Resistance Promptly Underway to Ohio Republican Attack on Worker Rights

[babsbunny]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7144/resistance_promptly_underway_to_ohio_republican_attack_on_worker_rights/

Friday
Apr 1, 2011
2:49 pm
By David Moberg

Last night Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich stripped collective bargaining rights—and even the right to form a union in many cases—from at least several hundred thousand public employees.

But unions and a wide array of allies are fighting back with a petition for a referendum on the law that will effectively halt its implementation until a vote in November. And they are mobilizing the public for a fight against Republican budget cuts that will deeply hurt local school and city budgets but continue to implement previously approved tax cuts.

Although their demonstrations did not reach the dramatic level of the big protests in Wisconsin, opponents of SB 5 in Ohio—which outdoes even Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on worker rights—did rally nearly 10,000 backers in Columbus on March 1, then roughly the same number in more than a dozen unexpected small towns and cities. Over 115,000 Ohioans from a wide range of backgrounds—for example, equal numbers of fans of Johnny Cash and Lil Wayne--signed on to the Facebook page of Stand Up for Good Jobs and Strong Communities/Stand Up for Ohio, a new labor-community coalition. Controversy over SB 5 has become part of everyday conversation, says Kris Harsh statewide Stand Up coordinator.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. Excellent!

Maybe I won't have to disown Ohio after all.

My dad was from Ohio. N.E. on Lake Erie.

[Enthusiast]

4. The state in question has

little significance as they have plans to pull this stunt in every state.

[Scuba]

2. The People of Wisconsin support the People of Ohio...

[crickets]

3. K&R

[pinkkillersheep]

5. Ohioans are just starting to realize how bad Kasich's budget is

He spewed out all this rhetoric about how he didn't cut education at all, and people bought it. On it's surface the budget doesn't look so bad. That's only because he's letting local level politicians take the fall for him. Their funding is getting cut in half, so they'll be raising property taxes and cutting tons of services. But Kasich gets to pretend his hands are clean. He didn't personally tell them what to do, so how can anyone blame him? Ya...he's a swell guy...

[Ikonoklast]

6. Yep. Our Republican county commissioners just realized they got thrown under the bus

by Kasich, as voters are starting to get pissed at THEM.

Unintended consequences will come to bite them all in the ass at election time.

I love it.