguana2155) and/or action alerts from the Florida AFL-CIO (https://flaflcio.org/). A shout-out to our own Jenn Powell for her recent column in Labor Notes on the attacks against our unions (tinyurl.com/Iguana2156).
And, of course, at the federal level, Trump and Elon’s anti-worker Project 2025 agenda continues. Recently, our fellow workers at the U.S. Postal Service rallied in communities throughout the U.S. to oppose Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Postal Service. There was a rally in Gainesville and we posted some of Chuck Ross’s images from the action on our substack (tinyurl.com/Iguana2157). If you couldn’t make the action but still want to register your support for Postal workers, visit tinyurl.com/Iguana2158.
As of this writing, Trump and his anti-union handlers have also launched a full-out assault on federal workers’ very right to organize. They’re doing so explicitly because, as we’ve pointed out previously, unions have been American institutions which haven’t preemptively given in to Trump’s demands.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has set up an action hub for people to make calls to their legislators (tinyurl.com/Iguana2159). According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than 150,000 federal workers reside in the Sunshine State. If you or someone you know has access to representation by AFGE, now is the time to sign up for E-Dues and to get involved in your union to defend your right to organize.
And lastly, the word from her office is that Scaredy-Kat Cammack is going to come out of hiding and actually hold some town halls throughout her district later this month. Let’s make damn sure that we show up and hold her to account for all this nonsense; or at least hold a town hall without her if she can’t be bothered to answer to her constituents.
The hits are going to keep coming until we organize together and hit back. But always remember the wise words of Big Bill Haywood: “If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.”