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Senate Bill 5, which will limit most collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, bar all strikes under penalty of law, and ban binding arbitration, just passed the Ohio State Senate by one vote, 17-16. Republicans have a 23-10 hold on the State Senate, and six of them dropped off this anti-union bill. But they were just able to get enough support for passage.
In order to make it work, Ohio Republicans had to shuffle two committees to ensure they had the votes to pass the bill out. They had to take Bill Zeitz off the Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee to get the bill out of there. Then, they had to yank Scott Oelslager off the Rules Committee to avoid a deadlock there. The bill, which is close to 100 pages long, passed both committees and the State Senate in a single day, just one day after a new set of amendments were publicly released.
Needless to say, the tactics used to pass this bill out of the Senate show how divisive it has become. Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga released this statement:
Today is a sad day for Ohio’s middle class. With the passage of Senate Bill 5, Ohio Senators have shown they would rather push a partisan agenda to punish the middle class than work on solutions to our jobs crisis.
The amended version of the original bill is only smoke and mirrors. This bill remains an assault on the middle class because the foundation of this bill is still rooted in a broader anti-worker agenda. You can’t fix something that was already broken from the start.
The bill now moves to the Ohio House, which is also strongly Republican, but where the bill may also run into some trouble. Ohio Republicans have proven themselves agile at finding work-arounds, however. If the bill becomes law, you can expect court challenges and possibly even a referendum petition to put the law to a vote of the people. If that happens, given the current poll numbers on collective bargaining, you could see a resounding defeat in Ohio for Gov. John Kasich’s agenda. And of course, this is always a battleground state in 2012, and this fight has energized the youth/labor/progressive coalition.
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weasels
Can they start recall efforts in OH? Is there any talk of a general strike if it is signed into law?
Good luck in Ohio. Hope that they can find numerous avenues to fight this.
Power to the People!! Stay strong & stand your/our ground!
Assuming they elect enough Democrats to the state legislature to pass a bill that rescinds this one, will that coalition punish them for failing to? That’s the real question here, to me. Will labor finally start punishing Democrats who don’t support it? Unless that starts happening in enough places to constitute a pattern, nothing is going to change.
Didn’t union folks help elect these people? Time for the Labor Party.
If the people in Ohio don’t stand up and fight for their rights, they will reap what they’ve sown. What a sad and dangerous situation.
May 2, 1933.
Gleichschaltung
Now all the GOP needs to due is create the DAF. Might the TPers fill the role?
“The attacks on unions that are taking place in American society today echoes a very sad chapter in Western history where unions were smashed for the benefit of a far right authoritarian corporate regime. When Hitler abolished unions in 1933, it was followed by a 25% drop in real wages, and ended the ability of workers to protect living standards, and this is one of those times where history should not be allowed to repeat itself.”
Just when is the right time to TAX the obscene, opulent, corpulent top 2% to restore this countries basic humane minimum that they wish to destroy ?????
Now is the time to restore tax sanity.
Looking over what’s been happening in Wisconsin the last few years, I’m not too terribly surprised that Democrats lost last election. They seem to have mostly chosen the cure everyone else has for these times – austerity. That was before Walker, et. al., took office. Now, of course, the state government’s attitude is worse, but if those election results were labor’s way of getting rid of lousy Democrats, more power to them.
The sad truth is that the Democrats have mostly sucked at doing what they’re supposed to do lately, and the voters responded with apathy. I don’t know what the thoughts of Wisconsin voters were, but I’m pretty sure that would have been my attitude last November, had I been there.
Agree but good luck getting citizens to agree with you about that. All you’ll hear is incessant whiiiiiiiiing about how the obscenely wealthy will suddenly “stop creating jobz ‘n stuff” if we serfs so dare to ask them to pay their fair share. “Stop” creating jobs? Yeah: citizens live in a fantasyland that suits the Oligarchs alright.
Sad truth. See it all across the country, too. The Democratic party has capitulated, and most of those running are either bought off lackies of the elites or they’re incompetent or both. I’ve been dismally unimpressed with many at local and state levels. And the citizens and unions rarely hold their feet to the fire, so they’re also often lazy, imo.
Yep, this is exactly like what the Nazis did when they abolished unions. 0_o
Hey folks ignore the trolling.
Union leaders and leading members started selling out the union members and citizens for the last 40 years.If you want to know who the sale outs are anyone clameing to be a Democrat.
I used to think that letters, phone calls, and emails could possibly make a difference with politicians. It is so partisan and yet with one more vote the other way this bill, Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, would have been dead. I wrote, I called, I picketed but where were my peers? Now, the bill moves to the Republican dominated house. I wonder if apathetic individuals will do something now?
It would have been dead. Look at the manipulations that went down.
Dday… Larry O’d did a great job of exposing that farce…! ;-)
It’s sad, but true in my opinion!!!
Here’s our chance to establish our own tea party, give it a name, and abandon the democratic party. Thanking those 14 democrats from Winconsin. If Democrats on the national level wasn’t so very quite, this crap would be over. Most Americans know more about two and a half men, then whats going on in these battle ground states. I don’t agree with most voters apathy, But I can understand the many reasons for it. Maybe it’s me, that’s delusional, for thinking we can get pissed enough from being kicked in the behind,and played like chumps, to change this political system that seems to not serve the common citizens interest.