RTW in Indiana History

Erik Loomis at Lawyers Guns & Money brings us this blast from Indiana’s Right To Work past (it was later repealed), a 1958 letter from a Nashville, IN wife of a carpenter to International Woodworker

“I pooh-poohed when the right-to-work was first called a mankiiller. But it is. The man I love is being killed by it. He is a carpenter, strong, capable, hard-working, able to do three men’s work, which he does. Thereby, he keeps his job, luckier than most carpenters these days.

“He retains his job by doing man-killing work, but the rest of the crew is fired each Friday. A fresh group is brought in on Monday. There is no longer a union steward whose job it used to be to see that the company provided fresh drinking water, toilet facilities, a place to change and keep dry clothes, safety precautions, etc.

“My man comes home each day thirsty, soaking wet and heartsick because eager, hard-working family men on the job are being laid off when they can’t double or triple their output. This is not an isolated case.

“I am a school teacher. I address this to other teachers, office workers, business people, and others who know first hand what the “[Governor] Handley law” really is–a right-to-work-a-man-to-death law. I plead for its repeal.”

Indiana passed the law in 1957, being the only industrial state to adopt such legislation, then repealed it again in 1965. Sometimes we’re very much like a Southern state without the warm climate.