FOXNews opinionater turned Ohio Governor John Kasich and his GOP henchmen want to
fire Ohio state employees and cut the salaries and benefits of those who remain. Taking Rahm Emanuel's advice never to let a good crisis go to waste, Kasich is using Ohio's projected $8 billion budget deficit as a pretext to fire teachers and cripple unions. Among the provisos which he supports are an end to collective bargaining and binding arbitration for public-sector employees, automatic 1-year continuation of outgoing contracts in the case of a dispute, and making it illegal for them to strike. This despite that fact that strikes in Ohio are extremely rare, and since 2008 binding arbitration has resolved fewer than 2 percent of public labor disputes.
Indeed, an
irrefutable study on Ohio's labor force by Rutgers University professor Jeffrey H. Keefe shows that public-service workers are actually
underpaid 3.3 percent compared to private-sector workers of similar education and hours worked.
Moreover, according to the 35,000-member
Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, state workers have taken five pay cuts in the last nine years and saved Ohio $250 million in its current contract alone.
On February 9 at the first reading of SB5, more than 1,000 firefighters, police, corrections officers and other public workers stormed Ohio's Statehouse in opposition. Why so upset? Because the bill, proposed by GOP State Senator Shannon Jones – which Gov. Kasich said "of course" he supports – would eliminate: (1) collective bargaining for all state workers, including those at universities; (2) binding arbitration for local police officers and firefighters, who also could not strike; (3) health insurance as part of labor negotiations, and require government workers to pay at least 20 percent of the cost; and (4) automatic pay increases and mandatory sick days for teachers from state law.
The Ohio Tea Parties and the rest of the GOP state apparatus naturally support the bill, as they believe that all union members, especially public union members, are lazy and overpaid compared to lean, mean private-sector, non-union workers. And of course state employees and union members tend to vote Democrat precisely because they know Republicans have it in for them -- which makes the GOP hate them even more. Ohio's Tea Partiers are
counter-
mobilizing as this goes to post.
Yes, state workers' compensation makes up about 1/3 of most states' operating budgets, but in fact recent state budget shortfalls are due to the Great Recession with resulting lower tax receipts and
higher demand for state services like Medicaid and unemployment benefits -- not any sudden increas in spending on state salaries. And the more ominous problem of unfunded state retirement benefits -- which
Newt Gingrich and other Republicans lately argue calls for national legislation to allow states to declare bankruptcy and erase their liabilities to state workers, bond markets be damned -- has been building up for years. The Wall Street crash just made it worse. State workers are not actuaries, accountants, or elected legislators charged with a
fiduciary duty to prudently set aside and invest these funds. Therefore, it is completely unfair to attribute the states' fiscal irresponsibility to everyday state workers. (Source:
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-states-in-crisis)
Republicans will cut public-sector jobs and wages and cripple public unions in the bad times in the name of balanced budgets -- but does anybody seriously think they're going to undo all that when the economy recovers? No, these "emergency" measures will be permanent. Conservative idealogues smell blood and they're going in for the kill. They are patient but ruthless hunters; now is their time to pounce.
This
death struggle is being waged in other budget-strapped states, which show a similar picture as described above.
Ohioans, Americans, don't let them win!
