The month-long lockout of electric and natural gas utility workers at Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) ended April 28th. Where before, political struggle on the job was minimal, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) leaflets, CHALLENGES, and discussions were fairly strong on the picket line. NIPSCO workers saw the Party in action. It was multiracial, men and women. Contacts were made, tamales shared. People visited. After many years on the job, more people are connecting with communist ideas and the knowledge that the working class can run society for itself!
Workers need the Party
NIPSCO, one of the largest utility companies in the U.S., provides natural gas and electricity across six states including Indiana. When they locked us out, they had scabs ready to take our jobs. Their demands included forced overtime and other attacks on our working conditions. Clerical workers at NIPSCO had already written about how their jobs were being eliminated — handed off to AI systems and call centers, their livelihoods wiped out.
NIPSCO is widely hated by the working class for its outrageously high bills. Workers in Northwest Indiana have protested staggering rate increases, much of the company’s profits flowing into the pockets of Blackstone — the notoriously racist private equity giant (Chicago Tribune, 2/28) and one of the largest in the country, largely responsible for the displacement of working-class communities nationwide. Blackstone profits from the enslavement of migrant children forced to labor in slaughterhouse plants (Time, 2/17/2023), as well as being a major investor in the genocide of mostly women and children in Gaza — owning defense technology companies Cobham and Ultra Electronics whose components are embedded in the F-35 fighter jets used by the Israeli military to bomb Gaza (Private Equity Stakeholder Project, 2/5/2024), showing that the hand that raises utility bills and attacks utility workers also displaces, bombs, and enslaves our working-class children.
The Party moved into action quickly, both inside the plant and on the outside. Young Party leadership pushed us forward — making contacts, spreading the word about the bosses’ fascist attacks.
A Party member inside was moved to take the bullhorn and speak before everyone as we filed into the union hall to vote on the contract. We had been out for two weeks, and the sellout union had brought us back with essentially the same contract we had already rejected. We were faced with a choice: vote yes, or risk sitting out for months like our fellow USW (United Steelworkers) members at BP Amoco in nearby Whiting.
A comrade speaks out
The comrade did speak to “VOTE NO” on the contract, to fight back against the company’s attacks on the working class. The comrade himself was a little surprised at the co-workers who complimented him for standing up to the sell-out contract. The vote was 708 to 486 to accept the contract, probably closer than the leaders expected.
One particular moment was especially powerful. A woman comrade from Mexico came to the picket line. After a couple of hours of carrying a sign, she wanted to speak. She spoke in Spanish (and was translated). She told of how her father, in the little town in Mexico where she grew up, was like us workers on the picket line. We were sticking up for others like her dad had done. I am sure we all felt the international solidarity circulating through our lives that night. It won’t be forgotten.
The struggle goes on. Energy has to be maintained. There is a lot to do. Do more to support the BP workers locked out. Keep plugging away to win as many workers as possible to Progressive Labor Party.
