Saturday, March 19, 2011

Teamsters rally at IN food pantry

If Indiana's corporate-backed lawmakers succeed in passing anti-worker legislation, the state's food pantries will need a lot more help. That's why Teamsters and their families from Local 364 in South Bend today brought bags of groceries to Broadway Christian Parish, which runs a food pantry. Many of the church's clients work for a living but don't earn enough to keep food on the table.

The National Association of Letter Carriers organized a press conference at the church this morning -- and asked people to bring groceries. Local 364 President Bob Warnock III put out an urgent call for Teamster families to come to the press conference and rally.

The invitation to the press conference/rally said:
We are invited by Rev. Nancy Nichols of Broadway Christian to bring donations to the church's food pantry. We are doing this because we fear the agenda coming out of the Statehouse will only serve to fracture our community even more, diminish the middle class and make the life of the working poor even worse. Food banks at churches already serve people who work at low wages. The agenda we are fighting is designed to lower wages even further.
Notre Dame Professor Marty Wolfson was to speak at the press conference about his report on the impact of a proposed "right to work (for LESS)" law in Indiana. That's only one of a dozen bills that would take away rights and lower safety, wages, health insurance benefits, pensions and the standard of living for workers throughout Indiana.

Indiana has been almost a forgotten battlefield in the War on Workers. For nearly a month now, 39 Democratic representatives left the state and stayed a way to prevent a vote on those bills. Teamsters have been part of daily protests both large and small outside of the Statehouse.