They do so overwhelmingly. A new Florida law forces public employee unions to undergo annual recertification with at least 60% of the vote.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: August 29, 2025
Host: SB 256 is a new Florida law that forces public employee unions to be recertified every year with at least 60% of the vote of eligible employees. Ahead of Labor Day, City of Sarasota employees last week voted overwhelmingly to continue with the Teamsters. We have the details.
Johannes Werner: Teamsters Local 173 in Bradenton has been representing City of Sarasota workers for many years. Last year, in response to the Florida law, a clear majority of eligible city workers signed petitions to keep their union representation. But there’s a backlog at the state agency handling recertification, and so the vote did not happen until now, nearly a year later.
Florida law requires employees to vote in person or by mail. Even so, the Sarasota city workers last week did so overwhelmingly, 123 to 2. That’s the preliminary tally; the official results will be certified within 15 business days.
Caleb Keel, an organizer with the Teamsters, called the vote “a huge win for the workers.”
This kind of clear outcome is not granted these days. Thousands of groundskeepers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, janitors, maintenance workers and other public employees in the area have lost union representation since the new law took effect in 2023. University of South Florida workers this year failed to keep their union contract. City of Bradenton employees saw their union representation decertified last year. And City of North Port workers last year failed to reach the 60% and are going through a second vote now.
Like many unions, the Teamsters local in Bradenton that represents City of Sarasota workers has seen decline in members and then stagnation over the last two decades. But in 2023—the year the restrictive Florida law passed—the local got a jolt with 100 new members and is now closing in on 1,200 members again. That’s still down from 1,800 25 years ago.
The City of Sarasota vote means the current Teamsters contract, with its job protections and guarantees, remains in place. But that’s for only one year, and city employees will have to go through the same procedure again. The current contract expires at the end of September.
UNFI warehouse workers
Florida is a so-called Right-to-Work state, and that means employees are not required to pay union dues, even if they benefit from bargaining and agreements.
In other local union news, more than 300 warehouse workers at a food distribution facility in Sarasota run by Whole Foods supplier UNFI secured their first-ever collective bargaining agreement last week. The five-year contract gives them an up to $8 an hour increase, health care coverage and participation in a pension plan. The UNFI workers voted last year to join Teamsters Local 79 in Tampa.
Reporting for WSLR News, Johannes Werner.
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