Over the past few weeks, the hardworking public service unit of Duval County Public School employees represented by AFSCME voted by mail for the recertification of their union.
As a waste collector for the city of Miami, Robert Dyer is hardly ever in the spotlight, but that’s OK with him.
Like many public service workers and AFSCME members across the nation, Dyer isn’t in it for the fame, or even the money. He’s committed to serving his community the best way he can.
“This job is more than a paycheck,” he says. “This job is helping the community out. I take it personally. I enjoy my job, I enjoy coming to work.”
As the year comes to a close, I am celebrating the incredible surge of worker activism in 2023. Current and future members of AFSCME and many other unions were in the streets, on the picket lines, and at the bargaining table demanding fairness and respect. I want to also take a moment to recognize and celebrate some of the most inspiring activists in our AFSCME family: AFSCME retirees.
The hardworking men and women who clean Florida’s Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) earn poverty wages of $12 an hour. Even custodians with decades of experience make only $12.72, not enough to keep up with inflation.
That’s why members and retirees of Local 2941 (AFSCME Florida) went to a school board meeting earlier this month to demand that board members push private contractor HES Facilities Management – which employs the custodial staff – to increase starting pay to at least $15 an hour in the next contract.
A recent Treasury Department report titled, “Labor Unions and the Middle Class,” was the subject of a conversation at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) that highlighted the role of unions in making the economy stronger.
