Public Employee Press

The World of Work
States kill bargaining rights

In Missouri and Indiana, Republican governors wiped out bargaining rights and contracts affecting 55,000 public employees.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Public employees are under attack in Missouri and Indiana, where Republican governors have eliminated their collective bargaining rights.

In apparently coordinated actions, Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Matt Blunt of Missouri simultaneously repealed the bargaining rights of state workers represented by DC 37’s parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The Jan. 11 action affects 30,000 AFSCME members in Missouri and 25,000 in Indiana. Public employees won the right to bargain in Indiana 15 years ago under Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh. Several DC 37 local leaders and staffers participated in a successful campaign to organize the workers.

In 2001, AFSCME lobbied Democratic Gov. Bob Holden to sign an executive order granting collective bargaining rights to public employees in Missouri.

Contracts canceled
Besides revoking his predecessor’s executive order recognizing the union rights of Indiana state workers, Daniels ripped up union contracts covering the period through 2007. Blunt has also declared that union contracts are no longer valid.

“We believe these actions were part of a national agenda designed to send a message to the unions,” said Steve Fantauzzo, director of AFSCME’s 19-state central region. He noted that Daniels previously served as budget director of the Bush administration.

In Indiana, where union membership has dropped by a third, the union by law may continue to collect dues and represent workers on civil service matters. But since they are no longer covered by collective bargaining agreements, AFSCME members have lost their job security and grievance and seniority rights.

Right after Blunt eliminated union rights, supervisors in Missouri descended on work sites to present employees with withdrawal cards to let employers stop deducting dues from their checks. In both states, workers are complaining that that transfer requests are being denied and mandatory overtime is being imposed without being allotted equally or considering seniority.

In both states, the union is developing a fight-back strategy involving organizing and protests as well as media campaigns, political pressure and court actions.

An early warning of this latest right-wing attack on public employee unions occurred last year in Kentucky, where Gov. Ernie Fletcher canceled the collective bargaining rights of state workers. Union members are fighting Fletcher’s action in the legislature and the courts.

In another ominous development, five municipalities in Oklahoma are seeking to have a 2004 state law recognizing the right of public employees to bargain declared unconstitutional.