This Sunday, for at least one day, Indianapolis will be more than just another blip in flyover country.
It will be the Super Bowl’s host city. From coast to coast, we’ll all be sitting in front of our televisions and watching millionaires exercise in Indiana’s capital city.
This year has already been a heady one for Indianapolis.
Last week, Gov. Mitch Daniels was standing at the city’s war memorial while he delivered his dour rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s upbeat State of the Union address.
Indianapolis has also made recent headlines as the site of protests about the so-called “right-to-work” legislation that is grinding its way through the state legislature’s digestive tract.
Indianapolis has also made recent headlines as the site of protests about the so-called “right-to-work” legislation that is grinding its way through the state legislature’s digestive tract.
Indiana would be the first right-to-work state in the historically union-laden Rust Belt.
Last Thursday, the Indiana House of Representatives voted 54-44 in favor of the bill. The Senate is expected to take it up first thing Monday morning so that Gov. Daniels can sign it into law before Super Bowl Sunday.
The bill would effectively neuter Indiana’s unions.
Under a right-to-work regime, unions cannot require every worker in a given shop to pay dues. Perversely, they still must equally represent all workers, even the freeloaders.
In right-to-work states, there is little incentive to join a union. What’s bad for Indiana’s unions is probably bad for Indiana’s workers.
A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that the right-to-work bill would not only lower Hoosiers’ wages by as much as $1,500 per year, but also prevent them from getting health care and pensions as easily.
The NFL Players’ Union referred to that report last week when it released an impassioned statement calling the bill “a political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights.”
With Indiana’s first Super Bowl on the horizon, unionized NFL players have been paying particularly close attention to the state’s legislature.
Bloomington’s own Rex Grossman, a mediocre quarterback but apparently a conscientious guy, recently joined with five fellow players from around Indiana to oppose the right-to-work legislation.
For generations, American workers have banded together in unions to stand up to their corporate bosses.
The sun is setting on that era in Indiana.
Indiana’s bill shouldn’t even be on the table — certainly not while Daniels is governor.
To win the 2004 election, he assured voters he would not use the gubernatorial bully pulpit to enact right-to-work legislation. Friday, protestors outside Indianapolis’s convention center chanted “Mitch is a liar!”
They had a point.
Now, their only recourse is to “occupy” the Super Bowl. The Indianapolis Star is reporting that truckloads of teamsters are set to descend on Indianapolis Monday to bolster the protests.
It’s too late. Gov. Daniels has probably already picked out the pen he’ll use to sign the bill giving Hoosiers the right to work for less.
— humphrey@indiana.edu
— humphrey@indiana.edu
