State Hires Union-Busting Firm to Investigate Options
Thursday, the commission created by Governor James Douglas, Treasurer Jeb Spaulding and the Democratic leaders of the Legislature met again in Montpelier. As before, you and your colleagues still have no representation on a panel that will be making recommendations about cuts to your public pension system.
During the meeting – at 1 p.m. at the Statehouse – the commission reviewed recommendations made by an Indianapolis-based law firm that specializes in, among other things, keeping companies “union free.” This union-busting firm – paid for with up to $150,000 of your taxpayer dollars – has helped keep unions from forming at a distribution center in Indiana and, incredibly, among workers for a public library system.
In fact, some employees of the Monroe County, Indiana library system this year vented their frustration with the firm – Ice Miller – on a labor blog. One worker summed up the law firm this way: “Ice Miller is a black hole for our tax dollars.” In the fight to form a union at a distribution center for French retailer Pinault Printemps-Redoute in Indiana, Ice Miller helped ensure that despite workers’ wishes, a union never formed.
“The French multinational clamped down on its workers,” according to an account of the 2002 effort. “They employed the notorious union busting consultancy Ice Miller Attorneys to break up the majority” of workers who had already signed up to belong to UNITE, a textiles workers’ union.
Cutting retirement is wrong. Breaking a promise to hardworking Vermonters is wrong. Using an out-of-state, union-busting law firm paid for with your money is unthinkable.