"Indiana governor signs right to work into law; Law prohibits mandatory union fees" by Monica Davey | new york times, February 02, 2012
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who had once said that he did not wish to add a “right to work’’ provision to the state’s labor laws, signed a bill yesterday doing just that.
The legislation, which bars union contracts from requiring nonunion members to pay fees for representation, makes Indiana the first state in more than a decade to enact right to work legislation and the only one in the Midwestern manufacturing belt to have such a law.
Daniels, a Republican who is prevented by term limits from seeking reelection this year, signed the measure only hours after it cleared the Republican-held Senate - an unusually speedy journey through the State House aimed, many said, at ending what had become a rancorous, partisan fight before the national spotlight of the Super Bowl arrives in Indianapolis on Sunday....
It remained uncertain whether final approval of the bill would prevent union protests of the measure at events related to the Super Bowl, and yesterday thousands of union members and supporters marched, chanting in protest, from the State House to Lucas Oil Stadium, the site of the NFL championship game....
For a month, the issue had loomed over Indianapolis, and hundreds of union members crowded, day after day, into the State House halls....
Republican leaders defended the measure’s unusually swift passage, noting what they described as “overt threats’’ by union members and others about intentions to raise the right to work issue during the Super Bowl.
“We sized up early on that passage prior to the Super Bowl would be appropriate,’’ Brian Bosma, the speaker of the House, said yesterday, adding that law enforcement authorities were prepared for any efforts to disrupt the city’s first Super Bowl. “That would be extremely unfortunate,’’ he said, “and, I think, tremendously unpopular.’’
Related: Indiana Dishonor
Hoosiers are hypocrites!
For their part, union leaders said the Republicans had overblown the union’s intentions when it came to the football game.
“They’re trying to make working men and women look like thugs, like we’re going to ruin an event,’’ said Jeff Harris, a spokesman for the Indiana AFL-CIO....
The real concern, Harris said, should be for what will come next for ordinary workers in the state.
“Hoosiers don’t understand what right to work is, but now they’re going to learn the hard way and see wages decline and workplace safety erode,’’ he said.
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"Indiana’s Lugar hustling in fight to keep Senate seat
INDIANAPOLIS - US Senator Richard Lugar, once seemingly unbeatable in Indiana, has been scrambling to reintroduce himself amid a barrage of attacks that he has lost touch - an argument his Tea Party challenger repeated yesterday outside the Indianapolis home the incumbent sold decades ago.
The Republican, who has spent 35 years in Washington, has been campaigning as though he was a rookie politico, trying to introduce himself to the masses and define his image before opponents do.
The charge by GOP challenger Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer, is the latest in a series of them levied against the Republican senator by an unlikely alliance of Democrats and conservatives.
The groups have joined forces to argue Lugar no longer has much to do with Indiana. Both sides sense political vulnerability from the state’s senior senator.
While nearly all members of Congress have living arrangements in the Washington, D.C., area, most own homes or rent apartments in the states they represent. Lugar, who owns a home in Virginia, typically stays in hotels when he returns to Indiana and no longer has a physical address there.
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