Today, the dedicated public service workers of the City of Avon Park voted nearly 95% in favor of retaining their AFSCME contract and representation by AFSCME Local 3597.
Mental Health Awareness Month — observed in May since 1949 — is a time to focus on the challenges faced by millions of Americans living with mental health conditions.
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.
