A bill filed in the Florida Senate this year that aimed to disincentivize employers from allowing their workers an easier process to organize a union, but didn’t pass, came from an anti-union Michigan-based think tank that is known for lobbying state legislatures across the country.
That’s according to public email records and documents obtained this week by Orlando Weekly, revealing that Workers for Opportunity, a “workplace freedom” initiative of the “free-market” Mackinac Center for Public Policy, all but spoon-fed the Florida bill to Sen. Ralph Massullo, the bill’s sponsor in the Florida Senate.
“Attached is the union draft bill that we spoke about. It is ready to file,” Jorge Chamizo, a registered lobbyist for Mackinac Center Action, wrote in an email to Sen. Massullo’s aide on Jan. 6, 2026 — the same day that Sen. Massullo filed the bill for consideration during lawmakers’ 2026 legislative session.
The bill, SB 1236, is based on a cookie-cutter policy template from the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, a network of right-wing lawmakers with which the Mackinac Center is affiliated.
Massullo, a Republican from rural Citrus County, wouldn’t be able to carry it alone, however. “Rep. Toby Overdorf will be the House sponsor,” Chamizo confirmed in the email.
And indeed, Overdorf — a Republican from Palm City — was.
Legislative records show Overdorf filed his version of the bill (HB 1387) on Jan. 9 in the Florida House, where it ultimately failed to secure a floor vote, despite clearing its three assigned legislative committees. The Senate version, carried by Massullo, stalled after passing its first committee in a 6-3 vote along party lines.
“I thought we were about limited government,” said Larry Downs Jr., a fourth-generation plumber from the Florida Panhandle, testifying against the Senate bill in early February. “It seems like every time there’s another bill come, it’s about more government and more overreach and more nanny state telling us what we can and can’t do.”
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a pro-labor Democrat from Orlando, described the bill in debate as “creative union-busting.” Still, creative as it may be, it’s not a novel proposal.
Like other, nearly identical bills muscled through state legislatures in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and most recently Mississippi, SB 1236 served as an unusual effort by the state to undermine private-sector unions, which are predominantly regulated by the federal government, not the state.
The bil specifically sought to prohibit employers in Florida that receive state economic incentives, such as certain grants and tax exemptions, from entering into neutrality agreements with unions. A neutrality agreement is a commitment by an employer to not try to persuade workers either way on their choice to unionize.
The bill would have also disincentivized employers from granting what is known as voluntary union recognition to their employees by similarly disqualifying employers who do so from receiving state economic incentives.
Violators would face off with the state attorney general, who under the proposal would be authorized to recover funds awarded to any employers who violated the prohibition.
“If we’re going to give tax incentives, we will choose those companies that have unionized through secret ballot, because we believe that gives the workers the most protection,” Massullo argued during the bill’s first and final hearing on Feb. 4.
Voluntary union recognition, also known as a card check, is a pathway toward unionization that doesn’t require going through a “secret ballot” union election. Labor advocates have argued that union elections conducted by the federal National Labor Relations Board can prolong the process of forming a union, in favor of employers that wish to use that time to persuade workers against unionizing.
Instead, through the voluntary recognition process, a simple majority (50 percent plus one) of workers who would be represented by the union just need to sign cards in support of unionization and present them to their employer for review.
If the employer is satisfied with the show of support, they can choose to voluntarily recognize the union, in a show of good faith, and begin negotiating a union contract.
Employers such as Ben & Jerry’s, Minor League Baseball, SSP — a food service contractor for the Tampa International Airport — and the Florida-based nonprofit Youth Action Fund are examples of employers that have chosen to do so, instead of fighting their workers and insisting on an NLRB election.
“By taking this important step, YAF has recommitted to our values of economic justice for young workers,” Youth Action Fund founder and executive director Cameron Driggers told Orlando Weekly for a story about the new YAF union last month.
Anti-union advocates, including the Mackinac Center, however, argue that voluntary recognition robs workers of the “private choice” to vote on whether to form a union and is therefore anti-worker and anti-freedom.
“This legislation ensures the right to a secret or private ballot election on union representation for workers employed at corporations and entities receiving taxpayer-funded incentives in the state of Florida,” reads a one-page flyer on the bill from Workers for Opportunity emailed to Sen. Massullo’s office on Jan. 27, just a few days before its first hearing.
Unfortunately for Massullo, the one-pager wasn’t enough.
During the bill’s first and only committee stop, Massullo struggled to answer questions about how it would work in practice. He was also forced to correct himself after he mischaracterized the bill’s position on union neutrality agreements.
“My understanding is that neutrality agreements are prohibited under your bill —” Sen. Guillermo-Smith began, during questioning. “No, they’re not prohibited,” Massullo interrupted.
“They’re authorized,” he stated confidently. “We want neutrality agreements.”
Problem is, that’s not what the legislation actually calls for.
And this wasn’t lost on Smith, who subsequently called his Republican colleague out on it.
“My understanding is, in order for a company to be eligible for economic development incentives, you’re saying employers must sign agreements stating that they will not sign neutrality agreements with labor organizations. But I just heard you say that they’re required — that they’re authorized to have a neutrality agreement,” Smith pointed out, narrowing his eyes. “Help me understand the discrepancy there.”
Massullo, reviewing the legislation in front of him, proceeded to silently read over the legislation for nearly 30 seconds, before admitting, “I was incorrect. You are correct. They cannot have that in place.”
Is Florida still business-friendly?
It was a telling display — not just for the journalists paying attention, but also for opponents to the bill, such as the Florida AFL-CIO, which argued the bill’s intent is antithetical to Florida Republicans’ governing philosophy of recent years, if history is to be believed.
“We would ask you to vote no on this legislation, just to be consistent with the governing philosophy I’ve heard out of this chamber for over a decade that we do not want government interfering with the operations of private businesses — and that’s exactly what this legislation does,” Dr. Rich Templin, director of politics and public policy for the Florida AFL-CIO pointed out during public testimony on the bill with no small amount of irony.
The Florida AFL-CIO is a statewide federation of over 500 labor unions that represent more than one million Florida union members and retirees collectively.
Templin, a longtime lobbyist who’s fought to defend worker protections in the Legislature over the last 20 years, is used to the business-friendly landscape in the state Legislature and its concerted efforts to avoid over-regulating Florida employers at the behest of business lobbying groups.
He told the Weekly, when contacted for this story, that he wasn’t surprised the bill came from an out-of-state think tank. “We’ve known for a few years now that Florida has become a billionaire think-tank playground, and that’s unfortunate,” Templin acknowledged in a phone call.
Templin said the bill, as written, would have threatened pivotal industries in Florida such as the tourism industry — where a number of neutrality and labor peace agreements exist — and would have stained Florida’s reputation as a business-friendly environment.
“We’ve known for a few years now that Florida has become a billionaire think-tank playground, and that’s unfortunate.”
Dr. Rich Templin, director of politics and public policy for the Florida AFL-CIO
“There’s no single company that has to enter into these agreements,” Templin explained. “They do so voluntarily.” One reason they do so, he said, is because labor peace goes both ways. It’s a commitment by the employer, but also one by unions to settle disputes directly with employers and not pick fights.
“Where those agreements do not exist and workers go public [with disputes], that leads to picket lines, that leads to canceled reservations, that leads to hotel disruptions and that costs the industry money,” Templin said.
Tourism is a driving economic force in Orlando — the home of Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Orlando and other renowned tourist attractions — but Templin said other major industries, such as the automotive and aerospace industries, could be impacted, too.
“It’s good for the workers and it’s good for the business owners,” Templin said of union neutrality agreements. “And why the Florida Legislature would intervene is a huge problem. It’s hypocritical, and it makes no sense, but it illustrates the power that these out-of-state think tanks and the billionaires who fund them. … It indicates the power and influence they now have over the legislative process.”
An anti-union power player
Workers for Opportunity, one of many anti-union groups lobbying in the halls and inboxes of the Florida Legislature, was launched by the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy — an affiliate of ALEC’s sister organization, the State Policy Network — in 2019 as a national initiative to “advance workplace freedom” across the country.
Notably, its notion of freedom is rooted in a puportedly “pro-worker” mission to “free” workers from unions. Across the country, Workers for Opportunity and Mackinac Center Action (a dark-money lobbying arm), have supported anti-union laws targeting union neutrality agreements, restricting the ways that union members can pay dues (just to make it that much harder for unions to receive those dues), and in favor of outright bans on public sector collective bargaining altogether.
Florida, notably, is one of just a half-dozen states in the U.S. that enshrines the right to collective bargaining in its state Constitution — a document that’s a lot harder for anti-union GOP lawmakers to amend than state statutes.
But there are other ways that groups ideologically opposed to government unions can make a dent in undermining them. And boy howdy, don’t they know it.
In Florida, Workers for Opportunity also supported legislation (SB 256) in 2023 — championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of his failed bid for U.S. President — that prohibited most public employees from paying union dues through a paycheck deduction, while requiring at least 60 percent of workers in a union to pay dues in order for the union to remain certified.
If public employee unions have a dues-paying membership below that, they now have to gather signatures from at least 30 percent of workers and petition the state for a recertification election annually, or else they are automatically decertified. Exceptions were explicitly baked in for police, firefighter and correctional officer unions, which are known for generally endorsing Republicans for elected office.
So far, state records show that more than 120 public employee unions across Florida have been decertified by the state Public Employees Relations Commission — mostly for failing to petition for recertification — although at least 10 groups of workers have since reorganized, either with the same or a different union.
“I don’t care if it’s a Disney cast member, if it’s a construction worker, if it’s a public employee — everyone deserves the right to be represented by somebody to fight for them,” Todd Provost, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 606, told Orlando Weekly in an interview about one of these new reorganizing efforts.
Workers for Opportunity also supported a follow-up to that 2023 law (SB 1296) passed this year in the Florida Legislature — after dozens of workers testified against it — that raised the bar for how many workers need to participate in a union election for their vote to actually matter.
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Under current law, just a simple majority of workers need to vote in favor of unionization or recertification. But that’s about to change.
Effective July 1, at least half of workers will need to vote in a union election, and at least 50 percent of workers who vote will have to vote in favor of forming or recertifying their union in order for the union to prevail.
“I think you’re going to see a lot more locals [unions] decertified,” Templin admitted in a previous interview about the new law. “But I think you’re going to see a hell of a lot of organizing, and all of those unions, you know, coming back under this new ridiculous rule.”
About 27 percent of the public sector is unionized in Florida, compared to less than four percent of the private sector. With state legislators and a governor who’s willing to do corporate-funded think tanks’ bidding, you can see why groups like Workers for Opportunity would take the chance to go after unions in local and state government.
But they’re not alone.
Workers for Opportunity is not unlike other corporate-funded think tanks and legal defense organizations, such as the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity and the Freedom Foundation, that similarly supported Florida’s SB 1236.
An email signed by Americans for Prosperity Florida lobbyist Skylar Zander to Florida senators on the day of its first hearing – obtained by the Weekly through a records request — argued that SB 1236 “promotes responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars” and “protects workers’ rights.” He urged senators to support it.
“Americans for Prosperity strongly supports policies that limit corporate welfare, protect workers, and ensure accountability when taxpayer resources are at stake,” the email read. “SB 1236 reflects these principles by setting reasonable guardrails on incentive agreements while maintaining Florida’s pro‑growth economic climate.”
Not all lawmakers or workers who stand to be directly impacted agreed.
Several opponents in the building and construction trades, for instance, warned state legislators that SB 1236 would reduce penalize subcontractors in the trades who turn to unions for skilled labor.
“My livelihood relies on the success of our local contractors to secure work for us. If this bill were to pass, our contractors would be punished simply for trying to find or trying to use the local workforce that works under a collective bargaining agreement that’s been voluntarily recognized as such,” said Shayne Tremblay, a journeyman electrician from Jacksonville, during the bill’s Senate hearing in February. “This bill is a direct attack on my livelihood.”
The bill was approved during that initial February hearing along party lines, although at least one Republican acknowledged he had issues with it. “I’ll support the bill today, but I am taking into account what all of our speakers said today, and appreciate that they all came to give their input,” said Sen. Clay Yarborough, a Republican from Jacksonville.
Chamizo, the registered lobbyist for Workers for Opportunity, emailed Sen. Massullo’s office an amended version of Senate Bill 1236 shortly after its troubled first hearing.
“Although its [sic] not perfect, I think something like this would address the concerns that were raised by individuals Senators today in committee,” he wrote in an email to Massullo’s aide, with a document titled “SB 1236 with Edits” attached.
The suggested edits included an exemption for subcontractors of employers who have agreements with the state for tax incentives, and specified that the ban would only apply to new economic incentive agreements between employers and a state agency — not agreements that have already been established.
The changes suggested by Chamizo, a Florida-based lobbyist who lobbies on behalf of a number of organizations, did not see the light of day in the Senate before the end of the 60-day legislative session.
The House version of the bill (HB 1387), on the other hand, advanced further, with an amendment that carved out subcontractors, as a compromise. It was approved by three committees of lawmakers along party lines — despite worker testimony against it — before dying on the House calendar without a final vote by the full chamber before the end of session.
Will it return?
Templin, with the Florida AFL-CIO, said he’d be surprised if the bill isn’t refiled in the Florida Legislature for consideration next year. Still, he’s optimistic that there are “a lot of good legislators” on both ends of the political spectrum who will be receptive to organized labor’s concerns.
“We are confident, if we put the information in front of them — and not be simple talking points that the think-tanks and their lobbyists forward to them … they will see that this is a more complicated issue,” he said. “It’s not black and white, and it’s probably something they should leave up to business owners to determine.”
Final note: Lastly, if Chamizo’s name sounds familiar to Orlando Weekly readers, it might be because he also lobbied for a bill this year targeting gender-affirming care providers (and anyone who “aids or abets” them) on behalf of the anti-LGBTQ group Do No Harm.
That bill (SB 1010), sponsored by GOP Sen. Clay Yarborough, didn’t pass either.
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