FISHER ISLAND, Fla. –- Exclusive Fisher Island located on what used to be the Vanderbilt Estate in Miami is probably the last place you’d expect to find a labor union trying to organize its workers, but that’s exactly what the Service Employees International Union is doing.

According to The New York Times, after successful campaigns last year to organize janitors and other maintenance workers at several universities in South Florida, the union has set its sights on Fisher Island.

With data continuing to show the substantial widening of the income gap over the last two decades, the service employees union, writes the newspaper, hopes that Fisher Island will serve as a rallying cry for low-wage service workers throughout the U.S.

"This is a symbol of what’s wrong and a beacon of what could be right,” Stephen Lerner, director of the union’s property services division told the newspaper.

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"There is a growing feeling in the country that something is a little out of balance when workers live in poverty in the middle of incredible wealth, and it can and should be fixed,” he said.

The union’s efforts have gotten a mixed reception. While some residents, not surprisingly, are opposed to the union’s arrival, others are being courted by the union with hopes they’ll be moved to support it. But even among the employees interested in joining the union, the disparities in incomes don’t seem to be the prime motivation.

Still, even though the two main employers on Fisher Island say their wages and benefits are above the area average, the union says the local wage comparison "are almost beside the point.”

Citing the vast differences between the money held by the workers employed on Fisher Island and the people who live there, the union says Fisher Island "is a microcosm of the nation’s increasing social and economic divide.”

According to sources, a share in the Fisher Island golf club costs $250,000 and dues run to $20,000 a year. In comparison, the article reads, workers who tend the groups or wash linens can make as little as $8.50 an hour. New condos are being offered for $4.5 million to $9.1 million.

But, the article states, some residents defend their incomes and cited the island’s philanthropic fund, which raised $550,000 to $600,000 last year for donations to several children’s charities in the area.

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