Line of Scrimmage Forms Over Right to Work Bill

A T-shirt worn by members of the Teamsters has been interpreted in various ways.

INDIANAPOLIS — This city is in full preen for its moment in the spotlight, its first Super Bowl.

[I]nside the Statehouse, people are consumed by something else entirely: a partisan fight over union strength has boiled over. The standoff, three weeks old, is over whether Indiana should become the first state in the Midwest manufacturing belt to adopt legislation banning union contracts from requiring nonunion members to pay fees for representation. And it threatens to linger even as the national attention on the Super Bowl arrives — a possibility that Indiana Republicans want to avoid but that some union supporters seem to be hoping for.
  
“It’s a forum for this to get out beyond the state of Indiana, for the world to know what’s happening to workers here in Indiana,” said Mike Gillespie, business representative of Local 135 of the Teamsters Union, who stood in a crowd of union supporters inside the Statehouse. He wore a T-shirt that bore the numerals of the Super Bowl, XLVI , with a slash through them, a message people here interpreted in various ways.
       
At times in recent days, the chants of protesters — who say the legislation, known as a “right to work” bill, will result in lower wages and weakened unions — have echoed through the rotunda: “Occupy the Super Bowl!” Some say they want to hold marches, slow down beer deliveries or hand out leaflets in the Super Bowl crowd, while others have hinted at more drastic measures.