Florida Elected Officials Support Brightline Workers Organizing With the TWU

Eight members of Congress representing Florida’s entire Democratic U.S. House delegation sent a statement of support for Brightline Florida workers’ right to organize. The statement comes as the company continues to fight an ongoing unionization effort among on-board attendants and lead attendants to join the Transport Workers Union.

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), wrote they support the rights of Brightline workers to form a union and collectively bargain and “publicly support the right and ability to organize with the National Mediation Board as intended under the Railway Labor Act.”

“Elected officials in Florida are sending a clear message to Brightline — stop interfering with Brightline’s on-board workers efforts to form a union,” TWU International President John Samuelsen said. “Brightline must stop delaying an election so workers can join the TWU and begin collective bargaining.”

The letter from all eight Democrats representing Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives comes after the TWU called on the federal government to deny Brightline any more taxpayer funds because the company has repeatedly taken steps to deny on-board attendants and lead attendants from exercising their right to form a union.

Brightline also continues to wrongly assert in frivilous arguments and motions with the National Mediation Board that the National Labor Relations Board should have jurisdiction over the Brightline workers. The jurisdictional arguments are a delay tactic as the company has retained Littler Mendelson, a anti-union law firm that was previously hired to fight high-profile union organizing efforts at Amazon, Starbucks and other big corporations.

Read the entire statement from the lawmakers below:

Today, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25) led all eight Democratic Members of the Florida House delegation in the following statement in support of Brightline employees’ right to organize: Since 1926, the Railway Labor Act has protected rail workers and their right to form a union and collective bargain – a core principle we all unequivocally support. With the news of employees working onboard Brightline trains from Miami to Orlando seeking to organize with the Transport Workers Union (TWU), we reaffirm and publicly support the right and ability to organize with the National Mediation Board as intended under the Railway Labor Act.

We know union workers built the middle class and support critical industries across the state of Florida and the country. We all look forward to continuing to work with and fight for the workers and unions that keep Florida’s economy moving and growing – which is why we strongly support workers’ right to organize and collectively bargain.”

Rep. Wasserman Schultz was joined by Florida Democratic colleagues Reps. Kathy Castor (FL-14), Ranking Member of Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee Frederica Wilson (FL-24), Lois Frankel (FL-22), Darren Soto (FL-09), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL-20), Maxwell Frost (FL-10), and Jared Moskowitz (FL-23).