This will be a short diary which only reports a bit on the Ohio effort to overturn, or exercize the People's Veto over Ohio SB5, an ALEC inspired attempt to break public employee unions, demonize public employees, most particularly school teachers, fire fighters and EMT's, and police officers. The backers for the side to retain the law have raised a firestorm with GrannyGate, an ad which twists the words of 78 year old Marlene Quinn, who was featured in a Repeal SB5 ad concerning fire fighters who saved the life of her great grandaughter Zoey, and made it appear that she supported SB5. Marlene was far tougher than the radical republicans imagined she might be, and with the help of the repeal group, We Are Ohio, made all of Ohio, and indeed, most of America know that the radical republican support group "Building a Better Ohio" just how unprincipled radical republicans can be.
In a front page story with the headline "Poll:Issue 2 sinking", the Columbus Dispatch, a very Republican newspaper reports that a Quinnipiac poll shows the Repeal SB5 campaign leading by 25 points, 57 to 32. Further, the internals show only Republican voters opposed to repeal. Among every other grouping of Ohio citizens, SB5 repeal leads by large margins. The internals are in a block quote below the fold.
Here are some highlights from Quinnipiac:
The opposition to the state issue is now almost universal, except for Republicans, who oppose repeal 59 percent to 32 percent. But Democrats back repeal 77 percent to 13 percent. Perhaps most important, independent voters oppose Issue 2 by 56 percent to 32 percent.
Brown points out that the “no” side crosses gender, racial, income and education groups. The percentages:
Men, 54-38 percent; women, 58-27.
Those without college degrees, 56-30 percent; those with degrees, 57-37.
Whites, 54-35; blacks, 76-15.
Those making more than $100,000, 52-42; voters who earn less, 59-30.
Ohioans in union households, 70-24; non-union households, 52-35.
Source: Columbus Dispatch October 26, 2011
Another little gem in this law, which was published in the Columbus Dispatch today in the Voter's Guide section, and takes 58 full pages of a metropolitan daily in standard typeface, comes from the Mansfield News Journal:
Topics: Minimum staffing and privatizing
» Currently: Minimum staffing requirements and restrictions on outside contracting can be part of negotiations between union and public employer.
» What Senate Bill 5 would do: Police and firefighters would no longer be able to negotiate how many workers need to be on a shift. Teachers would no longer be able to set a maximum number of students in the classroom.
The law also states a collective bargaining agreement cannot include any provisions that would keep a municipality or school district from using private contractors to replace work done by union workers.
Also, the entity cannot force the private sector to hire former employees if they do privatize, or give extra compensation to laid off employees if privatization occurs.
Emphasis mine Source
Mansfield News Journal October 25, 2011
An ALEC Dominated state legislature and governor cannot let a law hundreds of pages long that is intended to bust unions go without some privatization thrown in. ALEC is all about creating profit centers for its member corporations, so buried deeply within SB5, we get a provision IN LAW, that prohibits a union contract from including any language intended to inhibit privatization of the jobs the union contract is intended to protect.
Then the law makes it personal for each and every privatized employee by first, making it illegal for a public entity who hires those workers to authorize ANY severance income for the privatized employee, then it also makes it legal for the privatizing employer to discriminate against the former public employees, to eliminate any bumping rights, and to make it possible for the privatizing employer to extend the union busting effort to hire employees with no history of working in a unionized workforce, and less likely to stand up for their rights to organize in their new jobs. All public outsourcing and privatizing is intended to create a profit center for ALEC funders, to extend the ALEC hostility to unionized workers in any situation, public or private, to cram down wages, reduce the number of workers intended to perform tasks (see prison privatization), and to increase the profits for the ALEC funders.
And that's what our Radical Republican Legislature and Governor are all about, maximizing profit opportunities for ALEC member corporations, and looting the public treasury in whatever state they happen to control.
In Ohio, we have the opportunity to overturn three Radical Republican initiatives. Issue 1, is an amendment intended to keep bad judges on the bench until they are well into their eighties, and abandons a system which is already in place to allow QUALIFIED older judges to hear cases beyond their mandatory retirement age of 70 years, which already allows a judge to sit until the end of up to six year terms if they are 70 when elected. This amendment deserves a No vote.
State Issue 2, the repeal of Union Busting SB5 has already been discussed.
State Issue 3, a Constitutional Amendment intended to block the Patient Affordable Care Act (referred by radical republicans as ObamaCare) from being implemented, and part of the ALEC nationwide strategy to defeat, then repeal PACA, is pure ALEC.
Issue 3 deserves a massive, and I mean massive defeat.
We Ohio voters have in 13 days, the opportunity to deal John Kasich and the Radical Republican legislature a massive message which cannot be mistaken for anything but a complete repudiation of their radical policies, and will serve as a warning that Ohioans and people around the country have taken notice of their radical corporatist agenda, driven not by the people they represent, but by multinational corporations, radical right wing funders like the Koch interests, $500 per hour Washington DC lawyers, hundreds of Washington DC K-Street Lobbyists, and a shadow government that feeds our legislatures laws that benefit their corporate funders, always at the expense of the citizens of our states.
Defeat Radical Republicanism. Vote NO on Issues 1, 2 and 3. Get out the vote.
My time as I write this diary is limited, and as I find some links later today, I will add them to the diary. If commenters have some relevant links, I would appreciate the help.
Update: Just in case you don't think John Kasich doesn't want to bust unions, here is what he said during his election campaign:
He seemed to aim his fire especially at teachers’ unions. “We need more school choice, we need to break the back of organized labor in the schools, and we need to turn our schools into institutions that excite our kids and teach them,” he said during the campaign.
Emphasis mine - Source -
WCMH Columbus channel 4 article