Busted: What Florida's union busters have been up to | February 2025 (Part 2)
A round-up of reported activity by Florida's anti-union labor consultants, and employers in Florida that hire them.
Caring Class Revolt is a 100% reader-supported publication. And full disclosure, it’s a side project of mine that I work on outside of my full-time job as a local news reporter. I launched this Substack because I care about documenting news affecting Florida’s labor movement that otherwise goes under- or unreported. If you appreciate posts like this, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and/or sharing this publication with others.
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 provide workers involved in union organizing drives with information 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 read below.
Here is what Florida’s union avoidance experts reported in the second half of February:
Johan Pena, a union avoidance consultant based in Miami, was hired by Meats by Linz — a premium meat distributor — to convince drivers, dry goods leads, maintenance mechanics in Hammond, IN not to unionize with the Teamsters Local 142. According to a LM-20 report filed by CACR Labor Education Services CEO Christopher Cimino of Elmhurst, IL, Pena “met with drivers to provide factual information about the NLRA [National Labor Relations Act] and answer questions.” Pena, a Miami-Dade College grad who’s been in the union-busting business for about 16 years (per his LinkedIn page), also reportedly held anti-union captive audience meetings with workers “to discuss the realities of voting in the election.” He was on the job from Jan. 18 through Feb. 15 — one day after the union election took place. According to the National Labor Relations Board, workers ultimately voted 10 to 9 in favor of unionization, but with two “challenged” ballots, it’s unclear whether the union will be certified as the workers’ bargaining agent. The case is still marked “open.” Pena has not yet filed his own mandated report disclosing his persuader activity, and there is no billing rate mentioned in Cimino’s report either, so it’s unclear how much the meat distributor shelled out for Pena’s services.
Going deeper: There’s reason to believe Pena wasn’t as neutral as Cimino’s bland report might have you believe: the Teamsters have filed several unfair labor practice charges against Meats by Linz, accusing the company (and/or its representatives) of making coercive statements and unlawful interrogation during the organizing drive. And this isn’t the first time Meats by Linz has hired a professional to obstruct organizing activity. Records show the company also hired a different union buster in 2014 and paid him roughly $5,500 to squash an organizing drive of production, shipping, and maintenance employees in Calumet City, IL who were organizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1546. Workers in that case ultimately voted 15 to 36 against unionization.
Wildine Pierre, an anti-union labor consultant from Altamonte Springs near Orlando, filed a late report disclosing that she was hired in December, through 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 United Healthcare Workers East. According to the National Labor Relations Board, workers ultimately voted 109 to 132 against unionization on Jan. 30, although the union has filed multiple objections to the election results since. Pierre reports that she was paid $292.50 per hour, “plus usual and customary travel expenses” for the job, which lasted Dec. 31, 2024 through Jan. 31, 2025. Pierre, who owns her own firm, Bridge Labor Solutions, was also hired to union-bust for Burke last year too, records show. Workers then had filed a different petition for a union election that was eventually withdrawn (at the very least, the case has been closed).
Daniel Bryan, a union avoidance consultant affiliated with the firm Labor Advisors in Delray Beach, was hired through Raymond Rosenbach of the anti-union firm Government Resources Consultants of America to convince drivers at McAlister Oil’s facilities in Memphis, TN not to unionize with the Teamsters Local 667. According to the NLRB, drivers ultimately voted 3 to 9 against unionization. Rosenbach does not disclose how much McAlister Oil paid his firm or Bryan for the job, which began in January and is described by Rosenbach as “ONGOING.” Bryan reportedly held anti-union meetings with drivers to “discuss the realities of signing authorization cards and voting in the upcoming election,” according to Rosenbach. Workers first filed a petition for a union election in January. Bryan has also done union-busting work for the likes of U.S. Sugar in Savannah, the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, and the plasma donation center Grifols Plasma.
As Mercedes-Benz auto workers in Vance, AL sought to unionize with the United Auto Workers, records show the German automotive company brought in a full team of persuaders to convince auto workers last spring to vote no. According to a financial disclosure report recently filed by Mercedes, the automaker paid RoadWarrior Productions, an anti-union firm headed by Russell Brown of Satellite Beach, at least $71,615 for the job, and paid Byron Clay — an Apollo Beach property owner and union buster affiliated with the firm BJC & Associates — nearly $500,000. Clay reportedly enlisted at least nine consultants (including Orlando-based Sean Lyles) for the job, which began on April 29, 2024. Brown, who reportedly enlisted just two consultants for the job, joined later in early May. Mercedes also reportedly paid the Texas-based firm Employer Labor Solutions, headed by Deborah Long, an extra $104,628 for their anti-union campaign. Despite the momentum of the UAW at the time, the organizing campaign drew an enormous amount of attention from anti-union folks — including Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who denounced the union — and auto workers ultimately voted 2,642 to 2,045 against unionizing with the UAW last May.
“This is probably the most strategic and organized union busting campaign in decades,” Rick Webster, an auto worker and member of the union’s organizing committee at Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, told In These Times.
Masonite, a door manufacturing company based in Tampa, hired Phillip Wilson’s union-busting firm, the Labor Relations Institute/LRI Consulting, last year to convince operators, assemblers, safety controllers and other workers at Masonite’s facility in Winchester, PA (or, Winchester, VA?) not to unionize with, well, an “unknown union.” Wilson filed this report nearly a year late, and acknowledges as much in his filing. “LRI takes their filing serious,” Wilson notes in his report, filed Feb. 20, 2025. “Upon doing annual LM21 filing it was discovered that this filing was not done.” I imagine Wilson is referring to his LM-21 report for 2024, but I don’t see that report from him posted publicly yet, so that’s my guess. Based in Oklahoma himself, Wilson reports that the organizing campaign at Masonite’s Winchester facility was “pre-petition,” meaning it had been in its early stages. I don’t see a matching NLRB case, so it doesn’t look like a petition for a union election was ever filed. Wilson reportedly enlisted Amed Santana, a Texas-based consultant, for the job, which lasted from March 24, 2024 to March 29, 2024 at a rate of $425 an hour. Masonite has brought in Wilson’s firm in the past, although neither Wilson nor Masonite have disclosed how much the company ultimately paid Wilson to snuff out organizing activity.
Going deeper: HuffPost reporter Dave Jamieson has described LRI as “Corporate America’s Favorite Union-Busting Firm.” And he would know, he wrote an entire (great) series on the union avoidance industry. LRI has been around since 1978, according to their website, and claims they have “won” 10,000 union elections — meaning, presumably, they’ve convinced workers to vote against unionization in so many cases. According to federal records, the firm’s client list has included high-profile companies such as Hershey, Dollar General, Amazon, and Coca-Cola as well as Orlando’s very own Pirates Dinner Adventure, a dinner theater near Orlando’s Universal theme park (which has its own sordid anti-union history). Wilson often works with other Florida-based union busters, including Niles Commer of Sarasota, Sean Lyles of Orlando, and Johan Pena of Miami.
Speaking of Wilson, the electric vehicle manufacturer BlueOval reportedly hired his firm in December to convince production and maintenance workers at BlueOval’s SK facility in Louisville, KY not to unionize with the United Auto Workers. According to his report, Wilson brought in at least six consultants for the job, including Wildine Pierre of Altamonte Springs, FL and Byron Clay (an Apollo Beach property owner who may or may not still reside in Florida, since he is now predominantly listing his address out-of-state). BlueOval agreed to pay Wilson’s firm an hourly rate of $425 an hour per consultant for the job, according to Wilson. It’s unclear if the job is still ongoing. Workers filed a petition for a union election back in January, but it appears the case may have stalled. According to the UAW, this campaign was one of the union’s first to go public as part of their broader effort to organize the largely-unorganized South. Workers at the facility publicly announced their organizing campaign back in November, with a stated goal of addressing workplace safety concerns.
“Instead of listening to our safety concerns, management has been ordering people to work without proper protective equipment. Now they’re trying to stop us from forming our union to win a strong voice for safety,” said Angela Conto, a production operator in formation at BOSK, in a statement. “But the strong supermajority of workers who’ve signed union cards show we’re going to fix what’s wrong at BOSK and make it the leading manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries in America.”
Wilson also enlisted Niles Commer, a Sarasota-based consultant affiliated with Employee & Management Labor Relations, to convince engineers employed by the electric utility company Evergy in Burlington, KS not to form a union. Wilson describes the campaign as “pre-petition” in his report, meaning it is/was still in its early stages when he filed his report with the feds. Commer himself was reportedly on the job for just two days, from Jan. 21 through Jan. 22, with Evergy agreeing to pay LRI at least $425 an hour “plus reasonable travel expenses.” Although Wilson doesn’t specify a particular union being targeted in his report, I’m guessing his target was this seemingly-new organizing campaign with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 304 at Evergy’s Wolf Creek Generating Station in Burlington. Workers there filed a petition for a union election with the NLRB just last week.
Douglas Grima, a former UAW member who today works as a professional union-buster (after allegedly getting kicked out of his union), was hired through Russell Brown’s outfit RoadWarrior Productions in Satellite Beach to convince drivers for Amazon in California not to unionize with the Teamsters. Grima initially filed a deficient report that failed to disclose the employer he was working for — only noting that he was working with Brown and that he was trying to convince drivers (employed by whom?) not to join forces with the Teamsters. Grima, who has his own Michigan-based firm DG&Associates, was enlisted for the job beginning Jan. 6 through Jan. 24, to “educate employees in the barhaining [sic] of their rights under the NLRA, ata [sic] rate of $250/hour including travel and expenses.” Gotcha. Some details included in his report are still confusing though: although he mostly includes the correct address for the specific Amazon facility he was hired to target (Amazon’s DPS1 facility in El Monte, CA), Grima mistakenly reports that the facility is located in Florida, not California, although there is no other mention of Florida in his report, beyond Brown’s business address on Florida’s Space Coast. Suffice it to say, I think it’s fair to assume the job actually took place in California, and Grima just made (another) typo. It’s not uncommon.
Algeron Wright, a consultant affiliated with Allee’s Transportation LLC (what appears to be an…actual transportation company?) in South Carolina, was also hired through Brown in December to convince “DAs” (presumably, direct associates) at Amazon’s DAX5 facility in California not to join the Teamsters Local 630. Wright’s report, filed months late, does not disclose how much he is billing for the job. A more recent report Wright filed for Amazon-related work in February, however, lists a billing rate of $2,000 per day, “plus reasonable expenses.” Wright, for his part, is pretty explicit about what his job is: “to prevent Union from organizing their employees for purposes of collective bargaining.” Unclear how well that’s going for him. Delivery drivers at Amazon’s DAX5 facility in Industry, CA publicly announced their intent to join the Teamsters in November, first demanding voluntary union recognition from Amazon through a “March on the Boss.” I don’t see much of any reporting offering an update on organizing activity at DAX5 since workers there joined a national strike action in December.
“As a single mother and sole provider of five daughters, I can’t accept subpar benefits and unlivable wages, and I shouldn’t have to when I work at one of the world’s most profitable companies,” said Vanessa Valdez, an Amazon worker at DAX5, in a statement. “I’m so proud to be joining the Teamsters and coming together with Amazon warehouse workers and drivers across the country to fight for living wages and fair treatment.”
Webs Pierre, a labor consultant affiliated with Bridge Labor Solutions in Altamonte Springs (presumably related to fellow union-buster Wildine Pierre Barrett, a registered manager of the firm), was enlisted by Jessica Thomas of the Nevada-based Quest Consulting firm in January to convince drivers, warehouse workers, and call center employees of Empire Auto Parts in Newark, NJ not to unionize with the Teamsters Local 863. According to Thomas, Pierre was one of seven anti-union consultants she brought it for the job, with all consultants billing between $300 to $500 per hour “including travel and expenses.” Workers ultimately voted 24 to 59 against unionization, according to the National Labor Relations Board.
Going deeper: It’s worth noting that Thomas incorrectly listed Pierre’s business address as the address of a Staples retail store (not kidding) in Louisville, Kentucky. Pierre’s affiliated firm, Bridge Labor Solutions, is not a registered business in Kentucky, according to Kentucky state records, but it is a registered business in Florida. Whether it was a typo, an honest mistake, or purposeful is unclear. Under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959, persuaders are required to list an accurate mailing address for their business, as well as their legal names. As I (and others) have reported in the past, this doesn’t always happen, but enforcement of such requirements are weak (and likely to get worse under the Trump administration).
That’s it for February! Thoughts? Concerns? Constructive feedback? Let me know what you think of round-ups like this. Drop a comment below or visit my contact page to find the best way to reach me.