While Super Bowl XLVI will be remembered for its dramatic ending, the issue of workers’ rights and union representation also surrounded the National Football League’s biggest game. A labor dispute nearly cost the NFL its 2011-12 season, and in the days before the game, Indiana passed an anti-union “right to work” law that led to union and Occupy protests at Indianapolis’ Super Bowl festivities throughout the week.

But despite fears from sports columnists and right-wing blogs that the protesters would “ruin the Super Bowl,” the only visible advocacy for some of the game’s viewers came in the form of a misleading anti-union attack ad from a corporate front group. The Center For Union Facts, an organization that has run newspaper ads comparing unions to Kim Jong-il’s authoritarian North Korean regime and endorsed an editorial comparing unions to Nazis, produced and paid for the 40-second ad, which ran in the Washington DC television market just before halftime ended. Watch it:

The ad’s claim that just 10 percent of current union members voted to form the union may be true, but it is incredibly misleading. Federal law mandates that more than 50 percent of a company’s workforce must vote in favor of the formation of a union. Most current union members, however, join unions that were formed years before and know that the union exists when they take the job.

The ad’s implication that the Employee Rights Act would put money in workers’ pockets is also misleading. According to the Economic Policy Institute, right-to-work laws cost workers up to $1,500 a year and also lead to reduced pensions and health care coverage.

Super Bowl broadcasters have traditionally banned ads that advocate for political causes. Year after year, though, it seems that ban doesn’t extend to misleading anti-union ads paid for by corporate front-groups that don’t disclose their donors.

Protesters march through Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis

In the days since more than 10,000 protesters marched through downtown Indianapolis, union officials and other organizers have grappled with how, and if, they should make their voices heard during Super Bowl festivities. Daniels has warned opponents of the new law that disrupting the Super Bowl would give the state a “black eye.” Nevertheless, with the National Football League’s Players Association officially opposing the law, labor leaders and organizers affiliated with local Occupy groups have vowed to press on.

“If it does pass, we’ll use this, the world stage that is the Super Bowl, to spread the message that Indiana is an inhospitable place for working men and women,” Jeff Harris, Communications and Outreach Coordinator for the Indiana AFL-CIO, told ThinkProgress before the law passed. “And that the very people that built the stadium in which the Super Bowl is going to be played and the very people who built the city that is enjoying the limelight — the very people who made this possible — are being disrespected.”

The AFL-CIO will have a “constant presence” at Super Bowl events, Harris said, but its actions will be informative rather than disruptive. The union, which encouraged workers to meet with their state representatives in the days before the law passed and organized rallies outside the statehouse Wednesday, will pass out leaflets and pamphlets around Super Bowl village and Lucas Oil Stadium, the site of the game, Harris said.

UNITE HERE, a hotel workers’ union, has organized its own protest of the Hyatt hotel Friday, where several hundred workers will picket to protest low wages, missed overtime pay, and the firing of contract workers. Though its protest isn’t specifically tied to the right-to-work law, UNITE officials say the law will make their ongoing attempts to organize hotel workers harder, and other unions’ protesters will join their picket.

According to a UNITE release, DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, will participate in the protest. Smith has issued a statement and written an editorial against the right-to-work law, and several NFL players, including Indiana native and Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, have also spoken out.

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Workers protest outside Indiana's capitol today

If the GOP had studied the state’s history, however, it might feel differently. Indiana Republicans passed a similar right-to-work law in 1957 over the objections of Democrats, labor leaders, and workers, and the law proved so unpopular that it lasted only eight years, as the Evansville Courier Press noted in November:

However, the new law was so unpopular that many Republicans were turned out at the polls in 1958. By the 1960s, Democrats controlled both chambers of the General Assembly and the governor’s office. And in 1965, they repealed the right-to-work law.

The events surrounding Indiana’s previous attempt at right-to-work bear an eerie resemblance to Indiana’s current efforts. Time Magazine, in its March 11, 1957 issue, reported that “some 7,500 wrought-up Indianans marched into the Statehouse in Indianapolis last week to protest against a ‘right-to-work’ bill,” which then-Gov. Harold W. Hanley (R) allowed to become law even though he “disliked the bill himself.” Last week, more than 10,000 workers marched through Indianapolis, and thousands have rallied at the state capitol this week. Current Indiana Gov. Daniels will sign the law despite previously saying that he though such a law would spark a “civil war” in the state.

And just like Indiana Republicans were hammered at the polls in 1958, Republicans in other states have faced public rebuke for attacking unions. Wisconsin’s anti-union legislation passed in 2011 led to recall elections for six Republican state senators (two lost), and Gov. Scott Walker (R). And while Indiana’s right-to-work bill lasted eight years, anti-union legislation signed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) was defeated at the polls by Ohioans less than a year after it became law.

Indiana Democrats made a similar effort to put right-to-work up to a referendum, a decision that, according to the Teamsters union, was supported by 71 percent of state voters. But Republicans, perhaps realizing that such a plan might lead to an ugly repeat of history, blocked those attempts. With studies showing that right-to-work is bad for workers and won’t actually help Indiana, however, Hoosiers may be yearning for a repeat of 1965 sooner rather than later.

Arizona Republicans this week released a bill that would essentially abolish public sector unions in their state, taking the high-profile union-busting bills of Wisconsin and Ohio one step further. A state Senate committee plans to vote on the measure today. As Arizona Channel 12 News’ Brahm Resnik explained, the bill would:

– Make it illegal for government bodies to collectively bargain with employee groups. Public safety unions would be included in the ban.

– End the practice of automatic payroll deductions for union dues.

– Ban compensation of public employees for union work.

Arizona’s state government already doesn’t bargain with unions, but local governments and school districts do, so the ban would ripple through every school, local police station, and firehouse. “The Republican majority has established themselves to be very much anti-employee,” said state Sen. David Lujan (D). “It’s just another strike at those who choose to be public service employees. Their voice is not valued.”

The legislation originated with the libertarian think tank the Goldwater Institute, which counts the Walton Foundation (the Waltons of the Walmart fortune) and the Charles Koch Foundation amongst its top donors.

The Arizona GOP, predictably, is blaming public sector unions for the state’s budget woes, with the bill’s Republican sponsor claiming that “taxpayers’ costs from public employee contracts negotiated by unions for pay and benefits burden taxpayers.” However, the facts don’t support that theory. In fact, North Carolina (a state without collective bargaining) is projected to have a 10 percent budget deficit for the 2013 fiscal year, compared to 3.5 percent for New York (more densely unionized than any other).

And, of course, unions have the added benefits of alleviating income inequality and pushing for important worker protections. Arizona Republicans, in fact, might want to learn a lesson from Ohio, as the Ohio GOP saw its union-busting law repealed via referendum following a strong public outcry.

Last year was a tough one for public sector workers. Lawmakers in Wisconsin passed a controversial bill stripping collective bargaining rights from most state employees. Ohio approved similar legislation (although Ohio voters soundly rejected it in a referendum). Other officeholders, like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, claimed that government workers are better paid than private-sector employees, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, 600,000 government workers have lost their jobs since the beginning of the recession.

But things have not always been this way. In fact, 50 years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which allowed most federal workers to bargain collectively for the first time. As Prof. Joseph McCartin writes in the Los Angeles Times, the effects of Kennedy’s order were much more extensive than that, and, at the time, more popular:

At the time Kennedy acted, very few workers at any level of government had won the right to bargain collectively with their employers. Federal action helped inspire many states and localities to follow suit, allowing their own workers to organize. This triggered a huge wave of unionization in the public sector that saw firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers, social workers and many others form unions in the 1960s and ’70s.

For 20 years after Kennedy’s order, public sector union rights were not controversial. To the contrary, they enjoyed bipartisan support — even from conservatism’s leading light, Ronald Reagan. Reagan, as governor of California, presided over the extension of collective bargaining rights to state and local workers in 1968.

So how have we ended up here, with unions a favorite target of conservatives? McCartin argues that much of the decline in public support for bargaining came from Reagan breaking the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike in 1981. This event was cited by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) when he went on his union-busting rampage.

Blaming public sector workers for government’s fiscal woes may be popular, but the facts don’t support that thesis. As McCartin notes, North Carolina (a state without collective bargaining) is projected to have a 10 percent budget deficit for the 2013 fiscal year, compared to 3.5 percent for New York (more densely unionized than any other). In the case of the federal deficit, studies show that the lion’s share of the increase has come from Bush-era policies like the wars and tax cuts, as well as the effects of the recession. Pay for federal workers does not come close to registering.

One topic that rarely gets discussed is how much unions have actually done to benefit everyone — such as giving us the weekend and ending child labor. Nor do we hear much about the correlation between union membership rates and middle-class incomes, nor how a drop in union membership has exacerbated income inequality in the U.S.

– Zachary Bernstein

For the last two days, Democrats in the Indiana legislature have prevented the consideration of a “right to work” bill, which would make Indiana the first state in the U.S. industrial belt to allow non-union workers to free-ride on union contracts, which obviously undermines the ability of the union to do its job. Today, the National Football League Players Association called on the Indiana GOP to drop its bill in advance of the 2012 Super Bowl, which is being played in Indianapolis, saying that the NFL’s biggest game “should be about celebrating the best of what Indianapolis has to offer, not about legislation that hurts the people of Indiana“:

To win, we have to work together and look out for one another. Today, even as the city of Indianapolis is exemplifying that teamwork in preparing to host the Super Bowl, politicians are looking to destroy it trying to ram through so-called “right-to-work” legislation.

“Right-to-work” is a political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights. It’s not about jobs or rights, and it’s the wrong priority for Indiana. [...]

As Indianapolis proudly prepares to host the Super Bowl it should be a time to shine in the national spotlight and highlight the hard working families that make Indiana run instead of launching political attacks on their basic rights. It is important to keep in mind the plight of the average Indiana worker and not let them get lost in the ceremony and spectacle of such a special event. This Super Bowl should be about celebrating the best of what Indianapolis has to offer, not about legislation that hurts the people of Indiana.

Conservatives love to claim that being “right to work” helps a state boost its economy. But according to the Economic Policy Institute, “right to work” laws, far from helping workers, actually:

– reduce wages by $1,500 a year, for both union and nonunion workers, after accounting for different costs of living in the states;

– lower the likelihood that employees get healthcare or pensions through their jobs—again, for both union and nonunion employees;

– have no impact whatsoever on job growth

Indiana Republicans have, so far, not backed down in their desire to move the bill through the legislature. But as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow put it, the GOP may want to rethink that strategy considering that “”America’s most celebrated union members (the NFL players) and a whole lot of national media are coming to town.”