Help Stop Mitch-Style Union-Busting

A majority of the workers at the Indianapolis Public Library have chosen to be represented by AFSCME. However, the board which runs the library has refused to recognize or bargain with the union, choosing instead to follow in the footsteps of Mitch Daniels. In fact, the library has used taxpayer money to issue a memo intended to discourage its workers from supporting the union.

Board President Louis Mahern has even taken to the airwaves to slander all unions, arguing that unions make things more expensive for the boss. This announcement came right after the Board approved a large pay increase for the library CEO and announced that library workers may have to pick up a bigger portion of their healthcare costs.

On January 11, 2005, Governor Daniels stripped state employees of their right to be represented by their union and cancelled previously signed contracts with those unions. In doing so, he emboldened other public officials to withdraw, or withhold, union recognition – and a statewide assault on public workers began.

Tell the Library Board not to "pull a Mitch." Tell the Library Board to recognize and bargain with the union its workers have chosen to represent them – and to stop spending our money on union-busting!

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Recognize the Union

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

History books on the shelves of the Indianapolis Public Library no doubt celebrate the world's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. That document, a natural extension of our own nation's Declaration of Independence, represented the collective opinion of all the world's nations that every human being had certain inalienable rights. Amongst those rights recognized was the right of every worker to be represented in collective bargaining by the union of his or her choice.

Library employees are human. They have the right to be represented by the union of their choice. If you act to deny recognition to that union, you treat those workers as less than human.

And you do more than that. You deprive the public of the efficiencies that may come when those who do the work have an equal voice in how the work is done.

I ask that you vote to recognize the union chosen by a majority of the library's employees.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
July 17, 2006

Background Information

After the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (in the 1930s) protecting the right of employees to choose a union in their workplace, 35% of American workers flooded into the nation’s unions. But corporate America resented dealing with workers as equals and quickly began a legal assault on those rights. In 1946, some of the most effective ways to organize and apply bargaining pressure were outlawed by an act of Congress. Corporate lawyers then went to work on the National Labor Relations Board, slowly twisting an Act that was supposed to encourage collective bargaining into one that frequently has been used to avoid collective bargaining.

In the wake of those assaults, American workers began to lose power as the percentage of workers belonging to unions began a decline. Today only about 13% of all workers belong to a union. But public employee unions have been an exception to that trend. Since the 1960s, they have grown their market share from 10.8% to 36%. The growth of public sector unions has bolstered the union movement, helping to amplify the voice of workers in every industry in America. That’s why multi-national corporations now have their sights set on attacking public employee unions in the same way they attack private sector unions.

When you act to protect public employee union rights, you help to strengthen the voice of all workers. We instinctivly know that there is strength in numbers. We join unions to help amplify our individual voices at work by joining them with that of other workers. Every new union member in Indiana likewise helps amplify the voice of your local union at work and at the Statehouse.