Labor & Employment Law

Indiana House Democrats Vow to Keep Fighting For Workers

By James Parks

Indiana House Democrats tonight told Hoosier voters they are going to stand firm and fight to save the state’s  middle class. During a telephone town hall meeting the representatives said Gov. Mitch Daniels’ radical anti-worker agenda would destroy the state’s schools and local economies.

Democratic members of the state House are in their third week out of state in an Urbana, Ill. hotel. They left the state to prevent a quorum to consider the anti-worker legislation.

Some 25,000 people are expected to march and rally at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis Thursday for the “We Are Indiana” rally.  The mass demonstration will be hosted by ?Stand Up for Hoosiers,? a coalition of unions, education, community and social advocacy groups. In the past three weeks, more than 40,000 Hoosiers have protested the anti-worker agenda of Daniels and the state legislature. Smaller rallies also will be held in local communities across the state.

Rep. Scott Pelath said this was a grerat moment in Indiana history and the Democrats were giving up pay and being with their families because they could afford to.

We’re doing it for those who can’t.

Reps. Vernon Smith and Kreg Battles said the Republcan plans would take funding from publkic schools and shift it to private schools.

Rep. David Niezgodski said plans to eliminate project labor agreements would hurt communities and small business by lowering wages. Rep. Chuck Moseley summed it up by saying this struggle is about working Hoosiers all over the state, whether they belong to a union or not. 

All this is about a race to the botom in terms of wages. When you drive down wages in organized sectors, you drive them down in all sectors. 

Today was the 17th consecutive day that working people marched and rallied at the Statehouse. ?These attacks on the working men and women are nothing new,? said Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott.

We?ve fought back ?right-to-work? before, we?ll fight it back again. They tried these same attacks in 1995, but they failed because we organized and made our voices heard.

Following the funeral for the middle class yesterday, a trial was held today at the Statehouse as the bills that attempt to kill the middle class were put on trial. ?This legislation is facing the charge of assault on the middle class,? said the judge presiding over the tounge-in-cheek hearing. After descriptions of all 11 bills were read, the verdict was unanimously ‘guilty.’  Click here to see video of the proceedings.

Stan Corson, Vice President of IBEW Local  481, agrees with the verdict. ?These bills are not an attack on just the unions; they?re an attack on working men and women across Indiana,? he said. ?It?s an attack against all of us.?

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 09, 2011 (boomark / email).