We are proud to announce the 2020 Grinch of the Year award to the University of Florida Board of Trustees (BoT) for their hard and unrelenting support of the rampant spread of COVID-19 at the number 5 public university in the nation! UF is currently number 2 in the nation for college COVID-19 cases but, with the strong support from the BoT, we are confident that we will reach number 1 status soon!

The BoT probably deserves this award every year, but they’ve really outdone themselves in 2020. No one could ever do justice and accurately describe the callousness and open disregard for human life that the BoT has shown since the pandemic began back in March. Their accomplishments include:

• Pushing to hold in-person classes in the Spring that endangers the lives of everyone in the Gainesville community.

• Open disrespect and lack of support for faculty, staff, and students.

• Pushing through measures to have attendees at UF athletic events, which included forcing through measures that ignore health professionals’ advice on best practices.

• Continued deflection of responsibility for managing the pandemic away from the institution and onto individuals (see: that useless pledge they encouraged UF community members to sign).

• Abysmally insufficient testing, isolation, and quarantine procedures and resources available to students and staff.

“I’m really proud that the UF BoT has followed in my footsteps,” said Typhoid Mary. “I had expected leaders to listen to the science, at least on par with the 1920s” she continued. 

“UF President Fuchs gave UF workers a big bah humbug this Christmas,” said Ebenezer Scrooge. “I could almost hear myself saying ‘if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population’ when the UF denied 68% of UF faculty ADA accommodation requests to not teach in-person classes” he went on. 

“At first we were upset that we didn’t win the Grinch of the Year award, but after reading about the actions of Mori Hosseini and the rest of the Board of Trustees I understand,” said Harry and Marv the infamous Wet Bandits who are known for breaking into houses around Christmas time and harassing clever 8-year-olds. “We know what it means to ruin someone’s holiday, we do it all the time but we’re just destroying families’ material possessions. The Board of Trustees is destroying lives. The people lost to COVID-19 can’t be replaced.” they continued. 

The ACLC voted on the Grinch of the Year Award at our general membership meeting on December 8th. We will present this award to Chair Mori Hosseini at the next in-person Board of Trustees meeting.

The Alachua County Labor Coalition has had a year of growth, pivoting, change, and endurance. Towards the start of the pandemic we were forced to relocate offices downtown after our previous landlord (AMJ) refused to re-sign our  lease because he disagreed with our politics around renters rights. We lost valued members such as Terry Fleming, Karen Smith, Jack Price, Julia Reiskind and David Chalmers. And through all of this we have grown our membership base, stacked up important victories, and expanded our scopes of work. This was all made possible by the tireless work of our executive board, coordinator and chairs of our committees. The ACLC current breadth of work is split into 4 committees with each containing a varying number of projects.

Housing Committee

The Safe Affordable Housing Committee has been working on a Renters’ Rights’ ordinance for the past 3 years. In 2019 and in early 2020 the ACLC was finally able to get housing discrimination protections we drafted passed in Alachua County and the City of Gainesville. These provisions protect people from discrimination based on lawful income source (Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, Social Security Disability, veterans benefits, etc.) domestic violence survivors, and perceived immigration status among other protections. We also passed the Renters Bill of Rights ordinance in the City of Gainesville which when it takes effect in 2021 will have minimum energy efficiency and basic safety standards, facilitated by regular inspections for the majority of rental housing in Gainesville. A new process to deal with security deposit theft will also take effect in 2021. We’re now pivoting to the Alachua County Commission to petition for passage of the same ordinance at the county level.

Out of this committee, the ACLC formed the Evictions Resistance Task Force with Gainesville Socialist Alternative. This task force also teamed up with the Evictions Lab to help us track and respond to increasing levels of evictions because of Covid job losses with their historical perspective. Every week the task force meets to discuss the cases that had been filed the previous week. The Letter Writing Team sends a letter to everyone who had an eviction filed on them the previous week. This letter includes legal resources, rent and utility assistance program information as well as some information about our organization. The Canvassing Team follows up the following week with a door knock and a conversation. The number of evictions have fluctuated from a dozen a week to over 60. We expect there to be a deluge of evictions in the coming months as our state and federal governments have failed to pass meaningful pandemic relief.

The ACLC and Gainesville Socialist Alternative have also been surveying different neighborhoods in Alachua County and have begun to move the pieces to start tenant organizing. We will continue surveying more and more neighborhoods in the coming year that have had high eviction rates and hope to create tenant unions and build tenant power. We want to move towards a more proactive organizing model by identifying people who are at risk of facing evictions and building resistance networks that force landlords to negotiate with them. Because of information ACLC has been providing to tenants, many have called us back to say they were able to negotiate with their landlords to stay in their homes.

Workers’ Rights Committee

In 2015 we launched a campaign to have the 10 largest employers pay a living wage by 2020. This aspirational goal has fallen short in a few major employers but we have stacked up some major victories.

• With the persistence of ACLC organizing, the University of Florida went from a minimum wage of $10 an hour in 2016 to $14 an hour in 2020. It’s important to note that this left out OPS and contract workers but it did affect over 500 low wage TEAMS workers. The ACLC has also been involved in organizing new unions and workers’ associations for on campus food provider Aramark, non-unionized TEAMS workers, and the SAFE UF Reopening group.

• The ACLC urged the Alachua County School Board members to add paying a living wage to their strategic goals in 2016. In 2017 their lowest wage workers were making ~$8 an hour and are now at ~$10.50.

• We lobbied the City of Gainesville commissioners through many meetings and wage studies to go from ~$12.50 an hour in 2016 to $15 an hour in 2021. Commissioners also just passed the Contractor Living Wage ordinance modeled after the Alachua County Minimum Wage Ordinance which assures all contractor workers a  minimum wage of at least $15 an hour.

• Nationwide Insurance Company paid at least $15 an hour to all workers as of January 2017.

• Due to our efforts the Alachua County Government went from $12/hr in 2016 to $15 by 2022.This includes the most progressive contractor living wage ordinance in the state of Florida.

• Santa Fe College increased wages for full time workers to $12/hr in 2018. Part time and contractors were left out. Much of SFC organizing has been tied to union organizing.

• We were unable to directly affect the other largest employers (Shands Hospital, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Publix Supermarkets, North Florida Regional Medical Center) outside of the recent state constitutional amendment which will increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2021 and $15 an hour by 2026. YEAH!

In total the Alachua County Labor Coalition has helped to put millions of dollars directly into the pockets of working people. We’ve grown our capacity to make future gains and have seeded many worksites for future union activities.

The ACLC is part of the Food Justice League, a coalition of workers, producers, and environmentalists whose mission is to replace the current UF contract with Aramark with one that respects workers, supports sustainable agriculture, and values a vision of a better food system in Gainesville. Like much of our work, organizing has been hampered by the pandemic. We’ve gathered hundreds of petitions, met with officials, gotten supportive resolutions in Alachua County and the City of Gainesville passed, and progressed towards official support at the UF Faculty Senate. In December at a joint Gainesville City and Alachua County meeting both bodies voted to have staff research and bring back proposals consistent with the goals of the Food Justice League. This will be a major avenue for struggle in 2021.

The ACLC has also been working closely with UF Workers for A Safe Reopening. Earlier this year we conducted a survey that went out to all UF staff and faculty about their thoughts on UF reopening. We received over three thousand responses and found that the prevailing feedback from UF’s workforce was fear about UF pushing workers back and UF lack of transparency. We are actively pushing back on the unilateral decisions made by the UF Board of Trustees, as Sheila Payne did this past Friday when she read the testimonies of workers who are scared and feel unsafe about face to face learning at the BoT meeting. Letter writing campaigns and petitions have been in the works and we will continue fighting for the lives of UF workers, students and faculty in conjunction with UFF-UF and GAU until UF decides to put people before profits and move to online learning.

Just Healthcare Committee

Our Just Healthcare Committee is working on expanding healthcare access in Florida. You can find more here. In the past, Chad Hood gave talks to many groups about the need for national single-payer healthcare and his presentation is being made into a video. For now we have prioritized convincing Florida legislators to expand Medicaid as part of the Health Care for Florida campaign. This past spring, JHC submitted and advocated for resolutions in support of Medicaid expansion by the Alachua County and Gainesville City Commissions. Both were signed and will be sent to our leaders in Tallahassee. Looking forward, bills for expansion are being prepared in the state House and the Senate. Together with Health Care for Florida and the League of Women Voters of Florida, we are building teams of constituents and advocates who will meet with our state officials including, Representative Chuck Clemons and Senator Keith Perry. Team members will be asked to call, email, and set virtual meetings with their elected officials. We will host a training session early in 2021 and provide ongoing support including talking points and debrief sessions.

Criminal Justice Committee

Our newest committee is the Criminal Justice Committee. This committee was formed due to demand from the ACLC membership at last year’s strategic planning committee. The ACLC has been instrumental in holding the Gainesville Sun accountable for publishing mugshots of non-convicted people. We’ve also been in coalition with Florida Prison Solidarity in many actions including the COVID-19 Freedom Fund in which we helped raise almost $50,0000 through our ActionNetwork account. This fund allowed many people who had been sitting in jail for lack of ability to pay low cash bond payments to be released. The CJC is now focused on reforming Alachua County Court Services into an institution that helps keep people out of jails/prisons. We’ve published a white paper with recommendations that were well received by the Alachua County Commission and we’re hopeful that all will be adopted in 2021. This Committee is also looking at helping to create participatory defense teams. Please join us in this important work.

Free Grocery Store

Because of the generosity of many Labor Coalition members and others who have donated every month through ACLC Action Network site, we have been able to help provide food and other support for a hundred families in our community through Free Grocery Store.

The Affordable Care Act gives states the option to expand Medicaid to cover all citizens that earn up to 133% of the poverty level. The Florida Legislature has refused to adopt this expansion.  Instead of providing coverage to 760,000 more Floridians, our state’s leaders have made a decision that will cost some Floridians their lives.

Until we can achieve coverage for all Americans under a single payer system, the Just Health Care Committee is working  with others around the state to reverse this unconscionable decision.

Join the ACLC’s Just Health Care Committee for their meeting on Monday, November 23rd at 6:00pm.

Zoom link ufl.zoom.us/j/96896301737

In response to the letter scolding University of Florida faculty and graduate students about their concerns teaching classes face to face because of health risks: Instructors still teach online, hold office hours, do research, represent UF at conferences and advise graduate students. Professors, staff and grad students raised $900 million in grants last year. They are doing their jobs! 

Most administrators, including President Kent Fuchs, are conducting business remotely. 

The United Faculty of Florida and Graduate Assistants United are fighting for all workers and students on campus. Many students report they fear being in a classroom because they see many of their peers gathering unmasked in large groups.  

UF has reported 4,091 employees and students have tested positive for COVID so far. There have been 10,196 positive COVID cases in Alachua County. Alachua County residents do not want more community spread. 

Written by Sheila Payne and published in the Gainesville Sun

On most weekends you can find the Alachua County Tenants Association surveying neighborhood in Gainesville to organize tenants as well as bringing them resources. Organizing tenants into tenant unions will allow neighbors to solve issues collectively and put pressure on their landlords to do what they are supposed to.

We need your help! If you are interested in helping us survey on the weekends please email  ACTenantsassociation@laborcoalition.org to get involved

Sign here

The undersigned faculty, students, and staff at the University of Florida reject the recent policy announcement of a move to partial face-to-face teaching for the 2021 spring semester. Instead, we support continuing to teach remotely next semester, thus fulfilling all of our obligations with proper regard for the safety of the university community. Faculty moved their courses to remote formats in March 2020 to respond to the public health emergency associated with COVID-19. The format is not ideal, and no one, least of all faculty, sees it as a permanent method. But under these very unusual and dangerous circumstances it works well and ensures the safety and well-being of everyone involved.

The public health emergency has not ended. COVID-19 spread is associated with people aged 18-30, the age of our students, who live together, socialize, and are not tested with any regularity. COVID-related deaths are closely associated with older people, that is, a large percentage of our faculty. There is also mounting medical evidence of long-term effects associated with the virus, including lasting damage to critical organs. With the governor’s policy of opening up businesses such as bars without a mask mandate, we should anticipate another surge of infections. The best medical expertise predicts a nation-wide increase with the onset of colder weather. Masks and distancing mandates on campus, which everyone knows have not been followed, will not produce requisite safety. On the contrary, the premature move to partial classroom teaching will compromise it all the more. Evidence suggests that infected air can be spread throughout buildings that, like those on the UF campus, lack adequate ventilation, a danger not addressed in any of the discussions that we have seen.

The demand for partial face-to-face teaching is both poorly conceived and reckless. It offers no pedagogical advantages and presents additional challenges that will have adverse effects on teaching and learning. A small minority of students will take classes in live format but not most. The majority will continue to take classes in remote format. Hybrid classes require guidance, training, and additional technical resources to be successful. With little thought devoted to implementation, this format will diminish both the live and remote experiences. Most important, such a plan endangers the health and indeed the lives of UF faculty, staff, students, and their families in Gainesville and throughout the state.

Policies concerning education and health should be discussed and agreed upon by the faculty and medical experts most knowledgeable about practicality and impact before any talk of implementation. The policy has already caused serious worry in the campus community. It should never have gotten this far. It should be dropped immediately.

On October 9th, President Fuchs announced that the University of Florida would be reopening in the spring and launching in-person “safe” face to face learning. Fuchs insisted that students have guided this decision, but in reality politics and greed are the only things guiding this decision. Moreover, Fuchs continues on to say that the only way the University can retain full funding and the jobs of its employees is by reopening. This is a false choice. 

According to the University of Florida’s 2018-2019 financial report “The University of Florida has a strong and diverse revenue base which serves to protect the University from over-reliance on one source of revenue”. A sizable 39% of the university’s funding came from non-operating revenues in the 2018-2019 fiscal year. These non-operating revenues “are not generated by the university’s primary, ongoing operations”. These non-operating revenues are just one of the many sources of funding that UF could potentially use to prevent furloughs. Therefore, UF funding should not be used as the excuse for a spring campus reopening and medical science could then dictate the timetable of a safe reopening for all. 

Besides non-operating revenues, the salaries of the top four highest paid administrators amount to almost three million dollars, putting an enormous burden on UF’s payroll. Instead of resorting to furloughing faculty and staff in the middle of a pandemic, the budget can easily be balanced by furloughing those who make the most and do not have direct contact with student instruction. President Fuchs earns $926,000 and is the highest paid president amongst Florida state public universities. The next highest UF salaries are paid to CFO Christopher Cowen who makes $700,000, Vice President of Development and Alumni Affairs Tom Mitchell with a salary of $614,000 and COO Charlie Lane with a salary of $500,000, just to mention a few. To give some context, assistant librarians make $60,000, adjunct professors make $43,000, administrative assistants make $39,000, custodians make $21,540, teaching assistants make $21,573 and lab techs make $13/hr.  

It would not be imprudent to say that the ones that should be getting furloughed or receiving any type of pay cuts should be those at the top. They have not suffered the economic consequences nor the risks of working throughout this pandemic like UF’s workers who make the University run. The custodians, maintenance workers, cafeteria workers, librarians, IT staff, instructors and many more who may be subject to furloughs; yet they are the employees who make the UF campus function. Our campus’s operation is dependent on these very essential people, not President Fuchs. This is why we need to fight for UF’s hardworking employees and cut the outrageous salaries of the highest paid at UF. Furlough Fuchs first and fight for the working class! 

Cristina Cabada Sidawi, UF Student and Coordinator at the Alachua County Labor Coalition.