Jobs are plentiful and inflation has begun to subside as the COVID-19 pandemic moves further into rear view, all signs that point towards a gradual return to normalcy.
But that reality would not be evident to those watching hundreds of displeased workers march through South Florida’s streets over the last few weeks, banging buckets and dancing in scrubs or union T-shirts and holding signs reading “one job should be enough.”
Labor activity across the region — and the rest of the country — has reached a fervor in recent months. On the same early October day in Miami, nurses from across the region marched through downtown to demand better staffing and working conditions while hundreds of catering workers at Miami International Airport rallied outside to demand the wages necessary to afford the city’s soaring cost of living.
Inflation-adjusted wages in South Florida remain well below what they used to be and lag behind the rest of the country, reports show. Those conditions, compounded by long-simmering grievances among overworked employees and uncertainty over what the future holds, have exploded into rallies and strikes.
“Workers who have been working quite hard due to the labor shortage and have been working for a real inflation-adjusted-wage that’s less than they anticipated are understandably frustrated,” said Will Luther, a business and economics professor at Florida Atlantic University, “and maybe hoping to negotiate for what is effectively back pay they feel that they’re owed.”
Standing in the rain outside of the Miami airport earlier this month, airline catering workers demanded a living wage, holding posters reading “fed up,” “one job should be enough” and “we want $20 for our work.”
The living wage for Miami-Dade County is estimated to be just over $20, but the median wage for Sky Chefs, the airline catering contractors, is $16 per hour, according to a media release from the workers’ union, Unite Here Local 355. The release says hospitality workers are going through an “economic crisis.”
Florida’s minimum wage hit $12 in September. Voters approved an amendment in 2020 to increase the minimum wage incrementally each year, until it reaches $15 in 2026.
In speeches at the rally, workers said they were struggling to afford rent and health care while their bosses continued to profit.
“Miami airport is huge,” Roy James, an airport server who joined the protest to show support, said in a speech. “The companies there make a lot of money, a lot, it’s a crazy amount of money that they make every single day. And it’s not fair they take all that money for them, and not spend it on the people who work very hard, who made a lot of sacrifices to provide that level of service so they can make that level of money.”
Another worker said in a speech that she came to the U.S. from Haiti for a better life, but now everything is expensive, from food to gas. One of the airline catering workers is recovering from cancer, a protest organizer said, but can’t afford check-ups because she isn’t paid enough.
“Shame on you!” the workers chanted. “Shame on you!”
South Florida’s workers have seen “higher levels of inflation than the national average but lower income growth,” according to the September “State of Working in Florida” report from the Florida International University’s Center for Labor and Research Studies.
If the Miami-metro area is indicative of the rest of the state, the report continues, then “Floridians have experienced a drastic decline in real, inflation-adjusted income and earnings since the pandemic.”
The United States saw an increase in core inflation of 5.3 percentage points between February 2020 and when inflation peaked in September 2022 at 6.6%. Meanwhile, the Miami metropolitan area saw a 9.8% increase, peaking at 10.5% in April 2023.
South Florida’s housing prices already skyrocketed during the pandemic; coupled with inflation, the costs continue to make it impossible for some employees to live in the area.
Housing costs increased by 15.3%, more than double the rate of the national average of 8.2%, the report says, the same as a $2,000 monthly rent payment increasing to over $2,300.
“While the United States was able to rein in inflation last fall, the Miami metro area didn’t experience a slowdown in inflation until this summer,” researchers wrote.
The FIU report offers two solutions: An increase in income support from the government, and raising wages through higher minimum wages and collective bargaining.
“I think one reason why we’re seeing many strikes now is because those collective bargaining agreements which have been renegotiated with a bit of a lag, and perhaps not to same extent as other wage and salary agreements, are now being renegotiated,” Luther said.
Normally, contract renewals occur on a sort of “autopilot,” he added. “But in cases of unexpected high inflation, those usual adjustments aren’t enough. So then we have to engage in more explicit renegotiation with our employers, in an environment that’s much less certain than one we’re usually operating in.”
Even as the slowing trend continues, rallies and strikes are emerging out of long-festering discontent.
For nurses in South Florida’s hospitals, pent-up frustrations over staffing shortages and working conditions culminated in the rally earlier this month.
Adding to their grievances is the fact that Florida state law prohibits public employees from striking, which is why the nurses say they chose to march, knowing their movement wouldn’t receive the kind of national attention paid to the recent strikes by autoworkers and Hollywood writers.
“We can’t do that here,” said Vicki Gonzalez, a registered nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital and president of SEIU Local 1991. “It’s almost like our hands are tied.”
The nurses say they have suffered for a few years: Staffing levels at hospitals have not been “up to par” for a long time, said Marlyn Hoilette, a registered nurse at HCA Florida Palms West hospital and member of the union, SEIU 1199 in Florida, who participated in the march earlier this month. The pandemic made it worse.
That trend held true in industries across South Florida; as people flocked to South Florida during COVID, demand for services, which are very “labor intensive,” increased, said Luther.
Many nurses left during the height of the pandemic and hospitals have not yet returned to the same numbers, Gonzalez and Hoilette said. The ones who stay are constantly asked to work overtime, and turnover rates are high as older nurses leave, replaced by nurses with less experience.
“You have the conversation, ‘today we’re just asking you to do this,’” said Gonzalez. “But it becomes every day. You have an extra patient, or you need to work overtime, you can’t take a break. In the end it just wears people down.”
The nurses also say that the conditions endanger patients, especially those who might need extra attention, such as those who are confused and at risk for falls.
And when the nurses aren’t happy, their moods affect patients as well, Gonzalez said: “You don’t go into a patient’s room with a smile on your face if everything is burning outside the hall.”