Lebanon, IN – On Wednesday, July 29, survivors stood together to protest the abuse and exploitation they faced while at the Refuge Girls Academy (previously Central Indiana Teen Challenge) and brought attention to an ongoing legal case against the academy.

The nine original plaintiffs have expanded to represent 35 survivors who are now fighting the academy's crimes. The long list of crimes of the academy include institutionalized cruelty, physical abuse, labor trafficking, forced malnutrition, religious indoctrination, humiliation rituals, conversion therapy, human trafficking and torture, amongst many more.

All of these crimes were committed against children under the authority of Dawn and Dave Rose, the director and CEO of the academy at the time.

Survivors partnered with Students for a Democratic Society at Purdue and began their protest right outside the academy chanting “Education! Not exploitation!” “This refuge is not safe!” and “Rise up women of the world, women of the world rise up!” One chant in particular highlighted just how many young women suffered under Dawn and Dave Rose’s control. The chant “If [name] don’t get it, shut it down!” went on to name 30 survivors in total. The protest marched across the street to a park where survivors shared their stories.

“20 years ago I entered Central Indiana Teen Challenge. I was 15 years old. I needed help, instead I was left with trauma that has taken over a decade to begin healing,” said Mandi MacDonald, a survivor of the academy. “I want you to understand something. When I entered Teen Challenge I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone. I was taken from my classroom in handcuffs, and on the way to the program I attempted suicide,” said MacDonald.

MacDonald survived. And after nearly a year at the academy, she eventually earned the “privilege” of a supervised visit with her parents. After the visit, she made an attempt to contact those who missed her on MySpace, something the academy strictly prohibited, and, upon confessing this to her unaccredited counselor, she was severely punished. “Dawn told me I had never admitted what I had done and that they had discovered it on their own. I told them that wasn’t true. I begged them to ask my counselor. My counselor did not support me. In that moment something inside of me broke,” said MacDonald.

MacDonald was stripped of all of her progress at the academy and forced into solitary confinement for two months. She was made to live off a diet of cold beans, bread, carrots and an apple for every meal. During this time, she was forced to perform repetitive remedial tasks which her OCD tendencies made impossible to complete, resulting in the academy banning her from speaking and being spoken to for months.

“Lebanon Teen Challenge broke a lot of things inside of me, but Lebanon Teen Challenge also shaped who I am today. It taught me to not be silent, it taught me to be courageous, and to never give up. And here we are, almost 20 years later, and I finally can speak on this,” said Emelia Neel, another survivor of the academy. “I will not remain silent any longer. I remember… staying up late with Brittany and Bridgett and we would talk about all the things we would do when we get out. Very similar to people who are in prison, except people in prison get to know when they go home. We didn’t!” said Neel.

The Refuge Girls academy preys on young women in vulnerable situations and violates the trust in religious institutions most people have. Parents often see the academy as a safe place to send their children, where they can overcome their hardships and grow up in a healing environment that some parents simply can’t provide. Many of the girls at the academy are orphans, and some homeless, before their time at the academy, a vulnerability the academy sees profit in.

One crime at the academy was unpaid child labor. Residents were forced to maintain the academy itself and were often trafficked across Indiana to perform heavy labor in extreme weather conditions for no pay, all while any medical concerns were completely neglected. Residents were sent to residential homes, religious institutions and universities, including Purdue and Butler University, where they would be made porters for college students, hauling their personal belongings and assembling heavy bunk beds. The children often worked 12 to 16-hour days.

This exploitation was not just a means of profit for the academy, but an avenue for cruel punishment as well. Minors were often made to clean staircases with toothbrushes or cut the lawn with scissors, all while performing every bit of cooking, cleaning and food preparation, as the academy refused to pay professional adult workers for that labor.

The academy brings in millions of dollars in revenue each year. The struggle to bring the Refuge Girls Academy to justice is an issue of women’s liberation, LGBTQ liberation and workers’ rights. Each struggle is connected and all necessary for justice.

Follow @sdsatpurdue on Instagram to stay up to date and join the fight.

#LebanonIN #IN #PeoplesStruggles #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #SDS #Purdue

Michigan City, IN – Slot attendants and dual-rate slot attendants at Blue Chip Casino Hotel Spa voted overwhelmingly to unionize with Teamsters Local 135 in an NLRB election held July 30 and 31. 18 workers voted yes, only two voted no, and one ballot was challenged, equating to a 90% landslide for the union. Every eligible voter cast a ballot.

The outstanding victory caps off more than a month of organizing that began June 23, when slot attendants marched on the boss and delivered a union recognition letter to General Manager JC Rieger. After Blue Chip refused voluntary recognition, Teamsters Local 135 filed for an NLRB election that same day.

In the weeks between the march and the vote, Boyd Gaming, which owns Blue Chip, mounted an aggressive campaign to defeat the union. They delayed pre-scheduled annual raises earned by the slot attendants and dual rates, citing the impending NLRB election. At the same time, they gave sizable raises to the other non-union departments in hopes of demoralizing the workers.

The company brought in a union-avoidance consulting firm it has yet to disclose to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), as federal law requires. Workers say at least three consultants worked the floor, including two who went by the names “Louisa” and “Charlie.” Union-busting consultants regularly lie about their real names to obscure their identities and avoid accountability for their shameful activities. Blue Chip must, by law, disclose their real identities to the OLMS.

The consultants pulled slot attendants into repeated one-on-one and small-group meetings to pressure them into voting no. Management sent anti-union letters to workers' homes, papered break rooms and back-of-house areas with misleading propaganda, and bombarded workers' phones with text messages. Boyd Gaming even enlisted employees from a separate, non-union department to lobby slot attendants against the union.

None of it worked. Union organizers and slot attendants said that management appeared visibly shaken by the result of the vote when the NLRB agent read out the count on the afternoon of July 31.

Blue Chip Teamsters will now move to elect their bargaining committee and begin drafting contract proposals. Teamsters Local 135 conducts open bargaining, meaning any union member can sit in on negotiations with the company, a practice the local uses to keep rank-and-file workers directly involved and organized throughout the fight for a first contract.

The Blue Chip win is part of a broader surge in casino organizing by the Teamsters, who have organized hundreds of new casino workers over the past year, including table games dealers in Indiana and Virginia. The union now represents more than 6000 casino workers nationwide.

#MichiganCityIN #IN #Labor #Election #Casino #Feature

The rally will be hosted by Save Heritage Indiana, a nonprofit considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be an anti-immigrant hate group. It will also feature recorded remarks from Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith.

Bovino became notorious as the face of ICE and CBP after Trump’s second term began. The blowback came at the beginning of this year, after agents under his command murdered Renee Goode and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. His removal was one concession wrung out of the Trump administration by the unprecedented mass mobilization of Minnesotans against “Operation Metro Surge.”

Bovino is leveraging his notoriety on a tour of the country in preparation for a potential presidential run in 2028, using the narrative that he was forced out by a feckless administration unwilling to do “real” mass deportations. Bovino claims, per the “Heritage Rallies” website, that there are over 100 million “illegal aliens” in the country needing to be deported, nearly a third of the U.S. population.

These false claims are being backed up by a coterie of far-right Indiana politicians, the most prominent of course being Lieutenant Governor Beckwith. Beckwith has long courted controversy: he has always referred to himself as a “Christian Nationalist” and most recently called Islam “demonic” and “more dangerous than Nazism.”

Another speaker will be Brandon Harnish, founder of the Pat Buchanan Society and self-proclaimed member of the “New Right” and county councilor for Wells County. The third speaker will be Anthony Rubin, founder of the website Muckraker, who produces anti-immigrant propaganda similar to that of Youtuber Nick Shirley, whose staged reporting in the Twin Cities was used as a pretext by the Trump administration for Operation Metro Surge.

The host of the event, Save Heritage Indiana, is run by Daniel Poynter. A Purdue alumnus, tech industry businessman, and self-proclaimed descendant of Patrick Henry and Mayflower passengers, Poynter got his start in the non-profit world with Carbon Neutral Indiana, which is dedicated to finding ways to mitigate climate change. Last year, Poynter pivoted to co-founding SHI with Nathan Roberts, a far-right college student, because, according to their website, they “realized the world we grew up in is being destroyed.” SHI’s website is a litany of thinly-veiled racism but makes its violent white supremacy clear when they state their goal of “reversing mass migration.”

Save Heritage Indiana is but one part of a larger nationwide alliance called the Mass Deportation Coalition. According to its website, this coalition includes partners ranging from institutional heavy hitters to private individuals. The former includes the likes of the Heritage Foundation (of Project 2025 infamy) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (a longstanding anti-immigration think tank cited by both Democrats and Republicans in making policy) with the latter including Blackwater mercenary Erik Prince and former ICE head Mark Morgan.

This “movement” for mass deportations is indicative of a contradiction within Trump’s ruling coalition. This contradiction is between the tendency of the monopoly capitalist base to seek ever larger numbers of precarious, super-exploitable workers from the world’s oppressed nations to immigrate, and the tendency of the white chauvinist superstructure to prevent immigration. The contours of this contradiction became immediately clear even before Trump had begun his second term, in a bitter debate over H-1B visas.

The racist position, espoused by Stephen Miller, was that these visas should be eliminated and that the jobs filled by these visa holders go to Americans instead. The monopoly capitalist position, argued by Elon Musk, was that there simply are not enough sufficiently trained workers in the U.S. to fill the jobs and that the immigrants coming through H-1Bs are qualitatively different “desirable” immigrants. Trump sided with monopoly capital and, in the end, left H-1Bs alone.

The stakes involved in the struggle are all too clear in the wake of ICE’s most recent murders, and thankfully, the mass movement against ICE repression and for legalization for all continues to gain momentum.

A coalition of local organizations in Indiana has already planned a counter-march: the Hoosier Hospitality March. The coalition includes Indivisible chapters from all over central Indiana, Indy Resistance, Voices 4 Democracy, Somos Latinos, and Hamilton County Food Not Bombs.

Since Save Heritage Indiana (SHI) refuses to disclose to the public where their event will be held, the protesters’ coalition will be marching from Holland Park to the Municipal Center, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the day of SHI’s Bovino rally. The march will be a show of support and solidarity to the members of the community that SHI and Bovino seek to terrorize.

If you want to join that fight, look for local affiliates near you of the Legalization for All (L4A) Network, or local Chicano rights organizations. If you have any information as to where SHI’s rally will be held, do not hesitate to reach out to the organizations named above, or to FRSO Indiana.

#PerdueIN #IN #ImmigrantRights #ICE #Bovino

Indianapolis, IN – Drivers for uniform and workplace-supply company Vestis walked off the job at 2 a.m. Monday, July 13, launching an unfair labor practice strike organized by Teamsters Local 135.

The union says the strike is about accountability. Local 135 alleges Vestis threatened workers for engaging in protected concerted activity, a right guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Vestis, based in Roswell, Georgia, provides uniform rental, workwear, floor mats, linens and related workplace supplies to businesses across North America. The company was spun off from Aramark in 2023, separating Aramark's uniform services division into its own publicly-traded company. Vestis drivers deliver and service uniforms and supplies for businesses like UPS.

In a statement posted to Facebook, Local 135 said the union remains “ready, willing, and available” to meet with the company to bargain in good faith and called for Vestis to respect workers' rights and negotiate fairly to end the dispute.

The union is asking Teamsters members, families and labor supporters in the Indianapolis area to join the picket line, which will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at 2050 Oliver Avenue.

#IndianapolisIN #IN #Labor #Teamsters #Strike #Vestis #IBT135 #NLRA #Feature

Michigan City, IN – Slot attendants at Blue Chip Casino Hotel Spa marched on management Tuesday, June 23, to demand voluntary recognition of their union with Teamsters Local 135.

Joined by Teamsters from Locals 135, 364 and 142, approximately 15 slot attendants and supporters marched through the casino before presenting a union recognition letter to General Manager JC Rieger on the gaming floor. The letter was read aloud before being handed to Rieger, who accepted the demand letter but offered no response.

The letter warned Blue Chip management to refrain from union-busting, stating “that should you or any other Company Representative make any unilateral changes to the employees’ terms and conditions of employment or take any type of retaliatory action against employees” the local union would “enforce these employees’ rights to the fullest extent of the law.”

As the delegation concluded, workers filled the casino with chants of “Who are we? Teamsters!”

Later that day, Teamsters Local 135 filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board. A pre-election hearing has been scheduled for July 2.

The bargaining unit includes slot attendants and dual-rate slot attendants, a majority of whom have signed authorization cards for representation with the Teamsters. Workers say they are organizing in response to declining wages, chronic understaffing, unjust discipline, a punitive attendance policy, and a paid time off system that often leaves employees waiting without timely approval or denial of their requests.

Workers also point to the consolidation of the guest service representative position into the slot attendant classification without any corresponding increase in pay, leaving attendants responsible for additional duties while earning the same wages.

One of the central issues in the campaign is the decline in tip income for slot attendants. Although attendants receive an hourly wage, the most significant portion of their earnings comes from pooled tips, or tokes, left by players receiving hand-paid jackpots. Recent changes to the federal W-2G reporting threshold increased the amount that triggers a mandatory hand-pay from $1200 to $2000, and many casinos have adjusted their slot machines accordingly. Workers say fewer hand-pays means fewer opportunities to earn tips, resulting in a sharp decline in take-home pay even as their workload has increased.

Teamsters Local 135 is also seeking contractual protection for tipped casino employees elsewhere in Indiana, including guaranteed toke rates for slot attendants and table games dealers during ongoing contract negotiations at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

The recognition campaign at Blue Chip marks the latest casino organizing effort by Teamsters Local 135, as gaming workers across Indiana continue pushing for a greater voice on the job and contracts that address wages, staffing, and working conditions.

#MichiganCityIN #IN #Labor #Teamsters #Casino #IBT135 #Feature

Lawrenceburg, IN – Workers at Batesville Products Inc. (BPI) have been on strike since May 11 after voting unanimously to withhold their labor and demand recognition of their union, Teamsters Local 135.

The strike began after a supermajority of workers signed authorization cards seeking Teamsters representation and demanded voluntary recognition from the company. BPI management refused to recognize the union, prompting the filing of a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Rather than allowing workers to move quickly toward an election, the company challenged which employees should be included in the proposed bargaining unit through the NLRB's pre-election hearing process. Workers and Teamster representatives contend the objections are a bogus attempt to delay the election and buy time for union-busting inside the facility.

The union's bargaining unit includes machinists, polishers and shipping and receiving employees working at the company's facility in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Management wants to include workers from another separate location in Aurora, in hopes of diluting the vote with unorganized workers who were not a part of the union campaign.

The strike comes as the NLRB faces significant staffing shortages and case backlogs nationwide. Delays in the union certification process give employers major advantages in their campaigns to break organizing drives before workers have the chance to vote.

BPI workers formed their union over unsafe and unfair workplace conditions, excessive overtime, low wages, high health insurance costs, and declining benefits. Employees say many workers have been required to work mandatory 60-hour weeks for extended periods.

Facing delays from the bureaucratic pre-election hearing process, Teamsters Local 135 held a strike authorization vote and the workers unanimously approved a recognition strike. Picketing began outside the facility on May 11 and has continued for more than a month.

“This is about workers standing together and demanding a voice in their workplace,” said Teamsters Local 135 President Dustin Roach on the day of the strike's commencement. “These workers built their majority themselves, they organized themselves, and now they are prepared to stand together on the picket line for as long as it takes to win the dignity, respect, and representation they deserve.”

The strike remains ongoing as workers continue to seek recognition of their union and the opportunity to negotiate a first collective bargaining agreement.

This is the second strike for recognition called by Teamsters Local 135 in the past year, with the first taking place at the Horseshoe Indianapolis casino in Shelbyville. The early U.S. labor movement made use of the strike for recognition in the period of time before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 and for years after. In the modern era, the tactic was virtually extinct as unions came to rely more heavily on the NLRB for union certification.

As the NLRB becomes more dysfunctional and openly operates on behalf of employers, militants in the labor movement are beginning to rediscover this tactic – and in Teamsters Local 135, they are making use of it to counter employers' unchecked union-busting campaigns.

#LawrenceburgIN #IN #Labor #Teamsters #BatesvilleProducts #Strike

Indianapolis, IN — More than 30 workers, Teamsters members and labor supporters rallied outside the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) office in Indianapolis on the morning of June 2. They gathered to demand union certification for nearly 200 table games dealers and dual-rate dealers at Horseshoe Indianapolis, who struck for recognition in fall 2025.

Although the workers won an NLRB election on December 5, 2025, with 70% voting yes, the dealers and dual-rate dealers have continued to face anti-union tactics from Caesars Entertainment. The company filed three objections to the election results in an attempt to delay certification, leading NLRB Region 25 to schedule a hearing for June 2 – nearly six months after the workers' victory.

The rally began an hour before the hearing. It brought together many of the dealers and dual-rate dealers who spent 52 days on strike last year, along with Teamsters from workplaces including UPS and Kroger. Members of other unions, including the United Steelworkers and the Air Line Pilots Association, also joined community supporters in solidarity.

Outside the federal building, the energy was defiant and militant. Workers carried signs reading “Union now,” “Fight back,” and “Organize” as chants echoed through downtown Indianapolis. Teamsters Local 135's tractor-trailer repeatedly circled the building, sounding its horn as workers cheered.

“What do we want? Union! When do we want it? Now!” protesters shouted, calling for the election result to be respected and for the company to stop delaying recognition.

Other chants came directly from the strike that first united the dealers and dual-rate dealers. “One day longer, one day stronger,” demonstrators repeated – a familiar phrase that became a source of encouragement and solidarity on the picket line.

After the rally, members of Teamsters Local 135 and other supporters entered the federal building for an NLRB hearing on Caesars Entertainment's objections related to the payment of strike benefits during the workers' 52-day strike for union recognition.

Dealers and dual rates revive the strike for recognition

A supermajority of dealers and dual-rate dealers at Horseshoe Casino formed a union with Teamsters Local 135 and demanded recognition from the company on September 4, 2025. When management ignored that demand, the workers moved toward an NLRB election scheduled for October 17. But last year's federal government shutdown postponed the election indefinitely.

The union proposed holding the vote as scheduled through a neutral third party under the stipulated election agreement, but the company ignored that proposal as well. Instead, Caesars hired Littler Mendelson, one of the country's largest anti-union law firms, to launch an aggressive campaign against the union.

With no resolution in sight, the Horseshoe dealers and dual-rate dealers turned to a tactic used widely before the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935: the recognition strike.

Strikes for union recognition continued after the passage of the NLRA, though employer and government attacks on the right to strike in general made them increasingly less common. In the last four decades, the tactic virtually disappeared, as organized labor came to rely on the NLRB election process for union certification and moved away from strikes at all. Meanwhile, union density has collapsed from 20.1% in 1983 to 10% in 2025, with an even greater decline in the private sector.

On October 17, the date originally set for their union election, the dealers and dual rates of Horseshoe casino made history. By a vote of 92%, they authorized a strike for recognition and set up a picket line to force Caesars to the bargaining table. The strike lasted 52 days through severe thunderstorms, subzero temperatures, and heavy snow. Caesars relied on the Shelbyville Police Department and city officials to pressure the strikers, but those efforts failed to break the strike.

After the federal government reopened in mid-November, the NLRB set a date for an expedited election. NLRB Region 25 rejected union requests to hold the vote off-site while the strike continued, forcing striking workers to cross their own picket line to cast ballots.

Following advice from Littler Mendelson, Caesars challenged the eligibility of 50 of its own workers, further delaying the process. Even so, the union won decisively on December 5, 2025, with 100 votes in favor and 47 against. The strike ended a few days later, and the dealers and dual-rate dealers returned to work.

Employer attacks on the right to strike

One week after the union's victory, Caesars Entertainment, through outside counsel, filed three objections aimed at delaying certification. All three focused on strike benefits paid to workers while they were out, which Caesars claimed improperly influenced the election.

Since 2023, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) has offered enhanced strike benefits of $1000 per week, beginning on the first day of an authorized strike. Under General President Sean O'Brien, the union has paid these benefits in more than 300 labor disputes in less than three years.

Because the Horseshoe dealers and dual-rate dealers had already organized, whether or not the employer or the NLRB formally recognized them, the IBT extended enhanced strike benefits to support their fight for recognition. Teamsters Local 135 also provided supplemental aid from its own strike and defense fund. That support helped protect workers and their families from serious financial hardship and enabled them to sustain the strike through victory.

These benefits became the basis for all three company objections, which the NLRB allowed Caesars to pursue without requiring proof at the outset. Caesars argued that the benefits bribed workers to support the union, even though the strike began when no election was scheduled. The company also claimed, without evidence, that the union threatened workers with having to repay benefits if they did not back the union.

Despite decades of case law supporting unions' right to provide financial support during strikes, the Region 25 director ordered a hearing on these claims. The hearing took place on June 2 and 3 and drew more than a dozen dealers and dual-rate dealers.

These objections amount to a broad attack on workers' right to strike. Under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959, workers picketing for union recognition must file an election petition with the NLRB by the 30th day, and employers may file their own petition during that period. As a result, while not every recognition strike ends in an NLRB election, any recognition strike can.

If the NLRB were to rule that strike benefits constitute a form of bribery that taints an NLRB election, it would effectively restrict the ability of workers to strike for recognition at all. Such a ruling would give employers a powerful weapon for breaking recognition strikes any time a union provides financial support to its members.

Caesars' false testimony and Littler Mendelson's real motive

On the first day of the hearing, Jill Bortone, Horseshoe Casino's director of human resources, testified. When challenged during the union's cross-examination, she said twice that she had received a union message about strike benefits before the December 5 vote. When the union attorney produced screenshots of the original message dated December 6, the day after the election, doubts were raised about the accuracy of her testimony.

As the company's case weakened, Caesars attorney Alan Model of Littler Mendelson became increasingly combative before the hearing officer.

Model, who says he specializes in “NLRA compliance” and represented Starbucks in its recent anti-union campaign, signaled the company's broader goal in his opening remarks. He argued for limiting recognition strikes by restricting a union's ability to support members on the picket line. Over the two-day hearing, he presented no evidence for the company's third objection: that the union threatened workers with repaying strike benefits.

Lawyers like Model hate working people. They ideologically despise unions because they represent the organized power of the working class. Billing tens of thousands of dollars per hour, they work on behalf of big business and monopoly corporations to attack labor.

For Littler Mendelson, this case is larger than Horseshoe casino. By reviving the strike weapon during an organizing campaign, the dealers and dual rates dealt a mighty blow to their union-busting playbook and won. Employers and their dogs like Model fear the power of the recognition strike will spread to other workplaces. Much to their dismay, this has already happened in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where workers at Batesville Products Inc. are engaged in their own strike for recognition, also with Teamsters Local 135.

Teamsters power at the NLRB hearing

The union presented a strong defense to the objections, calling witnesses and introducing evidence showing the true picture of the Horseshoe strike. Payroll records and other documents showed that Caesars artificially juiced wages for dealers who continued working during the strike and even paid scabs from another casino to break the strike, all of which far exceeded the $25 per hour of strike benefits ($1000 per week divided by 40 hours on the picket line).

Strike leaders testified to the discipline on the strike line, in which both part-time and full-time dealers walked the picket line for five eight-hour shifts each week, and highlighted the real economic harms that strikers overcame to fight for their union. In a particularly powerful display, the union introduced a petition that dealers and dual rates gathered themselves in the days before the hearing. Well over 100 workers signed the petition to demand union certification from the NLRB and to dispel the company's bogus objections.

The proceedings ended on June 3. Both the union and the company have additional days to file a 25-page brief outlining their positions and using the available evidence introduced at the hearing. The hearing officer will make a recommendation to NLRB Region 25 director Colleen Maples, who will then issue a ruling.

After the hearing, dealers and dual rates pledged to continue fighting in the workplace. They have already formed their union, and billion-dollar corporations cannot override the power of organized labor.

#IndianapolisIN #IN #Labor #Teamsters #Feature