The Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC) is a nonprofit organization in

Alachua County, Florida Alachua County ( ) is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus ope ...

, that advocates for working people. The organization was formerly known as the Alachua County Labor Party and traces its roots to the national Labor Party's call in 1996 for a new political party as a reaction to the conservative, neoliberal

New Democrat New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturall ...

movement. The ACLC has played a significant role in political campaigns in North Florida. As of September 2022, the co-chairs of the ACLC Executive Committee are Melissa Hawthorne and Jenn Powell.

Living wage campaign

Since 2015, the ACLC has campaigned for the largest North Florida employers to pay living wages. Florida state law bars municipalities from enforcing local minimum wage laws but, using neo-Alinsky tactics and capitalizing on the national

Fight for $15 The Fight for $15 is an American political movement advocating for the minimum wage to be raised to USD$15 per hour. The federal minimum wage was last set at $7.25 per hour in 2009. The movement has involved strikes by child care, home health ...

movement, the ACLC pressured Alachua County and the City of Gainesville to adopt ordinances requiring their employees and contractors to be paid a living wage. When the county ordinance was adopted in 2015, organized labor called it the "strongest and most comprehensive living wage ordinance of its kind in the state. By 2018, the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, the Alachua County School Board, and Santa Fe College—each among the largest employers in the region—increased their employees' wages toward the living wage.

Campaign for temp workers at the University of Florida

In 2017, the ACLC began a campaign to pressure the University of Florida to decrease its reliance on "Other Personnel Services" (OPS) positions---a job classification that is not provided any traditional fringe benefits like paid leave, health insurance, or retirement benefits. The OPS classification was created for temporary part-time workers, but the ACLC found that the university was often using the OPS classification for full-time employees and that some employees were kept in OPS status for years. In 2018, the university announced that it would stop using the OPS classification for non-temporary jobs.

Renters rights campaign

Between 2018 and 2021, the ACLC led a renters rights campaign in Alachua County that led to the adoption of an ordinance that outlawed various forms of rental discrimination, mandated safety standards, and made new energy efficacy requirements for most rental units in the City of Gainesville. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the ACLC began supporting tenants facing eviction.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://laborcoalition.org/ Non-profit organizations based in Florida Political advocacy groups in the United States