Ed Kilgore reacts to the news that Indiana is set to become the first state in the industrial Northeast or Midwest to enact a right-to-work law that will almost certainly gut union organizing completely:
As someone who grew up in the right-to-work Deep South, I can assure Indianans that from a psychological point of view they are about to enter a brave new world where an ever-neurotic desire to keep corporations happy always seems to trump any consideration of fair play or workers’ rights. Welcome to the Old South, Hoosiers! Misery loves company.
Unions are simply too weak these days to stop this from happening, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Republicans have always depended on money from corporations and the rich for their survival, and increasingly that’s true of Democrats as well. Given this basic dynamic, it’s very hard to see how unions survive in the long term.
