Byron Donalds wants to be Florida’s next governor. Not on our watch.
Our stance is rooted in an old saying coined by Floridian Zora Neale Hurston in her final major nonfiction work, Dust Tracks on a Road, set in Florida. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” is an idiom that distinguishes shared identity from shared interests.
The congressman has done little to advance the cause of Black workers. In fact, on the AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard, which tracks how legislators vote on the issues and policies that matter to working people, Rep. Donalds has voted against working people every time except once – giving him a lifetime score of 1%.
He has built his political identity around his support for Donald Trump and his embrace of Gov. Ron DeSantis, two political figures whose policies have undermined, undercut and trampled on our rights and freedoms.
As governor, DeSantis has been nearly surgical with his assault on the Black community, especially in education, where he undermined the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities through installing crony politicians; banned books by and about us from school libraries, rejected the country’s first AP course on Black culture, and instituted the STOP WOKE Act, which 11th Circuit judge rightfully demeaned as a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse.”
But he didn’t stop there. Next was Black employment.
As national labor leaders, we have witnessed the relationship between strong worker representation and stronger communities – especially for Black communities who over index when it comes to union membership. Like us, they have experienced the power of collective bargaining to help educators advocate for classroom resources, nurses raise concerns about patient care, and public employees seek fair compensation and safer working conditions. We have also seen the consequences when workers have fewer avenues to influence decisions affecting their livelihoods.
So it should come as no surprise that in 2023, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 256, imposing new restrictions on many public-sector labor unions by creating new challenges for unions seeking to maintain their bargaining certifications. This law is a direct threat to the sovereignty of American workers who have historically used unions to negotiate wages, benefits, workplace protections and the conditions under which essential public services are delivered.
The struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workers’ rights have long intersected. From A. Philip Randolph’s organizing of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, demands for economic dignity have stood alongside demands for equal treatment under the law.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that the promise of civil rights could not be fully realized without economic justice. His final campaign in Memphis reflected the conviction that workers’ rights, racial equality and human dignity were inseparable.
That history offers an important lesson for the present: Political representation and substantive policy representation are not necessarily the same thing.
That is history Byron Donalds has either forgotten or refuses to consider. Either way, it lays bare his disconnect from the collective vision of America most Black people share – one that acknowledges real differences while working to reduce the negative impacts of those differences. Donalds has adopted a different vision – one that thinks it more valiant to turn a blind eye to the disparate outcomes race creates in employment, education, and health care rather than admit there are real, structural issues that need to be addressed.
One person who does seem to understand and is working to do better is Donalds’ opponent, David Jolly, a former Republican congressman now running as a Democrat. He has positioned his candidacy as an alternative to the DeSantis approach, emphasizing affordability, public schools and a different direction for state government. And while we may not share skin color or a cultural history with Jolly, we do share his commitment to fight for equality and the dignity of the American worker.
The November 3 gubernatorial election presents Floridians with a choice between candidates offering different approaches to governing. Byron Donalds has sided with DeSantis who has made their disdain for Black people loud and law, and Jolly who sided with us and our understanding of community and collective power.
Every election is an opportunity to examine not only what candidates promise, but also what their records and policy commitments reveal.
For working people, that examination must include a fundamental principle: Economic prosperity and democratic participation are strongest when the people who do the work have a meaningful voice in shaping their future.
Florida’s next chapter will be written through the decisions of its people and the accountability they demand of those entrusted with public office.
That is the enduring promise of democracy—and a responsibility that belongs to all of us.
Fredrick D. Redmond, the highest-ranking African American labor official in history, is the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation representing 65 unions and nearly 15 million workers.
Fedrick C. Ingram is the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), representing 1.8 million educators, healthcare workers, and public employees.
