Ohio passes law curbing collective bargaining rights and banning public sector strikes

So  Ohio's legislature  passed a law today that "curbs" the collective bargaining rights of about 350,000 state employees.  Like his co thinker in  Wisconsin,  Ohio's governor, John Kasich said he will sign it into law.

The bill,  bans strikes by public employee Unions. Kasich said that the bill will put taxpayers and public employees on a more equal footing regarding pay and benefits.  It will not put taxpayers and tax dodgers like the corporations and hedge fund billionaires that Kasich represents on an equal footing though. The bill was absent a previous clause that gave jail time as a penalty for workers who strike. However, it prevents nonunion employees affected by contracts from paying fees to unions and makes it easier to decertify a union.

There is every reason the supporters of these measures should feel confident.  The trade Union leaders have done absolutely nothing in the face of an unprecedented upsurge in political activity in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and other states in response to the attacks on the public sector.  Rather than build on this increased class polarization they have, as one Madison Wisconsin shop steward put it, "hunkered down in a state of denial."  The Labor hierarchy is absolutely terrified of any sort of victory as it would undermine the arguments they have made for decades that we cannot win, that there is nothing we can do and concessions have to be made.

In Wisconsin, the Democrats, as eager to slash public sector wages and benefits as well as public services, opportunistically jumped on the bandwagon and took a lead in the absence of one coming from organized labor's leadership.  They fled the state in an effort to prevent a vote on the anti-Union bill there.

Having no winning strategy of their own, the Labor hierarchy is throwing all its eggs in the electoral basket hoping to recall the guilty politicians on the one hand and relying on assistance from the judiciary on the other.  Labor history is full of examples where judges and politicians saved the day for us isn't it?

Democrats hope to gain from appearing to be the real "friends" of Labor and are threatening to put a new law on the ballot for a referendum vote in November in an effort to overturn it.

"The wheels are in motion" for a referendum battle, Reuters quotes State Senator Joe Schiavoni, a Democrat as saying. "They're trying to take away these union members' rights." The bosses must be shaking in their boots.


Ohio is a strong Union state that was home to the great general strike in Toledo in 1934, one of three that year. But until there is a movement from below to remove the present leadership, it does appear that the public sector will be heading down the road the UAW led its members over the last few years, savaged pensions, weaker Union protection on the job, massive job losses and wages cut in half.

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