A so-called "right to work" bill doesn't have popular support in Indiana (unless you lie about what it would do, as Republicans did in one poll). It's the top priority for the state's Republican legislative leadership, nonetheless, and Notre Dame professors Barbara Fick and Marty Wolfson show that supporters of the bill are pushing it using arguments as flawed as their polling:
The committee gave five reasons for its recommendation. Four of the five reasons assert, in one form or another, that a RTW law would attract businesses to Indiana. The committee stated that businesses often "exclude Indiana and other non-RTW states from consideration because of a perceived lack of flexibility and higher costs in their potential dealings with organized labor." However, the committee did not identify any specific employers that chose not to locate in Indiana because of RTW.
Clearly this is part of the playbook, since unspecified claims that right to work will attract business were a central part of the campaign in New Hampshire. That state's Republican leadership similarly argued that right to work would attract business, but both the (Democratic) governor and the labor commissioner said that they had not heard from business owners wanting such a law passed, despite speaking to thousands of business owners between them.
Fick and Wolfson continue:
Most people would agree that lowering wages and benefits for Indiana workers is not the best way to promote economic development in Indiana. RTW advocates seem to recognize this and go to great lengths to deny that RTW laws lower wages and benefits. In a section in its report titled, "Testimony Supporting RTW," the committee states that "RTW states have ... higher wages when adjusted for cost of living ... than non-RTW states."
But this line of argument is hard to sustain. In the very next sentence in its report, the committee states that "RTW lowers the cost of doing business and makes labor costs more affordable." Now how is it possible for a RTW law to lead to higher wages when RTW "makes labor costs more affordable"?
As they go on to note, studies show that—even adjusting for cost of living—workers in right to work states earn $1,500 per year less than workers in other states. That's why it's often called "right to work for less." Not that the facts will get in the way of Republicans so determined to break unions.