Indiana Working Families Share Economic Concerns with AFL-CIO President Sweeney

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney (right) joined Indiana workers to talk about their concerns this election.

Rita Dongas, communications coordinator for the Indiana State AFL-CIO, joined AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and workers in a roundtable session yesterday to discuss their concerns as we move toward the elections.

“It’s not like you can just find another job. There aren’t any around here,” said Kathleen South of IUE-CWA Local 919 at yesterday’s worker roundtable in Indianapolis. South, who recently lost her job after the Visteon plant she worked at for 22 years closed down in March, was one of eight recently displaced workers from across Indiana who shared their stories at the roundtable hosted by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Indiana State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Joe Breedlove.

South continued:

I’ll be OK for a few more months but I know that eventually, I’m going to lose the house.

Fears of home foreclosure and the loss of health care coverage dominated much of the afternoon discussion, demonstrating how Hoosiers, like so many Americans, are feeling the devastating affects of the economic crisis first hand. As Sweeney noted:

The unemployment rate has jumped two percentage points in the last year. Good jobs in Indiana are being shipped overseas…and every person sitting here today has been touched by the problems caused by plant closures and companies sending factories out of the U.S. Corporate greed created a mess that the rest of us—including the next generation—will have to clean up.

Workers like Sonia Cook from UAW Local 226 discussed the tough choices she’s having to make because she recently was laid off after her Indianapolis employer, International Truck and Engine, downsized. 

I’m having to decide between paying my car bill and my mortgage and taking my medication. I’ve actually been skipping doses and cutting pills in half to reduce costs.

As the discussion progressed, the focus of conversation quickly moved from problems to solutions, with the upcoming presidential elections taking center stage. Michelle Harrison, a member of IUE-CWA Local 919, who also lost her job at the Visteon plant in Connorsville, said:

We know that in the last eight years, the lives of working people have not been a priority for the Bush administration, or [current governor] Mitch Daniel’s administration for that matter. We need people in office who are going to finally care about the people sitting at this table, instead of corporate interests. And this year it’s clear that Barack Obama and Jill Long Thompson are going to be the ones to stand up for the middle class.

One by one, workers on the panel expressed their support for Obama and gubernatorial candidate Thompson because of their commitments to keeping good jobs here in Indiana. Thompson is running against Republican incumbent Mitch Daniels whose first actions in office included taking away bargaining rights for public employees and privatizing government services. Andrea Mooney of UAW Local 663, who lost her job after the Guide Corp. moved production from Anderson to Monterrey, Mexico, said:

If we don’t elect people who finally protect us from unbalanced trade deals, things are only going to get worse. My husband works for Navistar and we’re scared he’ll end up losing his job, too, and we’ll be left with nothing. We need to elect Barack Obama because he will fight to fix trade deals like NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] and prevent more jobs from going overseas.

Debbie Landrum from Electrical Workers (IBEW) and her husband, David, will lose their jobs when the General Electric plant they work at closes in 2010. Said Landrum:

We’ve got to get Obama in there to stop things before they get even worse. We can’t do anything to change the plant from leaving now, but we can make sure we don’t lose any more like it, and begin to rebuild the industries and communities we’ve lost.

Lettie Oliver, the associate director of AFSCME Council 62, explained that Hoosiers need the same kind of change when it comes to the governor’s race.

[Gov.] Mitch Daniels did to Indiana what Bush did to the nation. Immediately after taking office, he stripped state workers of their rights to collectively bargain, which led to massive privatization of social services. It’s been devastating not only for those workers, but for all Hoosiers who relied on these services to get by. We need Jill Long Thompson because she’s promised to restore those rights and stop the privatization schemes.

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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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