Florida AFL-CIO · Working Families Lobby Corps

Legislative Alert!

135 S. Monroe St., Tallahassee, FL 32301 · 850-224-6926 · FAX 850-224-2266

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Lines have been drawn

ALL HANDS ON DECK!

Two Union Busting Bills

—SB 830 and SB 1352—

Are both up this week in Senate Committees!

This Wednesday at 1:30pm, the Senate Budget Committee will vote on Senate Bill 830. 

This legislation would deny access to dues deductions from public employees’ paychecks if they choose to be a member of a union. In addition, SB 830 takes away workers’ rights to participate collectively in political activities by outlawing deductions for political funds.  If SB 830 becomes law, it will restrict the political rights of thousands of Florida’s families.

The proposed legislation does nothing to create jobs or solve budgetary problems. Instead, SB 830 directly targets public sector unions. This bill would not apply to the other 364 organizations that the State of Florida offers payroll deductions, which includes giant insurance and investment organizations.

SB 830’s counterpart in the House (HB 1021) has already been passed, and the Senate Budget Committee meeting is one of the final steps of this legislation before it heads to the Senate Floor for a final vote!!!

Call the Senators in the Budget Committee listed below TODAY, tomorrow and Wednesday morning. Tell them to "stop the attacks on working families. It is my choice to join my union and I do not want politicians in Tallahassee taking away my rights."

Budget Committee Members Contact Information

Alexander, JD (Chair) (R) 17 (850) 487-5044

Negron, Joe (Vice Chair) (R) 28 (850) 487-5088

Lynn, Evelyn J. (R) 7 (850) 487-5033

Altman, Thad (R) 24 (850) 487-5053

Benacquisto, Lizbeth (R) 27 (850) 487-5356

Bogdanoff, Ellyn Setnor (R) 25 (850) 487-5100

Richter, Garrett (R) 37 (850) 487-5124

Fasano, Mike (R) 11 (850) 487-5062

Simmons, David (R) 22 (850) 487-5050

Flores, Anitere (R) 38 (850) 487-5130

Gaetz (D), Don (R) 4 (850) 487-5009

Hays, Alan (R) 20 (850) 487-5014

Thrasher, John (R) 8 (850) 487-5030

Wise, Stephen R. (R) 5 (850) 487-5027

The Building Trades are Under Siege by the Florida Legislature

The working men and women of the Building Trades of Florida are engaged in their struggle of their lives in fighting against SB 1352, which would radically change how construction projects in Florida are regulated and built.

SB 1352 sponsored by Senator Hays (R Umatilla) would prohibit the state of Florida or any local government from:

• · Entering into any contract on the conditions of employment (Project Labor Agreements)
• · Respecting local hiring preferences
• · Offering prevailing wages
• · Participating in apprenticeship programs
• · Designating work assignments
• · Recruiting employees from a single source
• · Controlling and limiting staffing on worksites

Limiting union access to local government activities is another form of union busting in which the Legislature is practicing.  SB 1352 is the anti-union construction industry’s dream.

This bill makes it illegal for local governments to require contractors to provide their employees a living wage, health care or other employee benefits such as sick leave.  It also bans requirements for local hiring or participation in registered apprenticeship.

This union busting legislation has already passed the Senate Community Affairs Committee this week with a 7-2 vote and is now being heard in the Senate’s Governmental Oversight and Accountability committee.

Call the members of the Senate Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee TODAY, tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday morning. Tell them to VOTE NO on SB 1352. Tell them “This is nothing more than a Big Government takeover of local government decision making.”

Governmental Oversight and Accountability

Garcia (R), Rene (R) 40 (850) 487-5106

Latvala, Jack (R) 16 (850) 487-5075

Benacquisto, Lizbeth (R) 27 (850) 487-5356

Bogdanoff, Ellyn Setnor (R) 25 (850) 487-5100

Dean, Charles S. ''Charlie'' (R) 3 (850) 487-5017

Norman, Jim (R) 12 (850) 487-5068

Fasano, Mike (R) 11 (850) 487-5062

Wise, Stephen R. (R) 5 (850) 487-5027

Flores, Anitere (R) 38 (850) 487-5130

Glenn Beck had his turn, and now it’s ours. On October 2nd, thousands of progressives will march in the One Nation rally in Washington, D.C., in support of America’s middle class. Corporate America has put a chokehold on the nation, and we’re losing our middle class as a result. Mike Papantonio joins Ed Schultz in discussing the importance of this rally on MSNBC’s The Ed Show.

Are you tired of the President Obama backlash?

Does the Beck, Limbaugh, Fox news get you down?

Do you need a break from all the right wing propaganda?

Then join Seegar and Pat Swanson & 35 others on a bus trip to the One Nation March in Washington DC  Oct. 2. If you follow Ed Schultz on MSNBC TV, you know he is promoting this rally to counter one promoted by Beck.  Beck claimed 300,000 attended his event although other crowd estimates were as low as 90,000.  Schultz claims he can really get 300,000 progressives!!! If you want to know more about the March click on the following link.

Ed Shultz invites you to come to Washington with the One Nation March.

Several organizations are arranging buses to bring progressives to Washington including the NAACP of Okaloosa County.  They have a tour bus reserved from Eglin Air Force base and room accommodations at the Crown Plaza in Washington.  The plan is to assemble at the Wal-Mart in Crestview on Thursday Midnight September 30. We will motor through the night and arrive at the Hotel late afternoon on Friday.  This will allow for a relaxing dinner and a good nights rest before the bus takes us to the Rally.  Immediately following the Rally we will get back on the bus for the return trip, again driving through the night, expecting to be in Crestview about 6 am Sunday.  Rooms are reserved for double occupancy and the cost per person for bus and room is $210.  Your food expense will be in addition.

So come join us.  Call (850) 301-2095 for more information. You can reserve your seat with an email to Sabu Williams.  You can sign up and pay by going to the Okaloosa NAACP website, using Pay Pal or a Credit Card.  Once at the site, click on "Donation".  You will be able to select the Washington March and fill in the blanks.

You can let the Swansons know you will be joining them by calling (850) 936-8707 or click Here to send an email.

Jamie Court's new book shows how you can reclaim direct democracy as citizen activist.

In Jamie Court's new book, "The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell," Court recounts ways in which citizens have reclaimed direct democracy as citizen activist. This guide takes the fight from closed doors and halls of power in Washington and brings it home to states and communities. "Don't Hope--Get mad and do something!

Change is no simple matter in American politics-a fact that Americans have recently learned well. Elections rarely produce the change they promise. After the vote, power vacuums fill with familiar values, if not faces. Promises give way to fiscal realities, hope succumbs to pragmatism, and ambition concedes to inertia. The old tricks of interest groups - confuse, diffuse, scare - prevail over the better angels of American nature.

Two FCC Commissioners and one US Senator slammed the Google-Verizon joint policy agreement and strongly endorsed the principle of net neutrality last night at a hearing before hundreds of citizens in Minneapolis, giving the Chairman of the federal agency Julius Genachowski all of the support he would need to regulate broadband Internet, if he so chose.

Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn both endorsed the reclassification of broadband as a communications service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. Copps said simply, “It’s calling an apple an apple.” If Genachowski agreed, he would thus have enough votes to pass the change in policy. Genachowski and the FCC released a plan in May to reclassify, but has yet to move on it, taking meetings with industry stakeholders and generally foot-dragging in an effort to reach consensus.

In the interim, Internet giant Google and telecom giant Verizon announced a joint policy agreement that made a distinction between wireline and wireless Internet, and also allowed for undefined “managed services” to discriminate between online content. Both Copps and Clyburn sharply criticized the statement. The deal “would eliminate any openness provisions over wireless, which is where all Internet applications are going,” said Copps, the longtime Commissioner. Clyburn, the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, agreed. “Any proposal that treats wire-line and wireless Internet differently would be impossible for me to support,” she said, citing the increasing tendency for minority Web users to access the Internet on phones or wireless devices. More...

Four Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee penned a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski Tuesday asking the FCC "to ensure the maintenance of an open Internet" by rejecting a recent deal by Google and Verizon that could lead to tiered pricing for internet service.

"The recent proposal by Google and Verizon of an industry-centered net neutrality policy framework reinforces the need for resolution of the current open proceedings at the commission to ensure the maintenance of an open Internet," wrote Reps. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Anna Eshoo of California, Jay Inslee of Washington and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania.

Last week, Google and Verizon announced a deal that could set the stage for internet service that's "separate but equal," according to critics. While the plan prohibits internet service providers from discriminating in how they treat content traveling over wireline networks, Google and Verizon's agreement would allow wireless carriers to throttle users' internet traffic as long as they are transparent about it. More...