AFSCME Fails to Win Over Public-Sector Employees in Florida

Last Thursday, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees suffered a crushing 116-32 defeat in a bid to unionize the City of Winter Park, Florida’s operational services employees.

According to MyFoxOrlando, AFSCME’s loss at the polls was a setback, as the union claims to have had a majority of employees’ support in April:

“Today Winter Park municipal service employees were unsuccessful in their efforts to organize themselves into a union. This, despite two-thirds of them having petitioned to form their union in April,” reads the [AFSCME] statement.

However, perhaps AFSCME’s undoing had something to do with the way it targeted Winter Park employees during its campaign. Apparently, sticking with its organizing playbook, AFSCME allegedly deployed its organizers to bother employees at their homes.

“When you bang on my door like you’re the FBI and gestapo, and that’s putting it mildly, and they roused my neighbors and everything because of it, that’s not what I want,” said Parks worker Dominick Marchese. When asked why they came to his home, Marchese replied, “To enroll me.”

Before the election results were in, another employee expressed his doubts about a union victory:

“A lot of people don’t want a union. Some people do and some people don’t,” utilities worker Darrell Clayman said. “We just hope it goes to be fair for the city.”

While Winter Park’s City Commissioners raised some controversy in May by budgeting $105,000 for the city to fend off the union’s campaign, the city actually spent about 80% less than budgeted.

Nevertheless, that did not stop AFSCME organizer Kevin Hill from complaining.

Organizer Kevin Hill, who has worked for AFSCME for 10 years, is taken aback by Winter Park’s efforts. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a public employer go to such great lengths,” he says, noting that he also worked on a unionization push by Oklahoma public employees that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. “This is a private sector campaign.”

Although AFSCME has not said how much it spent in its attempt to unionize Winter Park’s employees, labor economist Richard B. Freeman and academic/activist Joel Rogers wrote some years ago that a “workable rule of thumb puts the cost of a new member at close to $1,000 in organizing expense.”

If that number is accurate, it is reasonable to assume that AFSCME’s investment in unionizing Winter Park’s employees could be as high as $150,000, as there were 159 eligible voters for Thursday’s election.

Of course, for a union like AFSCME, which derives much of its income from public-sector employees’ dues, the money AFSCME spent on its failed effort in Winter Park was indirectly paid for by taxpayers.

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