Indiana Passes Right-to-Work Law, So Unpopular It's Repealed Within Eight Years

The Republican-controlled Indiana General Assembly passes a right-to-work bill in March 1957 over the objections of Democrats, labor leaders, and workers, making Indiana one of the first northern industrial states to adopt such legislation. Time Magazine reports in its March 11, 1957 issue that “some 7,500 wrought-up Indianans marched into the Statehouse in Indianapolis last week to protest against a ‘right-to-work’ bill.” The law proves immediately controversial and deeply unpopular with Indiana’s industrial workforce, demonstrating that right-to-work legislation faces significantly stronger resistance in northern manufacturing states with established union presence compared to the South where such laws had been implemented during the 1940s using racist appeals.

Indiana Republicans passed the right-to-work law in 1957, and the law proved so unpopular that many Republicans were turned out at the polls in 1958. The backlash leads to Democratic takeover of both Indiana’s Governor’s Mansion and General Assembly in subsequent elections, with voters rejecting the anti-union agenda. The newly elected Democratic-controlled legislature repeals the right-to-work law in 1965, making Indiana’s experiment with right-to-work one of the shortest-lived implementations in American history. The eight-year period from passage to repeal demonstrates that right-to-work laws can be reversed when workers organize politically to punish lawmakers who attack union rights.

The Indiana experience serves as a cautionary tale for the National Right to Work Committee and corporate anti-union forces, showing that aggressive pushes for right-to-work legislation in industrial states with strong labor movements can backfire politically. The law’s passage and subsequent repeal represents a significant but temporary setback for the corporate anti-union agenda in the industrial Midwest. However, Indiana eventually passes a new right-to-work law in 2012, becoming the first state in the Rust Belt to adopt such legislation in the modern era after decades of corporate-funded infrastructure building through ALEC and the National Right to Work Committee. The 2012 law represents “a turning point in American labor history” and demonstrates how systematic corporate investment in anti-union propaganda, lobbying infrastructure, and political organizing over 55 years eventually succeeds in a state where such legislation was once rejected decisively by voters.