Miami Workers Center builds the power of working-class Black and Immigrant communities in Miami-Dade County. We develop leaders and advance grassroots campaigns to transform ourselves, our workplaces and our neighborhoods and win the respect, rights, and resources we all deserve.
This Political Moment
It is no question what we are up against here in Florida. It seems every day Florida makes national headlines. From Florida man, to corrupt politicians being arrested and removed from office or even remaining in office; from an attack on the Public Education System and the removal of African American History, to corporate interest lobbying against people-led solutions. Worsening regressive policies are attacking the rights, dignity, and freedoms of workers, African American and Immigrant communities, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and children. Florida is far from free! Every major issue facing our country is playing out right here in Florida and will impact the rest of the nation. We refuse to wait on the sidelines because we know the fight for Florida is a fight for working class-people all over this country.
Our movement is showing that a better Florida is possible and everyday people do have agency to fight back. In 2022, before facing state preemption, Miami Workers Center made waves with the win of our Tenant Bill of Rights. The success of our tenant-led campaign inspired dozens of other municipalities across Florida to pass similar laws, and as a result millions of tenants across the state had more protections. By passing HB 1417 in 2023, state lawmakers voided parts of the Bill of Rights to appease the real estate lobby and other wealthy donors. Tenant Bill of Rights legislation that passed in other cities and counties across the state like the City of St. Petersburg and Orange County were also affected. When we’re organized, we can win meaningful change. That is why the corporate CEOs, wealthy elites, and their high-paid lobbyists who profit from the exploitation of our communities are scared and doing all they can to stop our momentum.
“What time is it on the clock of the world?” – Grace Lee Boggs
We are at a moment where the rents and evictions continue to rise, corporate greed from food retailers and investor-owned energy and utilities companies are driving up the cost of food, electricity, and water far past inflation. Housing conditions are deteriorating, extreme heat threatens workers’ lives, and families are less able to afford basic healthcare and childcare. Regressive policies threatening our livelihoods today reflect a multi-decade, concerted effort by an extremist, right-wing minority who seeks to consolidate more wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. One of the powerful anti-democratic tools that conservative lawmakers and industry lobbyists have weaponized against working Floridians is abusive preemption.
Preemption allows a higher level of government (the Florida state legislature) to limit or even eliminate the power of a lower level of government (city and county governments) to regulate a specific issue.
The result: corporate CEOs, wealthy elites, and their high-paid corporate lobbyists are deciding what rights we can and can’t have. These monied interests are using state power to tie the hands of local politicians we democratically elected so they can’t act on the will of the people.
MWC in 2024
It’s time to dig in, double down, and fight for our people. This year, Miami Workers Center is celebrating 25 years in the struggle! We are focused on the work that must not stop: building a powerful and leaderful movement, developing working-class African-American and immigrant leadership, and advancing political and corporate campaigns for economic inclusion and justice, and shifting culture with people-led narratives.
Labor Organizing: Advancing a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights
Nearly 60,000 women in Miami-Dade are domestic workers, most of them Black and immigrant women. Domestic workers–home health aides, child care workers, and cleaners–are explicitly excluded from federal labor protections, and are some of the most at-risk to workplace abuses. Last year, Miami Workers Center and WeCount!’s domestic worker leaders launched the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights Campaign: a political and collective vehicle for domestic workers to stand up against mistreatment and abuse on the job.
Our campaign is fighting for the rights of domestic workers to:
- A written contract
- Safety and protection against harassment and discrimination
- Privacy at work
- A guaranteed rest break
- Fair notice of termination or interruption of employment
In 2024, we will be continuing our work to build the campaign and win the first local Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in Florida. Learn more: miamidomesticworkers.org
Developing Worker-Owned Cooperatives
Latina and Haitian care worker members with MWC have committed themselves to shifting economic power and practicing shared governance through the development of a worker-led care cleaner and home health aid cooperatives. In 2023, in partnership with Catalyst Miami and Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida, worker members of MWC engaged in an academic phase of learning about worker cooperative principles and structures, launching a worker-led business, and solidarity economies. This year, domestic worker members entered the incubation phase of their worker cooperative development – developing a business plan, defining their cooperative bylaws, and planning for launching their cooperatives.
Housing Justice: Fighting for a Tenants’ Right to Counsel, Holding PHCD Accountable
Local residents across Miami-Dade County are facing the brunt of Miami’s housing crisis. Families are being priced out and evicted, dealing with unscrupulous landlords and property managers, deplorable housing conditions, without accessible legal representation or lawful enforcement of our rights. Predatory developers are privatizing our public housing, making it more difficult and expensive for elders, people with illness or disabilities, and low-income families to live in their full dignity.
Tenants and member leaders have been working hard to advance our campaign for a legal and fully-funded Right to Counsel in Miami-Dade, so that low-income families facing eviction can have free, guaranteed legal counsel and a chance to stay housed. Members of MWC who are tenants in subsidized, low-income, and public housing are building their base and identifying the issues most impacting their community. This year, tenants and member leaders are holding Miami-Dade Public Housing and Community Development (PHCD) accountable to the promises they make by getting PHCD to launch a Resident Advisory Board for Section 8 voucher holders, holding regular meetings with their staff, and organizing with other tenants impacted by PHCD’s policies and inefficacies.
Gender and Racial Justice: Safety, Health, and Healing
Black and immigrant women with children are those most impacted by our exploitative, capitalist system that puts profit for a few above the needs of the many. Through monthly Women’s Circles and our quarterly Sisters in the Struggle events, we endeavor to carve out safe and brave spaces for women and gender-oppressed people to learn, heal, and build a beloved community.
Strong storms make strong roots. Without strong winds to teach trees to deepen their roots, trees would easily fall over. Like strong trees, our movements and organizations can grow from the tension that storms bring. The power we need to shift real power to the hands of the people is built from the grassroots. We know we can only build that future by staying deeply rooted in our communities. We continue to knock on our neighbors’ doors, develop working-class Black and Immigrant leaders, and engage in deep listening and learning alongside our members to create solutions together. We are deepening our roots for the storms ahead.
Solid as a rock /
Rooted like a tree /
We are here /
Standing strong /
In our rightful place
– A song we begin every MWC meeting with
Storm Watch: Contact Your FL Representative
The 2024 Florida legislative session, running from January 9th to March 8th, is proving to be more of the same. As we approach the session’s halfway point, extremist lawmakers’ priorities are clear. They are only interested in passing laws that increase the wealth and power of their rich donors.
Among the litany of harmful bills are a few standouts:
- Attacking the rights of workers – Corporate interests want to prohibit local governments from improving protections and wages for workers. HB 433/ SB 1492 blocks cities and counties from enacting or enforcing any protections that might affect the “terms and conditions” of employment at any private employer. HB 433 would impact many of the wins of unions and local pro-worker organizations, including our joint campaign with WeCount! to enact the first Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in the state.
- Using teens to work more low-wage jobs – Republican lawmakers are also going after child-labor laws in order to allow businesses to make 16- and 17-year-olds to work 40-hour workweeks. The Senate version of the bill, SB 1596, would allow an 8-hour workday to begin at 5:30 a.m. for 16 and 17-year-olds, and for the workday to end at midnight. The House passed HB 49 on February 1st. To make matters worse, Republican House members voted down amendments to the bill that would protect teens from sexual harassment.
- Putting tenants at risk – HB 621 / SB 888 would allow landlords to evict an ill-defined “squatter” without any court process. In this case the burden is on the tenant to show a notarized lease or recent rent receipt (which tenants rarely have).
Creating more barriers for laid-off workers to get unemployment benefits – SB 1260 would require workers who have earned and are receiving unemployment insurance to fill out an in-person job application each week in order to keep their benefits. Online applications don’t count, even though most employers are utilizing the internet for job postings. Workers are already required to make five job contacts a week.
Positive bills to call your representative in support of:
- The Welcoming Florida Act (HB 1527/ SB 1598) would create legal protections for immigrant families, workers, and children by repealing anti-immigrant policy, defending the right for all children to attend public schools and receive financial aid, and making it more difficult for undocumented people to be targeted by state violence. Learn more and write to your representative by visiting flic.fyi/thefloridaway.
Support Our Work
We can’t do this work alone. Get involved with the Miami Workers Center by coming to our upcoming meetings and events, making a donation, and signing up to volunteer.
Every door knocked, every phone call, every dollar, and every small effort that each of us makes will transform ourselves, our workplaces and our neighborhoods to win the respect, rights, and resources we all deserve.
