Lunch Pail GOP group supporting pro-labor candidates

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Updated: February 25, 2012 8:18AM

The right-to-work debate in the Indiana House of Representatives spawned the creation of a new political organization bent on fielding candidates to run against House Republicans who support the measure.

Former Portage City Councilman David Fagan is chairman of the Lunch Pail Republicans. He’s also financial secretary of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, and president of the 14,000-member IUOE state group.

“We have two candidates who have signed up to run and we anticipate three in the next 48 hours,” Fagan said Monday. “I understand there are three or four others talking it over with their spouse.”

Elected twice to the Portage City Council, Fagan said Lunch Pail Republicans have formed a political action committee and have raised “several hundred thousand dollars.”

Diana Boersma, a high-school technology teacher from DeMotte, and Michael Scott, an electrician and chaplain from Plainfield, have filed for the May 8 primary. Boersma will run in the 16th District and Scott will run in the 91st District.

Fagan said he’s been a Republican since he was a teen. “It’s really disappointing to see the Republican Party determine that right-to-work should be the No. 1 priority for the state of Indiana.”

Fagan called the right-to-work measure, which would ban unions from collecting mandatory fees for representation, bad public policy.

“What’s really unfortunate is labor and business have worked together the last six years to benefit the state, now there’s concern the polarization will have a negative impact on economic growth.”

Fagan resigned from the Portage City Council in 2007 when Gov. Mitch Daniels appointed him to the Indiana Port Commission.

Reach reporter Carole Carlson at 648-3154.