Hi Friends,
Today is day 92 of Florida’s 60 day legislative session…
We truly cannot believe Florida’s 2025 Legislative Session is yet to be over, but late last Friday night, A STATE BUDGET DEAL WAS REACHED!
After this “unusual and protracted allocation process” as House Speaker Perez put it, our lawmakers are finally moving on the one job they’re constitutionally obligated to do: pass a balanced budget for the people of Florida.
The heated tax disagreements between the House and Senate have seemingly fizzled out, but it’s not over quite yet. They’ve basically agreed to the top-lines, and now need to go in and draft their sections that will be the basis for the 2025-26 Florida State budget AND negotiate the differences during what’s called Joint Budget Conference Committees.
The first Budget Conference Committee is scheduled for today, Tuesday June 3.
How it works: any issues that can’t be agreed upon by each chamber get “bumped” to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs who are charged with making all final adjustments and eliminating any outstanding differences between the two budgets. Conference Committee meetings can be as short as five minutes long, since many of these key decisions are made behind closed doors.
We’ll fill you in on any juicy details, but for now, you should know that they want $2.25 billion in recurring cuts. That signals that instead of bringing in new revenue by making big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay what they owe in taxes, they’re willing to stop spending and take away the essential programs we rely on. In other words, this is a “fiscally responsible” bill for people who hate public services and believe people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The Wins 🏆
While the legislature continues to waste our hard-earned tax payer money with every additional day they have to convene in Tallahassee, we want to take a moment to reflect on some of the things that actually went right this session.
One of our biggest victories this year was the defeat of a slate of anti-labor bills! These bills were designed to strip away basic protections for workers, targeting kids, working people, and the unemployed. They were pushed by powerful corporate interests, dark-money think tanks, and lawmakers who clearly hate the idea of Floridians having any freedoms or dignity.
But here’s the plot twist. Every single one of these bills died. Not because legislators suddenly found their conscience, but because grassroots advocates and working Floridians showed up and made our voices impossible to ignore.
In this series we’ll be breaking down each bill, what it aimed to do, and how we stopped extreme corporate-funded politicians in their tracks.
HB 6033 / SB 1672 – Repeal of the Labor Pool Act
One of the most egregious proposals this session was the plan to repeal Florida’s Labor Pool Act, a law that for decades has protected day laborers and temp workers. For anyone who has ever done any work at a temp agency or daily hiring hall, the Labor Pool Act is the only thing standing between you and blatant exploitation. It guarantees some bare-minimum standards for the nearly 1 million Floridians who do temp and day labor gigs. For example, under current law labor pool agencies must:
Provide pay stub transparency and accurate itemized wages.
Cap the fees and deductions that can be taken out of workers’ pay.
Prohibit charging workers just to receive their own paychecks. (without this law some agencies literally could make you pay to pick up your wages!?)
Forbid coercive practices like forcing workers to buy overpriced meals. (a common racket where a day laborer’s only lunch option is a $10 sandwich from the boss)
Require basic decent conditions at labor halls, even something as simple as a chair to sit on or a bathroom to use while you wait hours for work that you might not even get.
Repealing the Act would wipe out all those protections. This bill was a gift to exploitative temp agencies and a slap in the face to people just trying to earn an honest day’s pay.
Unsurprisingly, one such business who profits off day laborers pushed hard for this bill. An infamously exploitative temp agency called Pacesetters Personnel Services threw their weight behind the repeal of the Labor Pool Cct and hired one of Florida’s most powerful lobbyists, Ron Book, to seal the deal. The bill sponsors, Rep. Shane Abbott and Sen. Keith Truenow, tried to disguise the repeal as a harmless “duplication cleanup,” absurdly claiming the Labor Pool Act’s protections already exist in federal law. (Spoiler alert: they don’t. These protections are unique to Florida and were enacted precisely because vulnerable workers were being abused.) In reality, this was corporate greed, simply an attempt to green light predatory practices under the guise of “deregulation.”
The best part of this story is how it ended. A group of temp workers, many of them formerly incarcerated folks who often rely on day labor pools, decided to take a stand. Through a South Florida worker center called Beyond the Bars, they organized and traveled up to Tallahassee to stop this bill. These workers met with legislators (including the very sponsors who wanted to strip away their rights), shared their personal stories in committee hearings, spoke to the press, and even held a press conference to expose what the repeal would really do. They effectively became their own lobbyists, and they outworked and outsmarted the high paid corporate lobbyists on the other side.
In one Senate committee hearing, members of Beyond the Bars gave such compelling testimony that Republican lawmakers started getting cold feet right on the spot. Partway through their testimony, Senators were seen whispering among themselves. Senator Blaise Ingoglia, no liberal by any stretch, was overheard saying, “This bill is terrible. We’re killing it.” Moments later, the committee suddenly yanked the bill from the agenda mid-hearing, and it never returned.
Over in the House, Rep. Abbott (who had repeatedly misled his colleagues with false claims about “duplicative” protections and even ranted about a fake “state OSHA” that doesn’t exist) saw the writing on the wall. His Labor Pool Act repeal was pulled off the House floor calendar at the last minute.
There’s no doubt that none of this would have been possible without the workers of Beyond the Bars and allied advocates fighting the bill every step of the way. These temp workers, many with criminal records, often dismissed by society, took on the most powerful lobbyist in Florida and WON. Next time someone cynically says that activism in Florida is a lost cause, remind them of this: when working people show up in Tallahassee, look lawmakers in the eye, and speak truth to power, they can stop even the worst legislation.
The demise of the Labor Pool Act repeal is proof.
You can donate to Beyond the Bars here! This emergency mobilization wasn’t in their budget, and they need our support. It costs around $500 to send one worker to Tallahassee for four days, covering transportation, food, and basic expenses. If you believe in their fight, help fund it. Follow them at @beyondbars_mia.
Stay tuned for more ways hardworking people fought back and won during Florida’s 2025 Legislative Session.
Onwards and upwards,
Your Friends at Florida For All