FORT MYERS, Fla. — Fort Myers city employees are fighting for wage increases that would bring their pay in line with neighboring cities, according to union leaders who say the current compensation structure has turned the city into a "training ground" for workers who quickly leave for better-paying jobs somewhere else.
Watch Fort Myers Community Correspondent Miyoshi Price's report:
David Jimenez, local president of Local 2301, which represents Fort Myers city employees, said the wage disparity is creating retention problems that affect critical city services. Fort Myers currently pays a minimum wage of $15.61 per hour, while Lee County pays $17 and Cape Coral pays $17.16, according to Jimenez.
"It's irresponsible to balance that budget on the back of the employees," Jimenez said. "When they had the study, they indicated that Fort Myers city employees have a 1.6 year average service. At this point, it's a training ground. People are coming in, getting the training taxpayers in Fort Myers are paying for that training, and then they're just jumping ship and going elsewhere for more pay."
The union wants to raise the minimum wage to $17 per hour in the first year of a new contract, which would bring Fort Myers to the 50th percentile among regional municipalities. The affected positions include administrative staff who process permits, code officers, water plant operators, wastewater plant workers, special event crews, solid waste workers, and many more.
"We're talking about your water plant operators that when you turn on that tap, we don't think about it, but to ensure you have safe drinking water coming to your house," Jimenez said. "There's a lot of critical jobs that sometimes we all just take for granted they're being done, but behind that job is a worker, and that worker has a responsibility to their family to bring home adequate pay."
Contract negotiations began in April 2025, but progress stalled when a compensation study was completed in October. According to Jimenez, city management decided to exclude certain data from East Coast cities because they showed higher pay rates.
"Data starts coming in, and then the data gets changed. After you spend all this money to get this data done, data gets changed to fit what they're looking at budget wise," Jimenez said. "To us, that's just not responsible management towards employees."
The union's last negotiation session with the city was December 18, 2025.
"We should have been done in October. Everyone should have got their raises then that would have carried into Christmas and the holidays. And that didn't happen," Jimenez said.
During the previous three-year contract, employees received a $3 per hour across-the-board increase just to catch up with other local municipalities. However, Jimenez said inflation and a cap on cost-of-living adjustments have caused workers to fall behind again by approximately 4.9%.
The wage issue extends beyond Fort Myers, according to Jimenez, who described it as a regional labor problem. Naples pays a minimum of $20.18 per hour, while Marco Island pays $16.46 and Collier County pays $17, based on data from city websites.
"All these municipalities, they look at the local comparables, and if you're keeping rates down, you're less likely to have highly qualified individuals to get our area to move," Jimenez said.
Union members rallied at a recent city council meeting, wearing yellow shirts to show solidarity. Jimenez said surveys sent to union members showed support for continuing negotiations rather than accepting the city's current proposals.
"We don't want to be a training ground anymore. We don't want to bring in someone, train them for a year just for them to go elsewhere, rinse and repeat year after year," Jimenez said.
Price reached out to the City of Fort Myers for an interview, but they declined, stating: "Given the sensitivity of the matter, we're not going to interview on union negotiations."
Jimenez said he planned to contact the city to request another negotiation session. He encouraged community members to contact their council representatives to support fair compensation for city employees.
"Write your council member that you want city employees to be fairly compensated," Jimenez said. "These employees should have received their raises in October, and here we are in January, still talking about their pay."
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