Indiana Right To Work: AFL-CIO Airing Ad Targeting Mitch Daniels During SOTU Response

WASHINGTON -- A labor union is using Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' (R) high-profile speech on Tuesday night to remind viewers of the governor's change of heart on controversial right-to-work legislation.

Daniels will be giving the official GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union message on Tuesday.

In his own state, Daniels and the GOP-controlled state legislature are locked in a standoff with Democrats over right to work, which would bar unions from automatically collecting dues from workers' paychecks at private companies.

The Indiana AFL-CIO will begin airing a new television ad on the issue across the state during evening broadcasts and nationally on CNN and MSNBC on Tuesday in conjunction with the State of the Union.

The ad, called "What," will contrast his current support for right to work with the fact that in the past, he spoke out against such legislation.

"We cannot afford to have civil wars over issues that might divide us and divert us from that path. I have said over and over, I'll say it again tonight: I'm a supporter of the labor laws we have in the state of Indiana," he said in a speech to the Teamsters 135 Union Stewards Dinner on Sept. 23, 2006. "I'm not interested in changing any of it. Not the prevailing wage laws, and certainly not the right to work law. We can succeed in Indiana with the laws we have, respecting the rights of labor, and fair and free competition for everybody."

"As Governor Daniels prepares to give the national Republican response to the State of the Union, this is an opportunity to show the nation just how far he's strayed from the Hoosier values he once claimed to represent," said Indiana State AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott. "He has gone from opposing partisan right-to-work legislation that he said was bad for Indiana to flip-flopping on the issue now that he's more interested in becoming a right-wing darling and doing the bidding of his undisclosed donors."

Daniels' office has admitted that he did once believe Indiana did not need to change its labor laws, but he has since shifted his position.

"[T]wo things in particular have changed his mind and led to his support of right to work legislation: Indiana misses many job opportunities and the significant downturn in the national economy," Daniels spokeswoman Jane Jankowski recently told The Huffington Post.

Comments

[Sean21]

12:40 PM on 01/26/2012

If Unions are so important then they wont bust because employees will choose to continue to pay for the benefits of being in a union.

[Hoz Hoven]

09:10 AM on 01/25/2012

Despite NOT having RTW,

"Indiana makes a comeback. Now what?
By Laura Conaway - Tue Jan 24, 2012 1:54 PM EST.
Indiana Department of Workforce Development
The Bureau of Labor Statistics today released the new figures for employment (and unemployment) in the states. Half the states gained jobs last month and about half the states lost jobs. Coming in second on the list for gainers: Indiana, where the state legislature is rushing to pass an anti-union Right to Work bill. After getting slammed senseless during the recession, the federal government says Indiana gained 15,100 jobs last month (much of it from the private sector, in the state's best month for job growth in a decade).

And the little fool says push on...

[Gatormouth]

01:25 PM on 01/24/2012

Politically, this guy has been a disaster!!
"...his many admirers forget to mention what Daniels did in creating the debt crisis as George W. Bush’s budget director.", OMG
query "Mitch Daniels, Architect of US Debt Crisis". -

[KauaiJohnnie]

12:53 PM on 01/24/2012

What a waste of precious ad time. Repeating "a right to work law" over and over again tells me nothing about what that law is or whether I should be for or against it.

BTW, I know what it is. My point is that the audience this ad is directed to, the people of Indiana -- just like most of the US population, hear "right to work" and they want to support it. Just like they are "pro-life". Better messaging is required.

[Jim bob]

12:46 PM on 01/26/2012

It stinks that we accept those Frank Luntz propaganda points on their face. "right to work", "pro life", war is peace, peace is war....entitlement...the list is long and the left perspective will not make it until it addresses this kind of not-so-subtle propaganda.

[Jim bob]

12:48 PM on 01/26/2012

PS next time you go to Na Pali say hi for me. I love your namesake.

[igetby]

12:50 PM on 01/24/2012

"[T]wo things in particular have changed his mind and led to his support of right to work legislation: Indiana misses many job opportunities and the significant downturn in the national economy," Daniels spokeswoman Jane Jankowski recently told The Huffington Post.
Oh yeah and a third one, Political expediency.

[SunnyDaySam]

12:42 PM on 01/24/2012

Anybody else think the Koch brothers are behind this?

[Hoz Hoven]

12:25 PM on 01/24/2012

"Advocates for right to work have spent four times as much money as labor supporters over the past three weeks in an Indianapolis broadcast advertising war. . . In the first 20 days of this year, union supporter group A Working Person Like You spent almost $106,000 for anti-right-to-work buying ads on Indianapolis television stations. . . In 21 days, the Indiana Opportunity Fund spent about $472,000 advocating right to work on those stations and on radio station WIBC, more money than A Working Person Like You earned in 2010."

~The Statehouse File, Indiana News Powered by Franklin College Journalism Students.

[DevonTexas]

12:12 PM on 01/24/2012

Y'all should know when you vote Repug... you take what you get and it ain't what you want.

[BBackSoon]

12:06 PM on 01/24/2012

Together we bargain, divided we beg.

[renoir]

01:24 PM on 01/24/2012

Beautiful. Is that original? I have not heard it before and think that you have stated this perfectly.

[BBackSoon]

01:31 PM on 01/24/2012

It has been on Bumper Stickers for years.

But it is good, isn't it?

[HoosierLefty]

11:57 AM on 01/24/2012

Governor Golem is trying to pass this legislation and running lot of TV ads here. People have to wake up and think. Golem has to go forever. The most outragious thing is they are asking him to run for President of the USA. LMAO.. He won't run because of his wife's baggage.

[DevonTexas]

12:12 PM on 01/24/2012

Simple GOPper solution to the "wife problem"... get a new wife.

[HoosierLefty]

01:33 PM on 01/24/2012

This is little more complicated. His wife went with a doctor and came back after several years. LMAO...

[anthony enlow]

12:23 PM on 01/24/2012

Not to mention his on ineptness as budget director under W

[mm3264]

11:30 AM on 01/24/2012

Right to work part-time at minimum wage, (which the Republicans wish to do away with), with no benefits and never getting out of poverty.

[MarcDel]

11:49 AM on 01/24/2012

"[T]wo things in particular have changed his mind and led to his support of right to work legislation: Indiana misses many job opportunities and the significant downturn in the national economy," Using this logic his next move could be to legalize slavery.
This state competition race to the bottom is disgusting. It's another sign that business has bought government. If they truly believed in free market capitalism they'd quit giving tax incentives to companies and recognize that tax dollars provide infrastructure and an educated workforce to companies and are a cost of doing business. Anywhere and everywhere.

[CornvilleSam]

11:13 AM on 01/24/2012

I live in Az, a right to work state. Maybe the longest running state to have right to work. Before Goldwater died he said that the biggest mistake he ever made in his political life was to make Az a right to work state. That supporting right to work kept this state lagging behind all other states in econmoic growth. Stay away from right to work. It will kill your state economically.

[Fanny Cole]

11:25 AM on 01/24/2012

go peddle your outdated teaKrap elsewhere

[CornvilleSam]

11:41 AM on 01/24/2012

I don't like tea.

[cigi]

11:45 AM on 01/24/2012

I am hardly a Tea Bagger, and I agree with Sam. Right to work,merely means the right to work for less, the right to work hours that you are not paid for, and the right to receive little to NO benefits as a worker. Every state that uses right to work drives down wages and actually, does impact negatively the GDP a State could come up to. Look at the South and see how much good it has done them and their citizens over the last century. I made more money as a UNION employee in right to work states than most of my peers in the private sector in the right to work states I worked in over a life time. I also retired with a pension, healthcare, dental care, a 401K and NEVER had to pay excessive healthcare premiums. Life can be good, if you get past your preconceived notion that Unions are the enemy.

[BCS]

02:16 PM on 01/24/2012

Really? California is bankrupt because of public unions.
We cannot afford the six figure pensions anymore.
And what is left is taken by our 4 million illegal aliens(free educations. free medical).
Progressive control is even WORSE.

[CornvilleSam]

02:49 PM on 01/24/2012

Thanks cigi. We are broke because we have no industry to speak of and what we do have for the most part their corprate office are in Sweden or some place like that so they pay very little in taxes. Some how we are going to have to find a way to bring those corpratrations headqarters back to the US.

[Canliberalwoman]

10:47 AM on 01/24/2012

Sometimes I really don't get the GOP's logic. How is unions stopping them from ripping off the middle class?

[Robin Rae Overholt]

11:01 AM on 01/24/2012

Because the GOP wants the middleclass to go away!

[mm3264]

11:31 AM on 01/24/2012

The GOP wants two classes, the rich and those that serve the rich,

[BCS]

02:06 PM on 01/24/2012

And so do the Democrats.
BOTH parties are corporate shills- just sold out to different corporations.
The Democrats are shills of GE and the Rs are shills of big oil.

You cannot believe that the Ds care about the middle class when they are just as involved in globalization as the Rs are (or almost, anyway).
Unions make absolutely NO SENSE when you are shipping jobs overseas because unions just force the exodus all that much faster.

[SueEll]

10:36 AM on 01/24/2012

Some dumb Americans support companies moving from one state to another to find the most desperate labor force. "Please, move to our state. Abuse us, get rid of those pesky regulations that keep us safe, we don't mind. Oh, you don't want me, you want my kid to work, instead? Sure. The pay's so low and the hours are so minimal I'll need food stamps? Not a problem, you can me 'lazy' later on." Let's keep lowering the bar.

[sackman]

10:34 AM on 01/24/2012

Mitch Daniels is a disgrace to the state of Indiana , His recent turn around on rifgt to work for less, says one thing about him, He cant be trusted. He wants to move up into national politics and by listening to the tea baggs , and taking money big money from the Koch brothers , Just like Scott Walker of Wisconsin. All union people need to stand together...........Obama 2012.......