INDIANAPOLIS — The contentious “right to work” measure won the approval of the state Senate on Monday, and is teed up for a vote this week in the House.
The Senate’s vote – 28-22, with nine Republicans joining the 13 Democrats who opposed it – won’t matter much, since the chamber will have to vote to pass the House’s version. But those two bills are identical, so Monday’s vote indicated the Senate won’t be a speed bump.
The House, meanwhile, spent hours debating amendments, most offered by Democrats. Republicans who hold 60 of the House’s 100 seats defeated every one Democrats offered, including one that would have sent the issue to a statewide referendum.
Now, the House is set to vote in the coming days, as long as Democrats who boycotted eight days out of the General Assembly’s first three weeks of the 2012 session show up and allow a vote to take place.
The most likely process for a right to work bill to land on Gov. Mitch Daniels’ desk now involves House Bill 1001 winning passage with exclusively Republican support in the House, and then passing the Senate without any changes.
“I don’t believe this state can afford to ignore this opportunity to bring new and better jobs to Indiana,” said Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne. “It can be a game-changer for our state.”
In the House, the debate started Tuesday after Democrats arrived, ending at least for now a boycott they’d started last week.
Seconds into the debate, Democrats offered a motion that forced a vote on whether to kill the bill immediately. Rep. Kreg Battles, D-Vincennes, said it was a way for lawmakers to stop “messing with this stuff that can lead to nothing but trouble.”
However, that motion was defeated, 39-59, in a chamber that Republicans control 60-40.
Republicans then approved a minor amendment dealing with the role of the Indiana attorney general and the Indiana Department of Labor’s roles in investigating violations of the law. That mirrors an amendment the Senate approved Friday.
They also passed an amendment that Republicans and Democrats seemed to agree would have little practical effect, but it did underscore a federal law that prevents right to work laws from affecting collective bargaining agreements in the building and construction trades.
After the passage of those two amendments, the House and Senate versions of the right to work bill are now identical. Democrats are expected to offer most of the amendments for the duration of the debate.
The debate is ongoing, and expected to last into the Tuesday evening hours.
Republicans for weeks have made their arguments for a right to work measure. They say some business site selectors strike Indiana off their lists of possible places to locate for the sole reason that the state doesn’t have such a law on its books. They also say workers should have the freedom to choose whether to pay dues.
Instead of pressing those arguments once again, they spent most of Monday fending off criticism from Democrats – and there was much of it.
“Let’s not kid ourselves: Right to work is about a downward spiral. It’s about lower wages for the people we represent,” said Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville. “Right to work is nothing more than a race to the bottom, and that is not a race we want to win.”
It’s a “right to be a freeloader” bill, said Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne.
His point is one union supporters have made for months. They say it would be unfair to require them to represent workers who do not pay dues in labor negotiations and workplace disputes.
Republicans and their allies in the business community – especially the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, although groups airing television advertisements in support of the bill have refused to identify their funders – disagree.
They say unions specifically seek to represent all employees, whether they are union members or not, in labor deals, and seek to require all of those workers to pay dues.
“It’s not a free rider issue, it’s a forced rider issue,” said Sen. Carlin Yoder, R-Middlebury, who carried that chamber’s version of the right to work measure – Senate Bill 269.
“The reality is, unions choose these exclusive contracts. They could choose to go to members-only contracts, and they don’t do that,” he said.
Democrats shot back that undercutting unions’ financial footing would ultimately undermine wages, benefits and workplace conditions for all workers.
“This is a union-busting bill. That’s all it does. It takes away the power of the union to effectively represent their people,” said Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis.
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