INDIANAPOLIS — In a Statehouse dominated by pro-business Republicans, Indiana’s labor unions are working to elevate their profile.
Their leadership is calling in the forces, mobilizing members en masse to protest what they’ve called an “anti-worker agenda” with far-reaching consequences.
The several hundred steelworkers who filled the hallways outside the House and Senate chambers Tuesday were the latest group of union members — from teachers to grocery clerks — who’ve been making their presence known since the General Assembly convened in early January.
Jeff Harris, an Indiana State AFL-CIO spokesman, said union leaders are working in concert to create a “higher-profile presence” this session to counteract what he called “an onslaught of bills that affect workers.”
Those bills include proposals to reduce jobless benefits, eliminate prevailing-wage agreements, and — through a so-called “right to work” bill — put an end to employment policies that make union membership and fees a condition of the job.
Nancy Guyott, president of the state AFL-CIO, has been tracking more than 300 pieces of legislation this session. She’s become a fixture in the Statehouse, testifying on bills that impact members in 800 local unions.
Guyott described the current legislative session as pivotal, arguing that unions, through the benefits and wages they’ve negotiated for their members, guarantee the existence of a broad middle class.
“The way I like to describe it: Are people going to have enough money to keep a decent roof over their heads, put food on their tables, help their children succeed in school and maybe still have enough money left for pizza and a movie on Friday night?” Guyott said. “That’s why we’re here. We’re trying to make sure those concerns get reflected in public policy.”
The majority of Republicans in the Statehouse argue their legislative priorities are aimed at improving the economic climate that would lead to job creation, and therefore help the middle class.
But that’s been a tough sell to union leaders, including those with the Indiana State Teachers Association who’ve been fighting legislation that would implement a merit-based pay system for teachers and eliminate the current pay structure based on seniority and degrees obtained.
Ed Feigenbaum, a longtime observer of the Indiana legislature and editor of the Indiana Legislative Insight newsletter, said labor’s influence wanes in Republican-dominated Statehouse.
But he credited them with being able to mobilize members at a critical moments, like the 1995 mass march on the Statehouse, when 25,000 union members and sympathizers showed up to protest legislation that would end prevailing wage agreements that guarantee higher wages for workers.
“They really rocked the Statehouse,” Feigenbaum said.
That event is still talked about among longtime legislators. It’s also cited as a reason why the right-to-work legislation endorsed by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce may not progress this session. Republican legislative leaders fear the bill is too divisive among their own members.
Labor sympathizers in the Statehouse, meanwhile, aren’t ready to surrender. On Wednesday, Democrat members on the Senate labor and pensions committee walked out of a hearing after they were blindsided by a last-minute amendment to a public employee pensions bill.
In doing so, they killed the quorum needed to conduct business and the committee hearing soon came to a halt.
It was the same day that the Senate education committee voted 7-2 along party lines for a bill that ties teacher pay to a yearly evaluation and diminishes the power of teachers’ unions to negotiate teacher pay.
State Sen. Tim Skinner, a Democrat from Terre Haute, was among those who walked out. He described the current legislative session as a “worst-case scenario for working men and women in the state of Indiana.” He said union members in Indiana were under attack and predicted that labor would be ramping up its presence in the Statehouse in response.
That may not be enough to stop some of the legislation from progressing, but it may have an impact. State Sen. Tim Lanane, a Democrat from Anderson, said lawmakers can’t help but notice when constituents crowd the hallways during a legislative session. “Does it ultimately win the day? That’s not clear,” Lanane said. “But it brings focus to their issues and gets people’s attention.”
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