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25,000 Rally in Ohio against anti-union law: Senate Bill 5 passes by one vote

By Staff |
March 2, 2011
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Columbus, OH - Beginning at 10:00 a.m. March 2, over 25,000 laborers, firefighters, police, students, and community activists gathered around the State Capitol here to protest against Senate Bill 5, which eliminates collective bargaining rights for over 300,000 public sector workers. The "Rally to Save the Middle Class" had workers expressing their anger at Governor John Kasich's blatant attempt to bust unions.

"They've gone too far and now it's time to fight back" said a worker when asked about why he was attending the demonstration.

Speakers, many from the Service Employees International Union, denounced the bill for attacking workers while doing nothing to solve the $8 billion dollar budget deficit that Republicans claim the bill is supposed to address. They pointed out that if collective bargaining was the problem, so-called 'right-to-work' states wouldn't be having large budget deficits.

Today, the Republicans rammed through SB-5 with a 17-16 vote in the Senate. Earlier, the Republicans pushed through SB-5 in a senate committee by removing a dissenting Republican senator. Six Republicans voted against the proposed law; a couple of publicly denounced the vote. Gov.Kasich's union-busting bill will now head to the Ohio House of Representatives, while workers and students continue to protest at the State Capitol building.

2 comments

 
KHAIDA wrote 2 years 11 weeks ago

25,000 Rally in Ohio against anti-union law

REPLY TO ANONYMOUS WHO SAID,
lets show this whole state what would happen if every state worker got sick all on one day from policeman to firefighters to refuse workers to water treatment to teachers, courthouse workers if you 'are a member of PERS LETS WALK OUT..."

TOO LATE! We are not dealing with rational people; we are dealing with people who despises Pres. Obama and will do ANYTHING to make us poor and middle class people suffer so that we will blame Pres. Obama for our problems. In doing so, they think we will "forget" that it was the REPUBLICANS (BUSH) who got us in this sad condition and that we will forget that THEY TRICKED the Americans into voting overwhelmingly for them. Their twisted lies, about socialism, health-care, the stimulus and all the other sick lies they put out about this president had those, who originally liked Obama and others, who hated the color of his skin, to see red. So they, in a fit of anger voted for the republicans and here we are. We did this to ourselves! The REPUBLICANS have been telling us every way possible that they were going to make our lives miserable but we didn't listen. So what can we do now? Walking off the job will create more problems because just as Pres. REAGAN did when the AIRPLANE CONTROLLERS went on strike, he fired them all. Think about how low they will go... just HOW were they able to pass Bill5, which took away our rights? They got rid of the one REPUBLICAN legislature(their own man) who was going to vote against the bill. Look at all the crazy things they passed laws on so they could get revenge AND force the 14 DEMOCRATS back to work. They have threatened to lay off 1500 people in an economy that is struggling to regain a grip, in fact they want to lay those people off so it will add to the number of unemployed and then they could say that Pres. OBAMA and the Democrats failed to lower the number of unemployed. People who voted for the republicans thought they were going to put them back to work. They have done absolutely NOTHING to try to get our jobs back in AMERICAN. In fact, they know if they cut the small income we have, some of us will lose what we have left, none of us will be able to spend enough money to give the economy a boost, which means we will lose more jobs and that is THEIR AIM. THAT will let them say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and unlike before when BUSH said, "mission accomplished and it wasn't," this time mission will be accomplished IF WE THINK WITH OUR EMOTIONS instead of with our heads. We NEED TO GET PETITION and recall EVERY REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT WHO IS TRYING TO BUST THE UNION and recall the governors who are not speaking out against busting the unions. WE HAVE A RIGHT AND WE FOUGHT HARD for the right TO HAVE UNION REPRESENTATION. John BOEHNER and the rest of the REPUBLICAN congressperson will see we are serious about our UNION, about getting JOBS and they will know that all their conniving will not get them back in 2012 and if we remember what they did to us in 2011 they will never get back into office in the future because we will always be the majority, HOW DARE they take our rights from us to suit their OWN GREEDY AGENDA. This is NOT about lowering the deficit and getting us jobs...this is about making the rich richer; this is about eliminating the unions and making the poor poorer and eliminating the middle class and taking away the power the unions have to get the best party in office. This is about USING OUR HEADS. This is ABOUT learning NOT TO FORGET and this is about VOTING for OUR OWN PARTY IN 2012. Republicans CAN NEVER EVER get in office without the help of the DEMOCRATS because we out number them. The democrats have to either vote Republican or NOT VOTE at all IN ORDER FOR the PARTY OF THE RICH TO WIN. We need to listen to the news, and become informed and not just listen to the pundits i.e. LIMBAUGH,PALIN, BECK and other FOX NEWS FOLKS who made BIG BIG MONEY OFF of getting us to vote their way. Don't base your decision on those people; Listen for yourselves, listen to Republican News stations such as FOX and listen to the Democrat News stations, which is MSNBC; listen to BBC because stations outside our country will report what our stations don't report and MOST OF ALL THEY ARE NEUTRAL. After you have heard what the three medias have to say make up your own mind. But if STATE workers walk off the job THAT COULD BE disastrous because I don't think STATE workers are allowed to strike which means that one day walk out could be construed as a quit and they won't even get unemployment benefits.

 
Anonymous wrote 2 years 11 weeks ago

all state employees

lets show this whole state what would happen if every state worker got sick all on one day from policeman to firefighters to refuse workers to water treatment to teachers, courthouse workers if you are a member of PERS LETS WALK OUT ..LETS ALL IN SICK......ODOT LETS GO...ALL STATE WORKERS LETS RALLY AND SHOW THIS STATE THEY NEED ALL 14% OF US TO MAKE THIS STATE RUN!!!!!

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