"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell

Back when the debate over mandatory union dues was about “open shop” vs. “closed shop,” interest was mainly limited to union workers and business owners.

But how could anyone ignore or oppose a “right to work?”

Make no mistake: Right to work is not about preserving an existing right of Hoosiers or extending a new one. Right to work is a movement to weaken labor unions by allowing workers to benefit from union negotiations without paying union dues. Making Indiana an open-shop state may or may not bring more jobs; with little doubt, it will result in lower wages.

Advocates of making Indiana the only Midwestern industrial state to take this action have already seized the momentum simply by labeling their goal as “right to work.” And anyone who says with a straight face that the right-to-work bill is not anti-union is somewhere on a scale that starts at ignorance, moves to misleading and ends at outright lie.

“Labels are very important, both in marketing and in politics,” Raymond Scheele, co-director of the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University, said in an email. “Modern political consultants call it ‘controlling the message.’ Using words that appear to favor your point of view conveys a positive meaning to the audience.”

Consider how opponents of the federal estate tax have strived to label it the “death tax.” Consider how opponents of the Obama health care law took a perfectly reasonable idea about discussing end-of-life decisions and labeled it a “death panel.” In a more commercial use, marketers changed the negative word “impotence” to the more medical sounding “erectile dysfunction,” launching a bazillion-dollar industry.

Origins

Some sources credit Charles Fourier (1772-1837), a French utopian socialist and philosopher, with coining the phrase “right to work.” But he certainly didn’t mean it to weaken labor unions. Fourier, who also is credited with originating the word “feminism,” advocated that all workers receive sufficient wages and even called for a “decent minimum” for those unable to work.

“Our social compacts are utterly unable to provide the poor man with a decent level of subsistence consistent with his education,” he wrote. “They cannot guarantee him the first of the natural rights, the RIGHT TO WORK!”

His views influenced the founding of some communities in America, including Utopia, Ohio, and La Reunion near what is now Dallas.

Ironically, the Dallas Morning News credits one of its editorial writers, William Ruggles, with coining the term as it is now used in a 1941 editorial – on Labor Day – advocating a right-to-work amendment to the Constitution. A 2010 article in the newspaper about Ruggles and his editorial reported “the newspaper was alarmed by the National Labor Relations Board, which it felt was steadily outlawing nonunion workers, ramming unions down the throats of employers and socializing industry.”

The issue

The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act outlaws closed shops, where employees must join a union. No employee can be required to join a union. But non-union employees can be required to pay a union the equivalent of dues for negotiating the pay and benefits they receive. That law also gives states the power to require open shops, where workers cannot be forced to reimburse the union for negotiating done on the workers’ behalf.

Since 1947, 22 states and the District of Columbia have passed such laws.

Gov. Mitch Daniels and other advocates of a right-to-work law say numerous potential employers pass on locating in Indiana because of the union issue. Such a position sounds logical, but when asked for specifics of which companies turn down the state, few emerge.

For a state that has so much trouble luring businesses because of its union atmosphere, Indiana is in “the top tier in every ranking: No. 6 according to the nation’s site selectors, No. 6 according to CEO Magazine, No. 5 according to real estate decision-makers.” So said Daniels five days ago in his State of the State address.

Advocates of right to work say no one should be required to pay union dues, implying a groundswell of vocal opposition from workers who don’t want to pay those dues. But the affected workers supposedly suffering from this perceived injustice aren’t the ones complaining.

And don’t forget: When a majority of workers don’t want a union, they can vote it out. How more democratic can that be?

Another issue at play: Labor unions are major supporters of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates. Right or wrong, policies that hurt labor unions hurt Democrats, and it’s no coincidence that right to work is a pure Republican issue.

With Republicans firmly in control of both houses of the Indiana legislature as well as the governor’s office, there is little question that right to work will not only become state law but will practically set a record for fewest number of days in which a controversial issue zipped through the General Assembly.

No doubt some Hoosier lawmakers and many of their constituents sincerely believe a right-to-work law will help economic development. They may be right. But if they are honest, they will call the law what it is, and it is not about a right to work.

“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”

– Orwell