Workplace Freedom in Michigan Ups the Ante for Ohio

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  December 12th at 01:00 PM  | 

Michigan became the second workplace freedom state neighboring Ohio on December 11, less than a year after Indiana implemented right to work. The abrupt, lame-duck passage of “freedom to work” legislation by Michigan’s Republican-controlled state legislature and Governor Rick Snyder prompted renewed speculation that Ohio needs to follow suit to stay competitive.

Already union front We Are Ohio and other labor groups have worked to tie workplace freedom to Senate Bill 5 (SB 5), the complex collection of public employee union reforms overturned by Ohio voters in 2011 following a $40 million union smear campaign.

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Sherrod Brown Compares GOP Governors to Hitler, Stalin

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  April 3rd at 07:11 PM  | 

Promoted from diaries. Last year while governors across the Midwest worked to reform broken public union laws, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) slandered them in a speech that could have easily been written by one of the millionaire “leaders” at SEIU, NEA, or AFSCME. During one of his stemwinders about the wondrous things unions do, Sherrod dropped a reductio ad Hitlerum on Governor Kasich (OH), Governor | Read More »

Ohio Right to Work: Not This Year

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  February 3rd at 09:30 AM  | 

This week the Ohio Attorney General approved ballot language for a Right-to-Work amendment to the Ohio constitution. I agree with fellow Third Base Politics writer Bytor, who covered the issue a couple months ago: a Right-to-Work amendment in November 2012 is a terrible idea. The Senate Bill 5 campaign proved Ohio voters remain too receptive to union rhetoric. Trying to rehash the same arguments during | Read More »

Ohio Workers Keep Losing Thanks to Big Labor’s Win

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  January 17th at 09:08 PM  | 

In Wisconsin, Governor Walker’s public union reforms are pummeling the Big Labor narrative by saving taxpayer dollars and teachers’ jobs. Meanwhile, the professional class-warriors who get rich pushing “solidarity” force districts into layoffs by refusing to revisit unaffordable contracts. After similar reforms failed in Ohio thanks to a smear campaign exceeding $30 million, Ohio’s public workers are enjoying the sort of union victory that’s often | Read More »

Union Bosses Win, Ohio Workers Get Fired

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  December 15th at 04:16 PM  | 

One month ago Ohio voted with its heart against reforms portrayed as an attack on public workers. Ohio, DC, and New York union bosses spent more than $30 million drenching the airwaves in images of sad firefighters, sad police officers, and evil Republicans, convincing voters to overlook a broken status quo. A month later, how are local governments celebrating the union victory on Issue 2? | Read More »

According to Sherrod Brown, Union Reform is Unchristian

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  December 11th at 08:51 PM  | 

Sherrod Brown (D-OH) isn’t merely the most extreme Progressive in the U.S. Senate, he’s also a religious scholar. Week in and week out, Sherrod preaches the Gospel of Progressivism: Greater love hath no man than he who gives generously from his neighbor’s purse. Sherrod delivered a stirring speech on the Senate floor during the smear campaign against public union reform in Ohio: In order to | Read More »

Issue 2 Post-Mortem, Ohio Pre-Mortem

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  November 9th at 09:00 AM  | 

Though the Wisconsin union circus produced widespread union-reform fatigue, you might be wondering what went wrong with Issue 2 in Ohio. As an Ohio conservative who happened to start researching government unions a few months before the General Assembly tackled reform, here’s my educated guess! Executive summary: The unions spent several boatloads on dishonest class warfare, and Ohio voters failed to see through it. First, | Read More »

Help Ohio Fight Union Bosses and Obamacare!

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  November 7th at 08:30 AM  | 

From 2000-2010, Ohio lost 595,200 private industry jobs, faring better than only Michigan and California. In 2010 the state had the 7th-highest tax burden and 47th-best business climate. Although Governor Kasich has been working since January to get Ohio back on track, the forces of statism are deeply entrenched. As public record proves, many of these folks get rich portraying big government as a moral | Read More »

Yes on Ohio Issue 2 for Teachers, No for Unions (Part 3)

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  November 4th at 09:30 AM  | 

When they aren’t taking $54 from every member for an anti-reform smear campaign, Ohio Education Association (OEA) bosses pass the time by fighting with their employees. Is it weird that Ohio’s largest government union hawks expensive “solidarity” to teachers, while its managers can’t event get along with its staff? “Bad Faith + Bad Management = Consequences” …not if union bosses have anything to say about | Read More »

Ohio Unions Don’t Care About Taxpayers

By: Jason Hart (Diary)  |  November 3rd at 10:30 AM  | 

Back when the professional staff of the Ohio Education Association (OEA) had an official blog, this endearing quote from Socialist author Jack London was featured in the right column of every page: “Esau was a traitor to himself: Judas Iscariot was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a strikebreaker is a traitor to his God, his country, his | Read More »