type: timeline_event
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signs right-to-work legislation making Indiana the 23rd state and the first in the Rust Belt manufacturing region to prohibit mandatory union membership or fees as a condition of employment. The bill is sponsored by multiple ALEC members and follows ALEC's model Right to Work Act that the organization had been promoting since 1979, demonstrating the coordinated corporate strategy behind state-level labor suppression.
National Right to Work Committee lobbyists work on the ground in Indiana during the legislative session, while the Koch brothers' Freedom Partners funnels $1 million to the National Right to Work Committee in 2012, with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation providing an additional $15,000 grant to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Indiana's passage demonstrates ALEC's coordinated multi-state strategy: rather than organic state-level decisions, right-to-work laws represent nationally orchestrated corporate campaigns funded by Koch network entities and coordinated through ALEC's state legislative networks.
Indiana's status as the first industrial Rust Belt state to pass right-to-work signals a strategic breakthrough for corporate labor suppression in the manufacturing heartland, setting the stage for Michigan's passage later the same year. The coordinated ALEC-Koch campaign transforms right-to-work from a Southern and Western phenomenon into a Midwest strategy targeting the historic union strongholds.