Busted: What Florida's union busters have been up to | February 2025 (Part 1)
A round-up of reported activity by Florida's anti-union labor consultants, and employers in Florida that hire them.
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While Florida isn’t exactly a hotbed for organizing activity, the state (surprisingly or not) happens to be home to some of the most active anti-union labor consultants in the country. Such consultants, described by critics as “union busters,” are hired by employers to convince workers not to form or join a union. Some of these consultants are attorneys, others are not.
These employer-side consultants, also known as “persuaders,” are hired to conduct union “risk” assessments (assessing how vulnerable the employer is to union organizing activity), train management on how to talk down unions (without flagrantly violating federal law), and/or directly persuade employees “to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”
Ground rules: Under federal law, persuaders are required to file reports with the federal Office of Labor Management Services when they enter into agreements with employers. These forms are known as LM-20s and LM-21s. When filled out correctly, they offer a snapshot of what persuaders are hired to do, and how much money they’re getting out of it. Employers are similarly required to file similar reports (LM-10s) annually, detailing how much they’ve spent on union busting or “persuader” activity.
LM-20’s (detailing a job) must be filed within 30 days of entering into an agreement with an employer, while LM-21’s (detailing payment) must be filed within 90 days after the end of the filer’s fiscal year.
The idea behind these reporting requirements is to empower workers involved in an organizing drive with the knowledge of any third-party individuals their employer has brought in to “educate” them (as they often describe it), and how much their employer is paying them to do so. Often, the going rate for persuaders is hundreds of dollars per hour, as you’ll see below.
Here is what Florida’s union avoidance experts reported in the first half of February:
Keith Williams, a Pennsylvania-based consultant and openly anti-union former public school teacher, was enlisted through Russ Brown’s union avoidance outfit in Satellite Beach, FL — RoadWarrior Productions — to convince employees at Amazon’s DLN2 facility in Cicero, IL (or, “Cecero” per Williams) not to unionize with the Teamsters. Williams, who only lists a P.O. Box for an address, reportedly billed a rate of $2,000 per day for the job, plus expenses, and was on the job from Nov. 11, 2024 to Dec. 23, 2024. I haven’t come across any evidence of recent organizing activity at Amazon’s DLN2 facility online, but it appears that workers may have staged a walkout at the fulfillment center in 2021. According to Amazon Delivery Drivers, a seemingly now-inactive Instagram page that describes itself as “a coalition of Amazon DSP drivers looking to make our working lives better,” the 2021 walkout apparently led to small concessions from Amazon, including “improved safety precautions.”
Going deeper: Union avoidance strategy isn’t the only project that Brown and Williams have collaborated on. The pair are also involved with the Center for Independent Employees, a South Carolina-based nonprofit legal defense fund that assists with union decertification campaigns. The CIE has also claimed partial credit for advancing Florida’s 2023 “union killer” law, S.B. 256, which banned the option of payroll dues deductions for union members (despite protest from actual rank-and-file workers) and requires unions with less than 60% membership density to undergo annual recertification elections or else be decertified. According to state records, more than 100 bargaining units in Florida have been decertified since it took effect, affecting tens of thousand of public sector workers. The law, largely intended to kill off teachers’ unions, is similar to anti-union policies pushed in other states, including Wisconsin, Kentucky, and recently in Utah and Idaho.
Roger Allain, a labor consultant based in Land O’Lakes, was also enlisted by Russ Brown of Satellite Beach in January to convince Titan Concrete ready-mix operators across various locations in South Florida not to unionize with the Teamsters Local 769. Allain, a former Teamsters union official from Orlando who was kicked out of his union under dubious circumstances, was reportedly on the job from Jan. 2 through Jan. 26 — two days after a union election, where workers voted 102 to 57 in favor of unionizing with Local 769. According to an agreement Brown filed with the Office of Labor-Management Standards, Titan Concrete agreed to pay Brown’s firm $3,800 per day, per consultant, plus expenses. The objective, in Brown’s words, was simply to “educate your employees fo [sic] the facts about the National Labor Relations Act, including the consequences of third-party interference” — ostensibly referring to the union (as union busters often do) rather than the third-party consultants themselves.
Going deeper: Allain, originally hailing from the northeast, is the son of a 40-year Teamster and spent over 30 years with the Teamsters himself, working in construction, the movie industry, and for Disney World. He claims he’s “not an anti-union guy,” and has said he was recruited to the union avoidance industry by Rebecca Smith, a labor consultant (and former Teamster) who has, like Allain, done union-busting work for the likes of Amazon in collaboration with Brown.
“Joining the Teamsters gives us the voice we need to advocate for our rights and improve our working conditions,” said Regis Palomino, a ready-mix driver at Titan Florida and member of the union’s committee. “As Teamsters, the future is brighter than ever before for us. We are honored to be the newest members of America’s strongest labor union.””
Phillip Wilson, president of the Labor Relations Institute/LRI Consulting — reportedly corporate America’s favorite ‘union-busting’ firm — enlisted Orlando-based labor consultant Sean Lyles (of Amy’s Kitchen union buster fame) and Texas-based Amed Santana to convince various employees of the Houston, TX-based defense contractor Jacintoport International not to unionize with an “unknown union.” As the watchdog group LaborLab notes, it appears the employer brought in an anti-union labor relations firm ahead of workers publicly filing with the NLRB for an election. Jacintoport International reportedly agreed to pay Wilson’s firm $425 per hour for the job, which began Jan. 13 and is described as “ongoing.” Wilson describes the job as holding “voluntary employee meetings to educate employees indicated in block 12A.”
Going deeper: A quick Google search might indicate why workers might be interested in unionizing — see: allegations of racially discriminatory hiring practices and allegedly inflating charges for storing humanitarian aid cargo for the (soon-to-be-defunct?) United States Agency for International Development (USAID), according to the U.S. Department of Justice. There’s also evidence to suggest unsafe working conditions. In 2022, a Jacintoport International employee in Houston was fatally crushed in a forklift accident, while another employee “sustained contusions and lacerations.” Jacintoport International was ultimately fined just $8,438 for its negligence.
Wildine Pierre, an anti-union labor consultant from Altamonte Springs near Orlando, was enlisted in December by Michael Dana Penn of the Crossroads Group to convince service employees of Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, NY not to unionize with 1199 SEIU. According to the National Labor Relations Board, workers ultimately voted 109 to 132 against unionization with 1199 SEIU on Jan. 30, although the union has filed multiple objections to the election results since. Penn writes in his report to the feds that his firm billed $450 per hour for the job, which began Dec. 31, 2024 and is described by Penn as “ongoing.” Pierre, who owns her own firm Bridge Labor Solutions in Central Florida, was also hired through Penn to persuade hospital employees against unionization last year, records show, after workers had filed a different petition for a union election that was eventually withdrawn (at the very least, the case has been closed).
Going deeper: Pierre has also worked in the past with the Orlando-based union avoidance firm, the Labor Pros, teaming up with various persuaders in 2015 to crush organizing activity at a handful of Hilton hotels, including one in Miami.