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| International Vice President Ken Wood and FDOC Capt. Mike Riley. |
That was the message from International Vice President Ken Wood and our new Teamster brother, Capt. Mike Riley, a Florida Department of Corrections officer and proud member of Local 2011.
Wood gracefully thanked all the Teamsters from all over the country who helped organize 20,000 FDOC officers in December:
Every Teamster walk of life was there.But, he said, it took the involvement of the FDOC officers to start building Local 2011.
They said, 'Hey it's time, I want a union, I want to be involved, I want the ballot to vote on negotiations.'Riley described how the International helped the correctional officers beat back powerful forces to defeat a prison privatization bill in the Florida Legislature. That bill would have jeopardized 5,000 jobs.
His former union insisted that correctional officers stay away from their legislators -- even chastising members who emailed their state representatives. Said Riley,
The Teamsters said, 'No that's not the way we do things. Officers will get out there, they will tell them who you are.'Riley said that on the day of the vote,
One of the senators stood up and said she'd spent most of the day in her office with correctional officerss and their families. She talked to a correctional officers' 8-year-old daughter, who told her how privatization would affect her family. She voted no....And he continued:
The involvement of officers and the International made an unbeatable combination...The biggest question I've heard is, 'How did we defeat privatization?' The amount of money spent by the company that tried to privatize was tremendous. They outspent us 4-1.
The simple answer: We were doing the right things for the right reason and we had somebody behind us showing us how to do things the right way. We had the power of the Teamsters.Riley concluded with a surefire applause line:
It's a great day to be a Teamster.
