Right-to-work conflict dooms mass transit bill

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Updated: January 26, 2012 10:59PM

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A dispute over right-to-work language, the issue that has shut down the Indiana General Assembly several times already this year, doomed a bill intended to help improve mass transit in the Indianapolis area.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted 10-11 against the bill on Thursday after chairman Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, refused to remove language that said transit workers could not be forced to join a union.

Espich blamed Democrats for the bill’s defeat. Democrats put the responsibility for it on Espich, saying the right-to-work language doomed the measure.

“I find their role indefensible,” Espich said. “There is a major issue and the issue of the labor language is 1/100th of it.”

The bill would have allowed voters to raise income taxes by two-tenths of 1 percent in a referendum to help fund a 10-year, $1.3 billion plan to increase city bus service and add train service from Noblesville to downtown Indianapolis.

Members of the panel removed wording Thursday that said the transportation authority could bypass prevailing-wage hearings, but left in the right-to-work language. Espich said removing that wording would have been “appeasement” rather than compromise.

The House has been bitterly divided over the right-to-work issue this year. Democrats in the House staged boycotts to deny Republicans members the quorum needed to conduct business to show their opposition to the proposal, which would ban unions from collecting mandatory fees for representation.

Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said the right-to-work language in the transportation bill was a poison pill for workers. It also conflicted with federal law governing the use of federal transit money, he said.

“It had nothing to do with the issue of building a better mass transit system,” Crawford said. “It was a statement from someone who is not from this area, and it was doomed to fail.”

Committee member Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, joined nine Republicans who voted for the bill, and said she opposed the right-to-work language but wanted to move the bill to the full House.

Central Indiana Transit Task Force Director Ron Gifford said he would try to load the transit legislation into another bill that has already cleared the House or Senate.

“It’s not over,” Gifford said. “We’ll continue to try to find a vehicle to put forward our proposal.”