INDIANAPOLIS — Among the thousands of union supporters who showed up for a massive rally outside the Indiana Statehouse Thursday was 11-year-old Devon Short of Terre Haute, wearing a sticker-covered hardhat and carrying a big sign that read, “Republicans hate puppies and kids.”
Intentionally attention-getting, the sign was an indication of the intensity of the emotion that produced the largest gathering of pro-labor protesters since Indiana House Democrats walked out of the Statehouse nearly three weeks ago.
A fight that started over a contentious Republican-backed “right-to-work” bill has escalated, protesters said, into a battle to save unions and the middle class.
“This is an historic moment,” said Devon’s dad, Trent Short, of the estimated 8,000 people who withstood icy winds and a few snow flurries to listen to a series of speakers and singers. “I wanted him to see what the union movement is all about.”
Devon has gotten a quick lesson in it. His father is a union organizer for the Laborers’ International Union and his mother is a public school teacher. Trent Short said both of their livelihoods are threatened by Republican-backed legislation targeting unions and public education.
The “right to work” bill, which would have outlawed employment agreements that require union membership and fees as a condition of employment, was pulled by Republican leaders in the Statehouse shortly after House Democrats walked out on Feb. 22.
But the thousands of union steelworkers, autoworkers, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters, laborers, teachers and others drawn to the rally chanted, sang, and otherwise voiced their opposition to other legislation still alive. On that list: GOP-backed bills that the Indiana AFL-CIO said would weaken collective bargaining for public employees and teachers, eliminate union-wage guarantees on public projects, and undermine public education by sending tax dollars to private schools.
The crowd was buoyed by a string of speakers who urged them to make their presence known. Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott said it was skilled craftsmen who built the Statehouse more than a century ago.
“The working men and women of Indiana have come back to take back the people’s house for the people,” she said to a cheering crowd.
Jeremiah Johnson, a 33-year-old union ironworker from Hymera, said he joined protesters as a show of support for teachers. “Look, if they’re going after their collective bargaining rights, they’ll be after ours as well,” Johnson said.
That’s the message delivered to the crowd by Anderson teacher Marisa Graham. “Collective bargaining is our voice,” she said.
That was a sentiment echoed by Mark Hornstein, a retired Chrysler autoworker from Kokomo, who said he and others came to support the teachers’ unions. “We’re out here for our union brothers and sisters,” Hornstein said. “This is bringing us all together for a common fight to save all working people.”
And the sentiment was echoed again by Fred Bowles, a retired union laborer who traveled to the Statehouse with members of the Laborers’ local based in New Albany. “Union folks kind of went to sleep there for a while, but this has woke us up,” Bowles said.
Bowles and Hornstein have been at the Statehouse several times in the last few weeks to join protesters who’ve gathered inside the building to cheer and chant every time Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma announced that boycotting Democrats had kept the House from the 67-member quorum needed to do business.
Bosma expressed frustration in a statement issued by his office late Thursday. In it, Bosma said that Democrats have mischaracterized the Republican legislative agenda as damaging to public education and workers. He said the real GOP agenda would create more education options for families and more high-wage jobs for all workers, union or non-union.
“This is the clear agenda House Republicans ran on in November, and this is what we continue to stand for today,” Bosma said.
He also called for House Democrats to return from the Urbana, Ill., hotel where they’ve been holed up for much of the walkout.
There was no word from House Democrats as to whether they were ready to do that. Earlier in the week, Rep. Terry Goodin, D-Austin, told Statehouse reporters that he and his colleagues were prepared to stay out indefinitely unless House Republicans were willing to back off some of the labor and education bills.
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