Labor leaders lash out at right-to-work
By Carole Carlson ccarlson@post-trib.com January 31, 2012 9:04PM
Mike Summers uses part of his acceptance speech for the Northwest Indiana Federation of Labor Lifetime Achievement Award to speak out against the right to work legislation Tuesday evening at the Community Labor Awards Reception at Wicker Park in Highland. | Jeffrey D. Nicholls~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 2, 2012 8:19AM
HIGHLAND — Republicans who made Indiana the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state have turned the November general election into a referendum on working people, the president of the AFL-CIO said Tuesday.
Gov. Mitch Daniels could sign the right-to-work bill into law as soon as Wednesday and that likelihood hung over the Northwest Indiana Federation of Labor’s Community Labor Awards Reception at Wicker Park.
Richard Trumka, president of the nation’s largest labor organization, said labor and Democrats have faced “a right-wing tsunami” since the 2010 election.
“This isn’t the end of the story. We’re facing fundamental questions of what our nation should be,” said Trumka, a coal miner from Pennsylvania.
The measure has already passed the House and Senate and labor officials expect it to be law Wednesday, while Indianapolis readies to host Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The bill prevents unions from charging mandatory fees for representation. Last year, House Democrats scuttled it with a 39-day walkout. Not this year.
“For 30 years, corporate CEOs have been chipping away … we’re done with that,” said Trumka. We’re standing tall here in Indiana and in Ohio and in Wisconsin.”
Speaker after speaker at the labor banquet invoked right-to-work or, as they called it, “work for less.”
Randy Palmateer, business manager of the Northwest Indiana Building Trades Council, said it’s time to educate union members and voters. “It’s a travesty, an attack on working families and Hoosiers …. It’s a call to action, register to vote and vote your pocketbook not social issues”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Indiana Speaker of the House John Gregg, of downstate Sanborn, also urged workers not to vote on social issues “that divide us. We have to preserve and protect the middle class, that’s what it’s all about.”
U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Merrillville, said he was disappointed by the right-to-work vote in the Indiana General Assembly. “We need to invest in our state, not disinvest.”
Visclosky said the economy and jobs would be the dominant issue in the November election.
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