Happy Labor Day, friend.

While many of us will spend the day off consoling our kids over the end of summer break, I want to take a moment to express my appreciation for the labor movement here in Florida and my solidarity in the fight ahead.

Conditions that many of us take for granted — like the 40-hour workweek; the minimum wage; safety, child labor, and anti-discrimination laws; and, for the most fortunate among us, paid leave, benefits, and pensions — would not exist without the courage and sacrifice of organized workers years ago.

But right now, even for two-income households, working Floridians are barely scraping by. From the rising costs of home insurance and housing to health care, prices are skyrocketing, while take-home pay just isn't keeping up.

Our state's affordability crisis has left it too difficult for too many Floridians just to "make it" — and our multimillionaire, fraudster former-CEO senator, whose wealth has only multiplied since taking office, is doing nothing about it.

Now, I know that Rick Scott will try to point at my celebration of organized labor as just another reason why I'm a big bad "socialista."

But no amount of petty name-calling could ever make me shy away from fighting alongside working families for the fair wages, safe workplaces, and access to high-quality health care that all of us deserve. 

Really, it only goes to show how out of touch he is with the hardworking families across our state struggling to make ends meet — and if we consider his record, it's crystal-clear that Rick Scott is nothing more than a scab.

During his tenure as governor, he threatened port workers with the Taft-Hartley Act — the corporate elite's 1947 counterattack on unions that began the labor movement's decades-long decline — to ensure that our seaports kept raking in cash at the cost of those working themselves to the bone to generate that profit.

And his scabby streak continued in the Senate, where he helped Trump appoint a pro-business, anti-regulation Wall Street lawyer as the Secretary of Labor (yikes!) and even voted to BLOCK a deal granting a mere seven days of paid sick leave for the 17,000 railroad workers working brutal hours and in brutal conditions to sustain the economy on a grueling, 24/7/365 on-call schedule.

Here in Florida, it’s gotten even worse. Rick Scott’s allies have rolled back child labor laws, and banned heat protections for workers.

In short, workers' rights here at home and nationwide have been under attack from greedy companies and their political cronies for too long. 

And as someone who had to work at a minimum wage job as a teenager just to help my family keep a roof over our heads, I know firsthand that we need to do more to support hardworking Floridians who are struggling.

That's why I say ya no más — and so do Floridians in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the Communication Workers of America (CWA), and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), labor unions whose endorsements I'm so honored to have earned.

This Labor Day, I'm more fired up than ever to fight alongside them — from the picket line, to the negotiation tables, to the halls of Congress — to ensure all working families have the same opportunities and freedoms as the ultrawealthy corporate CEOs and corrupt politicians in their back pockets. 

With their support, and with yours, I am more determined than ever to be a voice for Florida’s workers in the U.S. Senate.

Debbie