EDITORIAL: Indiana's Right-to-work law unnecessary

Whether Indiana keeps that designation remains to be seen. Lake County Circuit Court Judge George Paras ruled July 17 right-to-work violates the state constitution by forcing unions to provide services to workers without payment, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

It was the same ruling Lake Superior Court Judge John Sedia issued in 2013, but he allowed such arrangements to continue while an appeal to the state Supreme Court was readied.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Wednesday he would appeal Paras’ decision and seek a stay of the ruling, the AP reported.

After two years of Statehouse debate, after on-again-off-again walkouts by House Democrats that delayed adoption of right-to-work, the conflict continues.

And it’s so unnecessary.

Daniels and the GOP sold right-to-work as a jobs bill. Jobs are returning — however slowly — yet Hoosier incomes continue to fall.

Yes, Indiana’s unemployment rate was 5.9 percent in June, compared to a national average of 6.1 percent, the state Department of Workforce Development reports. But a Ball State University study in 2013 found Indiana’s per capita income plummeted from 30th in the U.S. to 40th overall and lowest in the Midwest.

In fact, wages in Miami County, Ball State researchers found, remain at a level the average American hasn’t seen since the 1970s.

In television ads ahead of legislative votes on right-to-work, Daniels told Hoosiers the state was “cut out of a third of all [employment] deals because we don’t provide workers the protection known as right-to-work.” He said the previous 22 states with right-to-work legislation were “adding jobs and income a lot faster than those that don’t.”

Hoosiers still await those higher incomes. And by now, they likely have guessed the legislation’s true and perhaps only purpose.

Indiana’s right-to-work law is nothing more than Republican retribution for labor’s financial and electoral support of Democrats.