5,500 Hoosiers sign outsourcing petition

Dowayne Osborne can count on one hand the number of people who wouldn’t sign his petition. That’s saying a lot considering the petition denounces the centerpiece of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ (R) agenda: privatization of state jobs.

“Most of the people who thought we really needed a big change said they voted for him,” Osborne recalls. “But they don’t like what he’s doing.” (Gov. Daniels has been in office since January.)

Neither does the Indiana Unity Team, a joint local of AFT Public Employees and the United Auto Workers, which represents almost 15,000 state employees.

Osborne, a Unity Team chief steward, knows first hand the depths of Gov. Daniels’ privatization plans. He works for the Indiana Department of Transportation as a maintenance worker—a position that can be lucrative for private sector companies.

Since Gov. Daniels took office in January, the Unity Team has been lobbying lawmakers to oppose his wholesale privatization of public services. But the union hasn’t been getting much support from the Republican-controlled General Assembly—or the mainstream media.

Fed up, Unity Team activists decided that if Hoosiers were going to be truly informed of the consequences of privatization, they would have to do it.

Osborne says union activists decided to circulate their petition at county fairs to “see what type of response we get.” Between  fairs in Monroe, Parke and Vermillion Counties, the union gathered 1,000 signatures. “You’ve got to remember that these are small county fairs,” Osborne notes. “Basically, the same people come every night.”

Osborne and Unity Team brother Steve Norman, who works for the Department of Corrections, were mainstays at the Parke and Vermillion fairs. “Steve walked into a Republican tent at the Parke County fair and got 30 people to sign the petition,” recalls Osborne.

After the union’s successful run at the county fairs, the Unity Team set its sights on the state fair. To date, the union has gathered nearly 5,500 signatures.

The petition will be delivered to state lawmakers on opening day of the coming session in January.

“We went out to the public and the public also came to us,” says Osborne. “Next year, I hope it is bigger and better.”