Over the protests of thousands of labor union members who filled the Statehouse, a House committee voted on party lines today to send a bill that would bar unions and companies from negotiating contracts that require all employees to pay fees for representation.
House Bill 1468 — which supporters call the “right to work” bill and which opponents call the “right to work for less” bill — passed the House Employment, Labor and Pensions Committee on an 8-5 vote and now goes to the full House for debate.
In other words, unions that collect dues would be barred from any collective bargaining in Indiana. All unions, public and private. A number of states have these right-to-work laws, Kentucky is one of them. And this is happening in Indiana despite Gov. Mitch Daniel's disastrous plan to outsource social services to a private company.
Indiana and former outsourcing partner IBM sued each other Thursday, May 13, the latest chapter in an increasingly sour relationship that went bad when the state decided last year to cancel an ambitious social services system. In October 2009, Gov. Mitch Daniels pulled the plug on Indiana’s 10-year, $1.6 billion outsourcing contract with IBM to streamline welfare eligibility in the state. Launched in 2007, the new system let citizens apply for welfare benefits online, in person or via telephone, and it implemented process changes designed to speed up and standardize eligibility determinations. Daniels called the concept—which drew criticism for high error rates and slow processing of eligibility requests—unworkable.
It lost money, cost state taxpayers millions of dollars more than having state social workers, and failed in nearly every aspect.
This is what Republicans want to do, to attach profit motive to government services and send taxpayer money directly to the pockets of business interests in the name of the "free market".
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