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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / This has been going on since February

This has been going on since February

by Kay|  January 3, 20122:09 pm| 32 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize

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I’ve written before about conservative efforts in Indiana to destroy private sector unions. Union members and others filled the Indiana statehouse last February, but Mitch Daniels and his conservative allies (and the wealthy libertarians who finance them) are back for Round Two:

Nearly a year after legislatures in Wisconsin and several other Republican-dominated states curbed the power of public sector unions, lawmakers are now turning their sights toward private sector unions, setting up what is sure to be another political storm.

The thunderclouds are gathering first here in Indiana. The leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature say that when the legislative session opens on Wednesday, their No. 1 priority will be to push through a business-friendly piece of legislation known as a right-to-work law.

Remember: our betters in punditry and elite opinion told us over and over that they wanted to bust public sector unions because it was about the budget. They would never go after private sector unions. Union members here never bought that, because it was, well, a lie. Predictably, Daniels destroyed public sector unions and then came for the next group of people, because it’s about driving down wages, and sending that cash right up the line to the top 10%.

I love this part:

Indiana’s Republican leaders are eager to pass the bill — and end any related commotion — before Feb. 5, when the national spotlight turns to Indianapolis for the Super Bowl.

Conservatives are eager to screw the working people who voted for them, and get those noisy pests out of the statehouse before the Super Bowl starts. Commotion! Can’t have that unless it’s the Republican base waving signs and calling themselves the Tea Party.

I spoke to a Steelworker organizer/activist here in Ohio about Indiana two weeks ago, and they are fighting hard. I am really curious to see what effect the labor fights in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin are going to have on conservative prospects in 2012. This is a full-out assault on paychecks and quality of life, and while it’s true that union leadership supports Democrats, it is not true that union members are lock-step Democratic voters.

If the Indiana electorate is (around) 10% private sector union members, and half of those voters were voting GOP prior to this latest assault, we could be looking at another conservative over-reach that sparks a backlash, and moves a margin.

Anyway, the fun starts right after the Iowa primary. Hopefully working people in Indiana can make some noise and draw some attention away from the celebrity line-up in another “I” state in the middle.

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32Comments

  1. 1.

    Capri

    January 3, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    FWIW, it’s getting a lot of press in Indiana. Earlier Daniels’ moves didn’t get a peep. A lot of folks I talk to are very bitter/unhappy about the efforts to gut the teachers. Having the state “discover” 300 million in uncounted revenue shortly after Daniels wanted to cut education by that amount isn’t sitting very well either.

  2. 2.

    kay

    January 3, 2012 at 2:17 pm

    @Capri:

    I’m glad. The whole “middle class” craze has come off the front page, but it did get six months or so of press, so I guess that’s good.

  3. 3.

    Kay

    January 3, 2012 at 2:22 pm

    I didn’t really have to bother looking, because I knew the answer, but I did, and of course, libertarian maverick Ron Paul supports federal union-busting legislation.

  4. 4.

    Linda Featheringill

    January 3, 2012 at 2:30 pm

    Forgive the Godwin, but this really is appropo:

    First they came for the public sector unions . . . .

  5. 5.

    ET

    January 3, 2012 at 2:32 pm

    Honestly winning in the short term is good, but to win in the long term voters need to stop electing Republicans (and some Democrats) who are screwing them. And I don’t want to start a Balloon Juice spat, but many voters vote for these “guys” because of other issues and then get all up in arms when they actually try and implement their ideas. I have sympathy and wish them success but how many union people voted for Daniels and others who are pushing this?

  6. 6.

    kay

    January 3, 2012 at 2:34 pm

    @ET:

    I have sympathy and wish them success but how many union people voted for Daniels and others who are pushing this?

    I see your point but I don’t really see it like that anymore. I don’t know why they voted like they voted, but if they’re open to changing their mind, I think that’s great. There’s no way they can go back in time and unvote. That’s over.

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    January 3, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    @Kay:
    God are his policy statements on that web site awful. Take a look at his statements on “Energy Independence”, for example. It’s one area where you might hope that a real libertarian might have one or two good suggestions, like ending our massive subsidies of traditional extractive industries, in addition to the regular awfulness about ending the EPA. He mentions how corporate subsidies are part of the problem (good) but instead of suggesting that we end the big subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear, he suggests that we add subsidies for alternative fuels. And this is supposed to be the libertarian maverick?

  8. 8.

    Unsympathetic

    January 3, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    Republicans lie? Hoocoodanode?

  9. 9.

    kay

    January 3, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    God are his policy statements on that web site awful.

    I didn’t look at environmental. I love how this “man of the people” is rabidly anti-labor.

    But. I said I would swear off the Ron Paul craze, and I will do that.

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    January 3, 2012 at 3:01 pm

    @kay:

    I don’t know why they voted like they voted, but if they’re open to changing their mind, I think that’s great. There’s no way they can go back in time and unvote. That’s over.

    This. It may be worth bringing up past elections as a lesson (“remember what happened the last time you voted Republican…”) but the main emphasis should always be on wining future policy fights, not on laying blame for past defeats. I can’t stand the suggestion that we should stand aside and let the Republicans destroy 80 years of policy progress to teach the voters a lesson about what happens when they vote the wrong way. It’s childish and goes against the whole point of progressivism.

  11. 11.

    burnspbesq

    January 3, 2012 at 3:10 pm

    One hopes that middle-class and working-class Americans figure out who is their real enemy more quickly than the Catholics and Protestants in Ulster did. The idea of 300 years of Republican rule is not even a little bit palatable.

  12. 12.

    kay

    January 3, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    The Indiana protests didn’t get the play the Wisconsin protests did, but in a way they were more important, because it’s private sector unions, so they don’t have the cover of “belt-tightening” or “taxpayers”. It’s just a flat-out attack on nearly ten per cent of the working adults.

  13. 13.

    Capri

    January 3, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    @ET:
    People voted for Daniels (and he got more votes than any other Republican in the state. Obama won Indiana, but Daniels cruised to a very easy win as well) because they felt he was a fiscal conservative.

    Daniels was an incumbent who was smart enough to do a whole bunch of unpopular things his first weeks in office and then keep it low key for a few years. He spent time trying to get the state to get rid of it’s crooked and expensive county commissioner system. It died in the state senate of course – not likely a state senator was going eliminate some good ole cronies, but Daniels came off looking good.

    He’s enough of a pragmatist to back off the right wing stuff that didn’t work. He took himself out of the national race by hinting that maybe the GOP should focus on the economy and put social issues on the back burner. It took a lot of people by surprise when he started his final term in office by going after teachers’ unions.

  14. 14.

    Gravenstone

    January 3, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    Related observation from here in Wisconsin. A couple weeks ago, I drove past perhaps 15-20 pro-Walker demonstraters in Sheboygan (deep red part of the state). One stood out to me, a woman holding a hand lettered sign, “Union Wives for Walker”. I wanted to stop and ask her if she was really that obtuse and didn’t believe or understand that what Walker and his enablers did to the public sector unions wasn’t going to be aimed at the private sector next? However, common sense (and a pressing appointment) prevailed.

  15. 15.

    Rick Massimo

    January 3, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    I don’t think Republican union members in Indiana et al will necessarily change their votes because of this. They’ll holler and protest and if they win, they’ll say “Well, we stopped that” and go back to voting Republican, safe in the belief that if Daniels or whoever tries THAT again, they’ll get beat again.

  16. 16.

    Shinobi

    January 3, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    My partner’s family are all Union folks in rural Indiana. This is a really big deal for pretty much all of his friends and family from home.

    The politics of the union folks are an interesting balance between understanding that liberal policies benefit them financially, and being pro life and racist. Sometimes the money wins, and sometimes the other stuff does.

    It is sometimes like talking to people from the 1980s. Everyone smokes, drinks and drives and the men and women tend to segregate, it is weird. And I have definitely learned some offensive racial terms I never wanted to know.

  17. 17.

    El Cruzado

    January 3, 2012 at 4:51 pm

    Hey, if only it were to the 10%, at least I’d do better.

    (I realized recently that I’ve moved to the 10% with my latest change of work and attendant raise. Of course, I’ve also moved to Silicon Valley so it doesn’t feel like much).

  18. 18.

    Valdivia

    January 3, 2012 at 4:58 pm

    Kay: I mostly lurk here but had to say, you are a gem of a blogger. Exactly what we should be paying attention to, and always written with insight, passion and yet totally measured. You rock!

  19. 19.

    NCSteve

    January 3, 2012 at 5:54 pm

    Thanks Mitch! I’d just clicked Indiana over to red on my personal 270towin.com map and given it up as a lost cause for 2012. Now I can click it back to grey.

  20. 20.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 3, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    HA, they take on the Steelworkers, they’re gonna have PROBLEMS

  21. 21.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 3, 2012 at 6:02 pm

    @Shinobi:

    I call bullshit.

    That doesn’t sound like ANY of the union people I know. ALL of them are concerned with women’s equality, especially in the workplace, and NONE of them are racists.

    Goes to show how anecdotes like yours don’t really capture the reality.

    Then again, weren’t you on the last union thread here spreading the same not-so-subtle anti-union propaganda?

    Seems like a weird place for you to be, doesn’t it? Or maybe not so weird . . . depending on who you are

  22. 22.

    DanielX

    January 3, 2012 at 6:09 pm

    @Capri: Got that right – finding that $300 million that was just sitting there accumulating because of a “programming error”? Minor oversight, of course. But yeah, it’s a ten week legislative session coming up and they REALLY want to get all this unpleasantry done with before Super Bowl festivities start. Can’t have the proles clouding the city/state image on national television by standing up for labor unions, you know.

  23. 23.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 3, 2012 at 6:13 pm

    God, this thread looks like it’s drawn as many Kochsuckers as real posters,

    Not a surprise!

    I guarantee you this is the new Koch blitzkrieg, this action against workers in Indiana, and any WordPress blog that posts with certain key words in the story will be stormed by the Koch whores.

    Keep your eye out.

  24. 24.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 3, 2012 at 6:18 pm

    You will see a lot of “I like unions, but” or “I know union people, but” comments below this one, and a few above by the early-bird Koch Wideass Patrol.

    Union people will be accused of being racists (see above) or claimed to be Mitch Daniels supporters (see above) or worse.

    Splitting the unions from the Democrats, and riling up Republicans about unions, is the Crappy Republican Strategy of the year, born from 2011-2012 polls of Republicans that ranked “social conservatives” around 8% and anti-union Paul-types around 60+%. See: the fake-ass “controversy” over the pipeline that FoxNews.com and the rest of the Nazis have been pimping.

    <bMake sure you observe their habits so you can recognize their alts.

  25. 25.

    DanielX

    January 3, 2012 at 6:26 pm

    @AA+ Bonds: There are all kinds of people in unions in Indiana, as there are everywhere else. They’re not all redneck shitkicker brutes, but nor are they all enlightened on gender/race/economic issues. I’ve remarked before on this and other forums about talking to union members – friends, relatives, strangers – and how in a lot of cases I just want to scream “Why are you voting for these assholes? They want to cut your economic throat!“.

    But…there’s a lot of prolife sentiment, there is still (contrary to all evidence) a lot of ‘Obama is going to take our guns’, etc etc. A lot of them think Obama is a socialist, which in Muncie or New Castle is about the same as being a commie, a word that’s still used in all seriousness. After the AIG bailout, I remarked to one union acquaintance that George Bush had just become the first socialist president (who knew?). He was appalled – irony is pretty much an unknown concept for a lot of these folks and so for that matter is self awareness.

    But to square the circle – neither characterization is correct. There are a lot of racist assholes in unions, just as there are a lot of progressive types. They’re ALL aware of Our (but not MY) Man Mitch’s agenda, however. Social issues are all fine and dandy, but when it comes to defending pay and bennies from an out and out assault by corporate assholes and their minions in the legislature they’re going to be on top of the issue, progressives and wingnuts alike.

  26. 26.

    Gravenstone

    January 3, 2012 at 6:36 pm

    @AA+ Bonds: Do you have anything, you know, USEFUL to contribute here? Or are you just going to jump in and make baseless assertions about posters you seem to dislike? Really, where in this brief thread did anyone make anti-union/pro-Koch comments?

  27. 27.

    CT Voter

    January 3, 2012 at 9:24 pm

    Thank you, Kay. Again.

    The nitty gritty details at the local level aren’t very interesting. Except, of course, those nitty gritty details at the local/state level can have a very big impact at the national level, just as long as those nitty gritty details don’t get publicity.

  28. 28.

    mclaren

    January 3, 2012 at 9:33 pm

    Can anyone explain to me why Kay is just about the only Balloon Juice front-pager not savagely attacking the most progressive elements of the Democratic party?

    Why is Kay the only person talking about the real problems we’ve got in this country? Namely, the sadistic and relentless effort to destroy the most basic elements of oversight and reform to temper the mindless fury of laissez faire capitalism?

    At this rate, a concerted Republican effort to bring back slavery, abolish laws against child labor, and erect debtors’ prisons should start within the next 18-14 months.

  29. 29.

    mdblanche

    January 4, 2012 at 1:42 am

    @mclaren:
    Maybe because what you call “the most progressive elements of the Democratic party” are busy defending an apologist for a Republican who supports the sadistic and relentless effort to destroy the most basic elements of oversight and reform to temper the mindless fury of laissez faire capitalism.

    Seems like the Patriot Act is what they consider to be real problem we’ve got in his country. I just hope they don’t think the problem is that it’s the latest negative consequence of the Civil Rights Act.

  30. 30.

    englishmajor

    January 4, 2012 at 1:57 am

    Thank you, Kay, for talking about the war on unions. I’m with mclaren on this. I’m fighting for teachers’ unions here in WA. The number of well-meaning, well-educated(ish) people who start to froth at the mouth at the mention of the “u” word – it’s scary. DIdn’t we all have to read “The Grapes of Wrath” in high school?

  31. 31.

    englishmajor

    January 4, 2012 at 2:34 am

    Oops. No offense, mclaren, but I just read some of your other comments and I think I’m not with you. But I do so much appreciate when a BJ blogger posts something serious. Especially after all this kerfuffle I managed happily to miss.

  32. 32.

    Linnaeus

    January 4, 2012 at 2:36 am

    I will also say thank you, Kay. The right wing war on labor undermines us all.

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