Thousands gather for Ind. Statehouse union rally
INDIANAPOLIS — Thousands of union workers who gathered outside Indiana's Statehouse for a Thursday rally railed against several different education and labor bills but their message reflected a united theme: Republicans here and across the country have gone too far in pushing an agenda opponents consider an attack on working families.
"They have called a war on the middle class," Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, told the cheering crowd. "This is a battle that we must win!"
State police estimated more than 8,000 people gathered at the rally's peak, making it the largest rally at the Statehouse in years. Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott told the crowd — some wearing fluorescent yellow work vests and hard hats — that craftsmen built the Statehouse more than 100 years ago, and had returned to reclaim it.
"The working men and women of Indiana have come back to take back the people's house for the people," she said.
Union workers gathered at the Statehouse for weeks since a "right-to-work" proposal pushed by House Republicans sparked a flare-up between minority Democrats and Republicans who control the General Assembly and the governor's office. House Democrats fled to Illinois on Feb. 22, denying the House the quorum it needs to conduct business, killing the right-to-work bill and delaying progress on several other proposals including the state budget.
Two House Democrats returned from Urbana, Ill., to attend Thursday's rally, where protesters shook their hands and thanked them for the ongoing boycott.
"We have not come home," Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, told workers. "We're standing for families. We're standing for the middle class. We're standing for teachers."
Most Republicans were not around for the rally because the House and Senate had adjourned for the weekend by the time it started. But House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, issued a statement that said Republicans aren't trying to destroy public education or target the working class. He said GOP proposals aim to do the opposite: create education options for all families and high-wage jobs for all workers, whether they are union or non-union jobs.
"This is the clear agenda House Republicans ran on in November, and this is what we continue to stand for today," Bosma said. "We will continue to advance these proposals at every opportunity, if only our Democrat colleagues will return from Illinois."
Protesters said Republicans, who won control of the Indiana House in November, are overreaching.
"There was an agenda that hasn't been spoken aloud, and one of them is busting unions," said retired postal worker Karen Luehrs. "I didn't hear that in the election. I hear that now loud and clear."
Luehrs came to the rally from Fort Wayne to protest several measures, including bills to restrict teacher collective bargaining and put into state law the current status that state employees cannot collectively bargain.
"It's important for everybody to speak up when things are wrong, and this is wrong," she said.
Marisa Graham, a teacher from Anderson who spoke to the crowd, said the GOP is out to destroy public education. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels is pushing an aggressive education agenda that includes merit pay for teachers, restrictions on teacher collective bargaining and controversial vouchers that would use taxpayer money to help parents send their children to private schools.
"We are not greedy teachers or the privileged elite," she said, quoting a recent Daniels' speech where he used referred to public employee unions as such. "We just want our voice heard. Collective bargaining is our voice."
When other speakers mentioned Daniels by name, the crowd erupted into chants of "Ditch Mitch!" Before the rally began, workers chanted: "Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Mitch Daniels has got to go!"
Terry O'Sullivan, general president of the Labors' International Union of North America, said union members are "not going to sit idly by" as Republicans advance an agenda aimed at hurting unions across several states, including Wisconsin, where lawmakers voted to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from the state's public workers.
"They want to pick us off and peel us off one worker at a time," he said.