Growing Trouble in the Middle West
While Wisconsin has been getting all of the press lately, attacks on workers and their unions are escalating across the country, with resistance also growing. On Monday, 10,000 workers demonstrated at Indiana’s statehouse against a range of anti-worker bills before the legislature.
The laws would make Indiana a “right-to-work” state (AKA Right to Work for Less), which would lower wages and gut bargaining rights for many public and private sector workers, including teachers. Despite the protests and testimony by workers against the bill, the Indiana House labor committee voted 8-5 to send the bill to the full house for approval.
Current law requires non-union contractors to pay union scale wages. The new laws would ban this, creating an incentive for contractors to hire non-union labor and lower their wages in order