Indiana Department of Workforce Development
The Bureau of Labor Statistics today released the new figures for employment (and unemployment) in the states. Half the states gained jobs last month and about half the states lost jobs. Coming in second on the list for gainers: Indiana, where the state legislature is rushing to pass an anti-union Right to Work bill. After getting slammed senseless during the recession, the federal government says Indiana gained 15,100 jobs last month (much of it from the private sector, in the state's best month for job growth in a decade).
Last night, the Indiana Senate passed its version of the bill to weaken unions. Mary Beth Schneider of the Indianapolis Star tweeted just now that Democrats in the House aren't showing up for a session today. We're hearing that the Democrats could conceivably hold out until after the Super Bowl in Indianapolis next month, but that would be the outer limit. Still, it would be enough to show the nation that labor, including the NFL Players Association, objects to this bill. (UPDATE, 6:13 PM: Ms. Schneider reports that Democrats expect to return tomorrow "unless an ill wind blows.")
Throughout the long debate over Right to Work, Governor Mitch Daniels has argued that Indiana can't grow jobs without busting up the unions. He says it's for workers' own good. "The good news is when Indiana gets a chance to compete for new jobs, we're winning -- two thirds of the time. But we get cut out of a third of all deals because we don't provide workers the protection known as Right to Work," he said, in one ad.
Mr. Daniels used to oppose Right to Work for Indiana, on tape that labor will feature in a commercial after his response to SOTU tonight. I wonder if he'll mention the brighter numbers and the growing union uprising in his own party. Nine Senate Republicans voted against the bill last night, and the new Lunchpail Republicans are bringing primary challenges to House Republican incumbents.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Just because the economy is improving is no excuse NOT to enforce austerity measures [sarcasm, double scoop. With knobs on it!] There are still unions to bust, social and civil services to gut, and favors to give corporate backers and tax cuts to the wealthy to give.
What does it matter what the employment figures look like?
True.
Obama has been working to restructure unemployment insurance and education funding so those system work to transition unemployed people into industries with more worker demand, like health care, engineering, and technology.
People rarely realize that a labor union establishes a means of enforcing labor laws that force businesses to treat people like human capitol, and unionized companies normally outperform non-unionized companies for that reason. This provides the means for companies to retrain employees when business changes so the employees don't all have to be laid off.
Right to Work does the opposite, which is irresponsible.
You really should explain all this to contessa. That cross dressing cretin is the ultimate CEO lickspittle.
Maybe the Corporate Persons are flooding to Indiana and hiring multitudes in anticipation of the new Right To Work* legislation!
*for less
/snark
Question...if corporations are people then is a lay off an abortion?Is outsourcing a divorce?
Delusional principles beget delusional scruples.
Indiana too can become a "right to work" state like Oklahoma! Then the low-paying jobs will flock there too and no one will be able to afford to pay rent or go to college. (Is this really what they want?)
Most people will miss the full impact of that statement. I was a benighted soul who was born here and never had a chance to escape.
But most people come here on one pretext or another...family, employment opportunity, because they thought it would be nice. Cheap housing, comparitively low cost of living.
Then they discover that it is actually like a roach motel.
You will never leave. You will be too poor to. Cost of living is low, but prospects and opportunities are so few and far between it is Sisyphisian endeavor to leave.
Nothing here prospers that has a soul. Look at Inhofe, Coburn, Largent.
This is a dynamic I've noticed in my young life, although I don't know if this has always been true or if it's something recent. Typically speaking the more rural a location the less opportunities for wealth you have. Maybe as a doctor or something that can monopolize the market as such, but if you're just starting out like me you really don't have much opportunity. Maybe work at a WalMart here or a Best Buy there. But that's about it. The good thing? Because people have less money to spend the cost of living is relatively low. Rent is cheap, food is cheap, gas is cheap. I bet I pay 30 cents or more than you guys in OKC (I live in the Pacific NW) on gas. But the downside is that disparity of economic advantage. So you have to move to places like NY or some other city that usually sees growth (even during recessions) in order to have a chance at really making it into a higher income bracket. But then, of course, your rents go sky high, your food costs, your gas, all of it goes sky high. I live in low-income housing here in Portland, OR and I pay around 820$/mo for rent (it was 780 when I first rented the place, but now the rents have gone up). I make around 1,400$/mo. I barely make 2x the rent and that's in low income housing. But I had to come here to find work. If I lived in some rural town- like Pampa, TX- I'd be able to actually afford to live because the rents there are like 200-300$/mo. But I'd also probably be unemployed. How does a person break that cycle?
howdy neighbor,work in Portland OR. live in Gresham, where i pay 775 a month.
that`s just it not sure if they want use to be able to brake that cycle.
Does the max go to Vancouver? I am going to WSU and it would save me on commute time if I could move there. The rents are also cheaper, but I work for Comcast in downtown Portland (that's part of why the rent is higher because I'm downtown). If I move somewhere else then I have to spend money on taking the Max and I don't know if I'd be saving any. There was a place on the other end of Portland (headed towards Beaverton) where I found rents as low as 680$/mo for low-income, but I would have to take 2 buses and the max to get to work. Not sure if that'd be cheaper?
Does the max go to Vancouver? not yet after the new bridge is in place.
think one bed rooms go around 650 to 700 out in Gresham. it depend on where it is at on how close to Max (smiles i still call it Bart some times).
well you think 5 dollars a day for a all day pass.
Mobility. Nature abhors a vaccuum. Live frugally in areas with high costs of living that have great areas of opportunity. Save your money. And when you have your money, move to a low cost of living area that is an opportunity desert.
SNAP! It is just like America and Mexico to scale! Go wash dishes in Silicon Valley, then move to Mississippi to live like a king!
Dyaaamn! There HAS to be a way to capitalize on this. Coyotes for Americans. Walking with the ghost of Tom Joad, 21st Century Grapes of Wrath. Set up enclaves for destitute Americans from opportunity deserts to work menial but comparitively well paying jobs while paying below local market value for rent and getting deals at cost for necessities before mark-up, like migrant work camps. Maybe basic health care. All of which allows them to save money to either intergrate into where they moved to, or send money back to beleagured relatives, or invest in an education.
Just like undocumented workers without the fear of la migra.
Its so brilliant I have to blog this.
@Pilot:
Ah see I live right by the max. I live by the Rose Bowl so I literally have to walk about a block and I'm there. Since I'm w/in the green zone between here and when I go to meetings w/ work and when I go grocery shopping, I don't have to pay for gas except when I go to school. That's the only gas bill I pay for. And since I take most of my classes online (only the science classes are on campus) I have been able to virtually eliminate my gas costs. That's part of why I chose to stay here even though the rent going up makes it harder for me to pay for everything. When you consider that I pay maybe 50$/mo on gas as compared to like 200$/mo it's a pretty easy decision. Still...200$/mo off rent might end up being worth it. I guess it depends. I know when I looked up a years worth on the max tickets they were less than 1k/yr. Which I might be able to do.
So are you saying the max will go to Vancouver when the new bridge is built or it will not because of the new bridge? I thought they vetoed the measure for the new bridge in the last election? Now I'm confuzzled. Also it used to be called Bart? Haha! Awesome
@Don:
Sometimes I wonder why they haven't tried doing this w/ the tent cities that have started popping up outside of main cities like Los Angeles or here in the PNW. In The Jungle, Sinclair talks about how the old apartments around the yards in Chicago would rent out single bedroom (studio) apartments to whole families for way below market rent. The buildings were shawdy and not well built and no utilities were provided including running water. Man you could make a gold mine if it weren't for those pesky regulations.
If you want to talk about "opportunity zones," this would be them. In the actual original Steinbeck novel there were a few "government camps" that were well regulated and provisioned that offered some shelter and help for those who needed it.
Leave these Opportunity Zones in the hands of private interprise and you have a recipe for all of the worst abuses and exploitation you see with immigrant workers.
Done with the transparent auspices of the federal state and local govt...there would be higher degrees of efficiency, goods and produce would have ready buyers, medical care would be inexpensive if not free.
Many of the above abuses suffered by immigrant workers is a direct result of the extrajudicial nature of their existance here. Those would not be an issue if it was the govt hosting the party.
Just sayin. It could be done and done well.
So are you saying the max will go to Vancouver when the new bridge is built or it will not because of the new bridge? I thought they vetoed the measure for the new bridge in the last election? Now I'm confuzzled. Also it used to be called Bart? Haha! Awesome
smiling so am i at this point, lol last i hear it was a go, but then again i have nor been following it much.
Of those 15,000 jobs, how many were union/non-union? What is the lowest - highest salary? What is the average salary/hourly wage? Where were the jobs - manufacturing, service, education, skilled trades/construction, - where?
To counter the governor, don't we need such information?
full time or part time?
temp jobs? etc..
Indiana Lunchpail Republicans and those like them, take note that your "party" is not serving you, so why support them? I'm just sayin'. The big event in your capital city is going to bring millions of dollars and the players highlighting it all are UNION members… that's right. Maybe Unions do bring money into the overall situation, even non union businesses… yes they do.
Indiana Democrats, stay strong. This is your job to do what you can to stop this possibly unconstitutional legislation, but really where do these Republican Governors cite the public outcry to dismantle unions?
There IS no "public outcry" to dismantle unions. What there IS, is the final battle between the Middle Class, and the Koch-brothers-funded oblivion, to which Republicans would relegate it. If everyone only understood this one simple fact, then you'd be hearing an outcry of public support that would deafen everyone, up to and including that disgusting Republican pimple on the butt-end of America, named Mitch Daniels.
No you may not have another cup. How dare you question the gods of war! What nerve you have to utter doubts and suspicion about your betters. You obviously have no place in the new world order of corporate ownership.
Daniels and the Republicans are full of El Toro CaCa. The law has nothing to do with jobs and everything to do with political power. The Republicans want to kill and weaken unions because it will hurt the Dems ability to raise money.
I live in Nw Indiana, Born and raised Believing in Family, God and our Country! I served in the USMC. I now dont believe in my STATE at all! I'm in a union local 395 Ironworkers. When i first got out of the corps in 98 and got home. LTV steel was a BOOMING mill. Then Americans convinced Americans its better to buy cheap steel from over seas! LTV closed no a foreiner owns it! and Beth Steel. Both not real active now!!! US STEEL doing good!! My whole reagon is built off of Union wages. Get our mills producing again. Please buy American Union steel. We employ union members from other stats too. After hurricane Katrina we employed as many victims we could. We are good god loving people.
The steel industry went under because we allowed the Japanese and other countries to dump cheap products here. In fact, many of the products that were dumped were being subsidized by foreign countries. And our government did little to stop the dumping. This is happening again with China dumping cheap products here. Every store you shop, particularly Wally World (Walmart), are filled with cheap inferior products made in China. I refuse to buy anything made in China. I would rather do without an item than buy foreign products. People need to understand that when they shop in Walmart, they are putting themselves out of jobs. Buy American.
Don't forget the Koch Bros have lines of household goods. So make sure to stay away from all those, too.
@Mike Paganucci,
Simple profit motivated business is no longer good enough without a cooperative government that fosters growth.
One contributing factor for the decline of the domestic steel industry was over-extraction of profit that prevented the steel industry from retooling.
The bulk of the steel plants in the US began to be shut down during the 1980s because they could not satisfy clean air standards, and low fuel efficiency made them unprofitable. One of my uncles in Ohio had a steel plant nearby that polluted the air so bad that their clothes would be ruined if they hung them out to dry on a weekday, and the plant closed by the early 1980s because of a long-term spike in the cost of coal.
On the other hand, steel plants in foreign countries tend to be newer and more fuel efficient, and many of those were built with profits extracted from US industries.
What do conservative republicans, teabag republicans and lunchbag republicans all have in common?
Right! They are still all republicans!
I do not understand the concept of replacing one republican with another. If labor wants to change the direction in the House and Senate in Indiana you have to change the majority party. Clinging to the hope that the new republican party will suddenly abandon 40 years of union bashing is insane.
How many of these "union friendly republicans" walked out or even spoke out against these RTW bills? NONE! The ones that vote against these bills do so because they are from strong union areas and their votes are not needed to get the bill to pass. If there was a shift in leadership or even a balance in the two parties then their votes would be different. don't be so naive.
The lunchbag republicans do nothing but give a home to those who vote against their own interests and make it OK for them. What they should be saying to these people is the republican party has not in the last 40 years and will not in the foreseeable future support working people. We need to support democrats that support us.
The lunchbaggers say they have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend, That is probably only a portion of what they gave Mitch Daniels and his PACS over the last 8 years. My advice is to take that money and get some more DEMS elected to actually change the conversation.
I'd like to see Governor Mitch Daniels argue his case to a wall of professional, unionized, defensive linebackers.
Love the image! Thanks Eileen.
Can't help thinking tho that NFL would make a stronger statement if they just refused to show up.
The Koch Brothers own Georgia Pacific.....so do not buy Northern Tissue or Brawny paper towels. Look up their website, and do not buy anything which will give them more money to hurt poor people and lower income people! Here in Kansas, they own the governor, so their sleazy ideas get moved into legislation.....why don't people wake up?
Northern Tissue? A.. wipes? How fitting.