Columbus
Dispatch...
Defenders of SB 5
organize to oppose repeal
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
This fall, it will be We Are Ohio versus Building a Better Ohio in a
multimillion-dollar clash over the collective-bargaining power of
public workers. The scrap will pit Democrats and union supporters
against Republicans, business groups and tea party affiliates.
We Are Ohio has spent more than a month gathering signatures to get a
referendum on the November ballot in an attempt to overturn Senate Bill
5, a new, GOP-crafted law that would significantly weaken
collective-bargaining power for about 360,000 public workers in Ohio.
Yesterday, the battle was officially joined by Building a Better Ohio,
a nonprofit organization that, its leaders say, will fully (and
voluntarily) disclose all contributions to the secretary of state’s
office. Vaughn Flasher, a veteran lobbyist and Republican consultant
who since 2006 has led the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, is
heading the group.
Gov. John Kasich, Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, and
House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, also will be involved
with the group, which filed its paperwork with the secretary of state
yesterday.
Niehaus said, “These are tools that local governments need to help them
manage in a very difficult financial crisis, and (it’s) asking state
and local employees to pay more of their health-care costs, just like
the average person does now.”
The Ohio chapter of the conservative Washington-based group Americans
for Prosperity also plans to help defend the law.
“I have already met with a couple of people from Building a Better Ohio
and told them I want to work together and make sure what we’re doing
coordinates with what they’re doing,” said Rebecca Heimlich, the Ohio
state director for Americans for Prosperity.
Heimlich said her group, which generally does not disclose donors, will
deliver its message through door-to-door efforts and town-hall meetings
that Senate Bill 5 “brings government pay back in line with
private-sector pay.”
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation has been financed by brothers
Charles and David Koch, each of whom is worth $17.5 billion, Forbes
magazine says. The oil- and gas-company owners once were dubbed “the
tea party’s wallet.”
Charles Koch donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association
last year, some of which wound up paying for ads in Ohio bashing
Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.
The brothers and their Koch Industries have given more than $8.5
million to political causes in the past 20 years, mostly to
Republicans, in addition to spending more than $50 million on lobbying,
the Center for Responsive Politics says.
We Are Ohio, which is expected to get the 231,000 signatures it needs
by June30 to get on the November ballot, has argued that Senate Bill 5
is an attack on the middle class that will drive down wages and
benefits for all Ohioans.
“While supporters of SB 5 appear to be working behind the scenes with
special interests, the faces of We Are Ohio continue to be hardworking
middle-class families who deserve the right to work one good job (and)
pursue the American Dream,” said Michael Weinman, treasurer for We Are
Ohio.
Senate Bill 5 eliminates binding arbitration as a way to settle
contract disputes for safety forces, bans public workers from striking
and limits what can be bargained.
Building a Better Ohio’s website, www.betterohio.org, says the new law
will “help keep our hardworking teachers, firefighters, police officers
and other public servants on the job.”
The group also argues that the bill will “protect middle-class
taxpayers.”
“The labor unions don’t want you to know these facts because they
oppose reform - especially if it means giving up power or loosening
their grip on our wallets,” said the group’s website.
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
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