Published 02 Nov, 2011
Off-year elections are often sleepy affairs with low turnout and not much voter enthusiasm.
Nobody’s sleeping in Ohio in 2011. After an intense campaign, the state’s eight million registered voters will have a chance to vote on Issue Two. A “yes” vote supports SB 5, Gov. John Kasich’s controversial ban on collective bargaining for public employees. But if a majority votes “no,” the law will be repealed.
SB 5 was pushed through a Republican-dominated legislature in March of 2010, despite energetic protests at the state capitol by tens of thousands of workers and citizens. For every protestor—including many TWU members—who came to Columbus, there are thousands more who agree that restricting basic workplace rights for public employees is unfair and has little to do with Ohio’s budget problems.
According to the Washington Post/Pew Research Center Poll, “Occupy Wall Street” protests are more popular than the Tea Party movement. People just aren’t buying what the wealthy elite and their political cronies are selling.
Police officers, firefighters, teachers, transit workers and other public employees didn’t cause the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009 which has crippled state and local budgets and drained billions from pension and retirement funds. Reducing pay and benefits for the middle class, whether in the public or private sector, won’t create a single job or solve America’s unemployment crisis. In fact, taking money out of workers’ paychecks will have the opposite effect.
By every indication, voters in Ohio are not convinced that bashing public workers will help ordinary families in tough times. In July, We Are Ohio, a non-partisan civic coalition, turned in 1.3 million signatures in favor of the repeal of SB 5, six times the number needed to qualify for the ballot.
In the face of this massive citizen mobilization and public opinion polls, which show a majority favoring repeal, Kasich belatedly offered to “negotiate” the terms of the bill.
The idea was laughable. First, the GOP-controlled House and Senate rejected any meaningful attempt to debate the bill when it was first rushed through the legislature. Second, the very purpose of the bill is to eliminate the right of public workers to negotiate terms and conditions of employment.
Kasich claims the bill doesn’t ban collective bargaining but merely “reforms” it. Some reform. Under the terms of SB 5, public employees can no longer bargain over health care, pension contributions, vacation, sick time or privatization of public services. What’s left? We can negotiate over pay, I suppose. Except, as the New York Times reports, if labor and management disagree on contract provisions, the terms of SB 5 let “management decide which side’s final offer would prevail.”
As Ohio Republican State Senator Bill Seitz points out, it’s like “going to divorce court and finding out your wife’s father is the judge.”
Supporters of SB 5 seem to be afraid of a fair fight. We Are Ohio, backed by TWU and other labor unions, released a list of campaign donors and the amounts we’ve contributed. But Building a Better Ohio, the Kasich-backed group supporting SB 5, has used a loophole in the state’s campaign finance law to avoid full disclosure.
Building a Better Ohio also released a blatantly dishonest campaign ad, twisting the words of an Ohio grandmother who opposed SB 5 to make it appear that she supports the bill. Dozens of TV stations refused to run the spot, which violates basic principles of truth in advertising.
In Ohio and elsewhere, ordinary workers and citizens are getting tired of being told that they’re to blame for the actions of a privileged few, who nearly wrecked our economy through greedy and corrupt trading practices. That’s why the Occupy Wall Street movement is resonating throughout the country—and that’s why politicians who attack the middle class will have a lot of explaining to do in 2012.