INDIANAPOLIS —Once Gov. Mitch Daniels signs the right-to-work bill into law – and that’s likely to happen Wednesday, his spokeswoman said – Indiana will become the 23rd state with such a law on its books.
The state Senate approved House Bill 1001 on Wednesday on a 28-22 vote. It was the last legislative step necessary on a measure that bars businesses and unions from negotiating contracts that require non-members to pay dues as a condition of employment.
The vote wrapped up two years of legislative battles. The issue was the flash point of a five-week House Democratic boycott during the 2011 session, and was the reason House Democrats stalled the 2012 session by skipping nine days of its first four weeks.
The new law takes effect March 14, although Daniels, majority legislative Republicans and their business lobby allies who advocated it can start promoting Indiana as the only state in the Rust Belt to adopt the law immediately.
They’ve argued that some business site selectors strike Indiana off their lists of potential places to locate solely because the state lacks such a law.
“This bill is worth it for those Hoosiers who desperately need jobs,” said the measure’s sponsor, Sen. Carlin Yoder, R-Middlebury.
The vote occurred amid a chaotic scene at the Statehouse. Hundreds of pro-union protesters had packed the building, and their chants of “No Right to Work!” rang through the Senate chamber. Thousands more had gathered outside for a rally that would follow the vote.
“There is one thing we know for sure. There is only one benefit of right to work, and that is that we’ll pay our people lower wages. Why else would employers support it?” said Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville.
“Right to work is a race to the bottom. It’s a downward spiral of low wages and fewer benefits,” she said. “We’re legislating by anecdote and by myth: the myth of right to work.”
Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, said he was undecided on the issue when the session started. He said he looked compared salary and safety data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of states with and without right to work laws. He decided to vote yes.
“I knew this: It wasn’t going to hurt us. We weren’t going to be harmed on injuries at work; we weren’t going to be harmed on salaries,” Young said. “Our greatest adversary is fear. Only the future can cure it.”
Sen. Brent Waltz of Indianapolis, is one of the few Republicans who opposed the right to work bill. He said he heard directly from 500 constituents, and has received emails from 6,000 Hoosiers thanking him for his position.
“I hear them. And I hope you hear me today when I express my great concern over this legislation and what it will do to the economy and the workers of our great state,” Waltz said.
He said if Indiana could attract jobs by weakening the state’s child labor laws, lawmakers would refuse to do so – “but somehow we have no quarrel doing this.”
Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Buck Creek, said the historical comparisons are not useful.
“The companies are not the same as they were, the unions are not the same as they were, so today is not a history lesson. Today is not about the past; it’s about the future of Indiana,” he said.
“It doesn’t change a safety standard anywhere. It doesn’t remove a single union anywhere. What it does do is give the workers in this state a choice to whether they want to pay dues or not. … What this will do is create Indiana as the one state in the region that gives its workers a choice; that stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of attractiveness for business.”
While Republicans were mostly quiet, 12 of the Senate’s 13 Democrats spoke against the bill.
Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, said union supporters will gain retribution at the polls in November.
“What you’ve done is you’ve created a team – a team of people that’s going to come back in November and say, we’re not going to take it anymore, you’re not going to stomp on us anymore, we’re going to go to the polls and show you what unity’s really about; what solidarity’s really about,” he said. “Thank you for waking up that sleeping dog.”
Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, blasted Daniels for advocating the measure.
His administration ended collective bargaining for public employees during his first days in office, and last year advocated a measure that limits teachers’ collective bargaining rights to wages and benefits, and not workplace conditions.
“It’s the last parting shot from an administration that has taken shots at so many people,” she said. “It was public employees. It was teachers. It was gays, blacks, Hispanics, and of course, it was women. And now this, to the working class, the final gift.”
Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, said his father supported a family with seven children through the Great Depression as a member of a coal miners’ union – and that right to work would make jobs like that one tougher.
“It makes it much more difficult for unions to have the clout they need to help improve working conditions, improve benefits and improve wages, not only for their members but for all of us,” he said.
“When you take away the unions’ opportunity to be funded, you take away their effectiveness, and that’s what this bill does.”
Yoder, the Republican sponsor, closed the debate by saying he’s had protesters in his front yard, and he’s been yelled at by protesters. Still, he said, the measure is worth passing.
“The majority of Hoosiers are standing with us,” he said. “They may not be the loudest. They may not be the most obnoxious at times. But they’re there, and they’re standing, and they’ll be there when you go home.”