Maintenance workers at Lawrence Township schools voted earlier this month to unionize.
Full-time and regular part-time workers with Chicago-based company R.J.B. Properties approved unionizing by a 7-2 vote, joining the International Union of Operating Engineers.
The school district contracts the maintenance workers, so they aren’t school employees.
The union filed the petition in July, and votes were tallied Aug. 7.
[Indianapolis budget for 2025 proposes $1.6 billion in spending]
The vote comes as Indiana is seeing a slight increase in the share of unionized labor — up from 7.4% in 2022 to 8% in 2023, according to federal labor data.
That’s despite Indiana being one of 27 so-called “right-to-work” states, according to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. That means a worker can’t be required to join a union or pay member dues as a condition of employment, although the union ostensibly still represents those workers’ interests.
Supporters of organized labor generally see right-to-work laws as an effort to weaken unions and keep wages lower.
Still, in Indianapolis, unions are enjoying some recent success.
Workers at the REI store in Castleton voted earlier this year to unionize, citing their pay structure and unpredictability with scheduling. In July, Starbucks employees at the Massachusetts Avenue location unionized.
And in December, staff at the Marion County Public Defender Agency voted to unionize, saying they are underpaid and overworked.
Mirror Indy reporter Tyler Fenwick covers housing and labor. Contact him at 317-766-1406 or tyler.fenwick@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @ty_fenwick.
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