Union leaders predicted up to 25,000 would protest at the Indiana Statehouse today.
Instead, about 8,000 did. Many of them weren’t even Hoosiers: Indiana blog Capitol & Washington reports that about half of the buses carrying protesters came from Illinois and other states.
Union advocates were protesting a whole smorgasbord of issues, including the right-to-work legislation (which Republicans have said they will no longer push for), the push to make the ban on collective bargaining for state workers permanent (right now it is the current governor who decides whether collective bargaining will occur or not for state workers), and a bill that would limit teachers’ collective bargaining powers.
They’re also up in arms over a bill that would provide vouchers to thousands of low-income children. How preventing children from getting a good education serves the unions’ ostensible goal of helping regular folk not get crushed by powerful interests is beyond me.