Two newly elected Republican governors have wiped out collective bargaining for state employees in Missouri and in Indiana. Ken Jacob with Missouri's American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees
says Gov. Matt Blunt's assault on collective bargaining rights should be resisted.

[Ken Jacob]: "The right to organize and to collectively bargain is a fundamental right and it needs to be fought for like all rights."

Jacob expects Missouri to honor its contract with state workers through 2006. In Indiana AFSCME's David Warrick says GOP Governor Mitch Daniels order attacking collective bargaining 16 years of labor progress under Democratic governors.

[David Warrick]: "It was sixteen years of progress that he¹s throwing out the window. Without the union contract there are no seniority rights whatsoever, and job bids, vacation rights, nothing. No seniority rights at all."

State employees don¹t have the same national labor law protections as other workers. The defeats of Democrats and victories by Republican governors in Missouri and Indiana has dealt state workers there devastating blow. But AFSCME says it will do whatever it can to continue to represent state workers.