Jamie Traska<\/i><\/p>\n
As protests against union-busting bills continue in Wisconsin and Ohio, the fire spread further across the plains of the mid-west. Tens of thousands of protesters in Indianapolis, Indiana joined the struggle as their Republican controlled General Assembly attacked bitterly workers and immigrants\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n
What we are witnessing in Indiana can be described as an outrageous attempt to merge the anti-union bill of Ohio (SB 5) with the racist bill of Arizona (SB 1070) that passed into legislation last April. Both bills are clear and undisputed attempts to smash the unions and to divide workers along racial lines, breaking potentially any solidarity between them.<\/p>\n
Indiana\u2019s House Bill 1468 tries to implement what is infamously referred to as \u201cRight-to-Work.\u201d Taken literally and out of the context, something that is called the \u201cRight-to-Work\u201d does not immediately strike people as being such a bad thing. In fact, a nationwide right to work for all citizens as well as immigrants would be a grandiose achievement for the working class. However, what hides behind that phrase in the bill under consideration in Indiana (and which is already implemented in 22 states) is anything but progressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight-to-Work\u201d weakens unions by granting workers the right not to join a union at a unionized facility. It renders contracts between unions and companies about the requirements of joining the union for new hires illegal. In other words, \u201cRight-to-Work\u201d enables the bosses to pay lower wages to non-unionized workers. And it is exactly here where the law acquires its cynical twist. By making it sound like the workers benefit from granting them a \u201cright,\u201d the capitalists can hide their true agenda, namely of busting the unions and paying less and cutting benefits for workers, i.e., taking away workers\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n
Historically, Indiana has been a stronghold of organized labor. Therefore, the success or failure of this attack has ramifications throughout the State and the United States. And Democrat B. Patrick Bauer is right when he noted that \u201cif it [HB 1468] hits the floor, it\u2019ll probably shake down the thunder from the sky \u2026\u201d Furthermore, the bill not only gifts the bosses with lower wage workers and an increase of their own profits, it also weakens the collective-bargaining power of the unions. The results will be that even unionized workplaces will see a decrease in wages. As Allison Luthe, a lead organizer for Central Indiana Jobs with Justice, a coalition of unions, puts it: \u201cFedEx and UPS for example \u2013 one is union, one is not \u2013 they both make very comparable wages because everybody knows that you could go work at the other one.\u201d<\/p>\n
But yet another atrocious bill is on the table at Indiana\u2019s General Assembly \u2013 Senate Bill 590. This bill is almost an exact copy of SB 1070 that passed in Arizona last year. If passed into law it will allow law enforcement officers to detain anyone who is \u201creasonably suspicious\u201d to be in the US illegally and who does not carry the required documentation with them to prove otherwise. And just like in Arizona, this bill opens the floodgates for racial profiling, discrimination, and distrust to an extent not yet seen.<\/p>\n
Both of these bills originate in fear \u2013 the fear of the ruling class that working people will act together in unity and solidarity. The administration, along with state governments and big money, have more attacks on workers\u2019 rights, wages, and benefits in store. So by planting resentment, enviousness, and racial divisiveness among working people, they hope to weaken the movement that rose to take up the struggle against the onslaught of rights that many have died acquiring previously throughout our history.<\/p>\n
The protesters in Indiana as well as Wisconsin and Ohio have proven that they will not be easily crushed, but now more than ever they need a plan to turn the tide in their favor. They must demand their leaders take strike action across the state, calling out hundreds of thousands in marches and workplace action, while monitoring closely every move they make. If they prove themselves unable or unwilling to defend their members by taking things to the next level, then the workers should not end their battle but press on without their leaders if that is the path they\u2019ve chosen. They must build their own bodies of struggle. They will need mass-action assemblies and rank-and-file committees under their democratic control and influence, and strive to build for mass strikes, walkouts of students, and, indeed, an indefinite occupation of the State House to make life miserable for Daniels and the Republicans, to obstruct their efforts, and to demonstrate to them just who rules in Indiana.<\/p>\n
No confidence or trust must be placed in Governor Mitch Daniels\u2019 attempt a conciliatory position, stating that he would \u201crather avoid a fight\u201d instead of pressing for the bill. Just because he is engaging passively now does not mean he or his party members won\u2019t go on a rabid offensive tomorrow. The working class and its allies need to be aware of this and take an independent stance, relying only on themselves and their power to defeat these attacks. This also means placing no confidence in Democratic politicians as well to take up and fight for their demands.<\/p>\n
By standing together in unity and solidarity, and by fighting tooth and nail with militant methods against these attempts to make the workers pay for the crisis, to strip them of their collective-bargaining rights, and implement racist laws that serve ultimately the interests and profits of the rich, the austerity and anti-labor bills and proposals we\u2019re seeing put forth in Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin can be trounced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jamie Traska As protests against union-busting bills continue in Wisconsin and Ohio, the fire spread further across the plains of the mid-west. Tens of thousands of protesters in Indianapolis, Indiana joined the struggle as their Republican controlled General Assembly attacked bitterly workers and immigrants\u2019 rights. What we are witnessing in Indiana can be described as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[104,219],"class_list":["post-5194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-uncategorized","tag-archive","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7008,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194\/revisions\/7008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}