Miami-Dade mayor’s vaccine plan hitting a wall in labor talks as county unions say no

In August, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced COVID-19 testing requirements for un-vaccinated county workers and said the requirements would start with non-union employees.

Two months later, it appears the test-or-vaccinate plan will stop with non-union employees as well.

No county union has accepted Levine Cava’s request to add the testing rules to new three-year contracts being negotiated by her administration, leaving about 90% of Miam-Dade’s 29,000 county workers untouched by the initiative.

“A lot of folks are still uneasy,” said Se’Adoria Brown, president of the AFSCME Local 199 union, which represents county workers at Parks and Recreation, PortMiami and other agencies. “They want to at least have the choice to decide whether they get vaccinated.”

Brown said the union is reluctant to agree to a COVID-19 testing rule that would trigger termination if an employee refused to comply. “It’s a difficult thing for any bargaining unit,” Brown said. “Not because we’re 100% opposed to it. I understand what the mayor is trying to do.”

AFSCME 199 hasn’t taken a formal position on the request for mandated COVID-19 tests as negotiations continue with the Levine Cava administration on the union’s three-year contract. But none of the county’s six finalized union agreements include the mandates, and AFSCME 199 and the three other unions still in negotiations haven’t agreed to the required testing, either.

That’s left Levine Cava to consider imposing the rules outside of the labor contracts, or accept the limited scope of a vaccination effort as COVID cases approach previous lows set at the start of the summer.

“We’re very pleased with how this has rolled out. We have a very high compliance rate. We haven’t had to let anyone go who is subject to this policy. People are complying,” she said Wednesday of the roughly 3,000 county workers covered by the testing rules because they’re not represented by unions.

“We definitely want our employees to be vaccinated,” Levine Cava said. “We’re exploring every option.”

Miami-Dade doesn’t track vaccination rates among employees. For the 2,500 non-union workers covered by the Levine Cava rules, 85% opted out of testing by providing proof of vaccination, said Rachel Johnson, communications director for the county.

Levine Cava’s Aug. 5 announcement of the test-or-vaccinate rules fell short of the more aggressive policy adopted in Orange County, which requires its workers to be vaccinated or face termination. That rule drew fire from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who warned Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings of fines and legal action based on a new state law restricting vaccination requirements.

County and city governments in Florida wouldn’t be covered by the federal workplace rules proposed by the Biden administration requiring COVID-19 vaccines for employers with more than 100 workers. Orange County firefighters are suing to overturn the vaccine mandate there, and the city of Gainesville rescinded its vaccination mandate after a similar warning from the DeSantis administration.

Miami-Dade hasn’t received warnings over its test-or-vaccinate rules, or a stricter requirement for new hires. In addition to the rules for county workers announced in August, Levine Cava imposed a hiring requirement that new employees be vaccinated for COVID-19.

Because job applicants and new hires aren’t covered by union rules, the requirement applies across all county departments regardless of what’s in the bargaining agreements.

According to statistics provided by the county’s Human Resources Department, 259 employees have been hired between Sept. 1 and Oct. 15, all of them covered by the vaccination requirement. Of those, 19 applicants declined a job offer over the vaccine requirement — representing about 7% of the pool.

Jeffery Mitchell, president of the Transportation Workers Union Local 291 in Miami-Dade, said he supported test-or-vaccinate rules but didn’t think the administration needed to make them part of the labor talks.

“There’s not an issue with it, but we don’t feel a need to put it in our labor contract,” said Mitchell, who said 20 of his union members died of COVID-19 during the pandemic. He also contracted the virus at work. “We support the idea,” he said.

Mark Richard, a Miami labor lawyer representing multiple county unions, said mayors and corporate executives haven’t been required to go to labor unions for agreements on COVID-19 vaccine rules.

“The courts have clearly given employers in the public and private sectors the general right to have vaccine mandates for the safety of the workforce,” he said.

The two unions representing Miami-Dade police officers and supervisors agreed to final terms on their county agreements, which require votes by the county commission to take effect. The agreements do not include the COVID test-or-vaccinate rules requested by the Levine Cava administration, said union president Steadman Stahl.

“I recommend people get it,” Stahl said of the COVID-19 vaccine. “The union standpoint on it [is] you can’t force things on people ... It’s a personal decision.”

This story was originally published October 28, 2021 at 6:00 AM.