Poll: Ohio Voters Reject Gov. Kasich
A new poll finds the majority of Ohio voters, like their Wisconsin counterparts, oppose their governor’s moves to take away the right of public employees to bargain for middle-class jobs. And for good reason, as this fantastic New York Times piece points out today.
A Public Policy Polling poll released Tuesday found that if Ohio voters had it to do over, they’d pick Democrat Ted Strickland over Republican John Kasich for governor.
According to the poll, Strickland would win a re-do election, 55-40 percent. Kasich knocked incumbent Strickland out of office in November, 49-47 percent.
The poll also found that if Senate Bill 5—legislation to limit collective bargaining rights for public workers—becomes law, that voters would back repealing it at the ballot box.
The poll found that 54 percent would vote to repeal the law, while 31 percent would vote to keep it.
Working Families Vote: Election 2010 Thread
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10:27: Looks like Ken Buck won’t be going to the tea party. The Denver Post has just projected Sen. Michael Bennet (D) the winner over the arch conservative Buck in the Colorado U.S. Senate race.
Nov. 3: Sen. Majority Harry Reid of Nevada defeated Sharron Angle with a big boost from working family voters, who provided his margin of victory.
- Some 270,162 union members voted for Reid by 69 percent, with 29 percent voting for Angle. Among non-union members, Reid lost 49-44.
Also, another former CEO needs to check her business plan. Sen. Barbara Boxer defeated former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina because, reports the Times, Boxer was able to turn “Fiorina’s record at the company against her, accusing the former CEO of outsourcing jobs and laying off 30,000 workers.” It certainly is about jobs.
Union members voted for Brown by a 36 point margin and gave Boxer by a 34 point edge. Some 30,000 union volunteers knocked on 413,000 doors, helped make 4.1 million calls and distributed 2.94 million worksite fliers.
Be sure and check back tomorrow for late results and other election news. Read the rest of this entry »
Union Activists Getting Out the Vote Around the Country
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Here’s a quick look at some upcoming AFL-CIO Labor 2010 actions in Nevada, Connecticut and Florida and reports on recent activity in Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
On Saturday, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler will join Connecticut union activists in get-out-the-vote (GOTV) neighborhood walks to convey how Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon thinks Congress should consider lowering the minimum wage.
Early next week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will be in Nevada, where extremist and tea party favorite Sharron Angle is opposing U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Among other outrageous positions, Angle wants to phase out and privatize Social Security and Medicare. Trumka will join union workers in Reno and Las Vegas for worksite leafleting and other actions.
Among other stops, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will be in Florida for a “twofer”—GOTV activities in Miami and Palm Beach and she’ll throw a jab at mostly Florida resident John Raese, who’s running as a Republican for the Senate in West Virginia and has sparked controversy over his recruitment of “hicky” blue-collar workers for his campaign ad.
As Part of One Nation, Union Members Mobilize to Get Out the Vote
While tens of thousands of union members were marching for jobs and economic justice on 10-2-10 in One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, D.C., thousands of their brothers and sisters across the country were knocking on union family doors and volunteering to get out the vote for 11-2-10.
In Ohio, union families in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton fanned out in neighborhoods spreading the word that Nov. 2 is about jobs and the candidates who will fight for jobs to rebuild the economy–candidates like Ted Strickland for governor, Lee Fisher for U.S. Senate and Betty Sutton for U.S. House.
Along with organizing a 28-bus convoy to One Nation, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO launched a Day of Door Knocking Action around the state where several hundred union volunteers spent part of their Saturday visiting union households to communicate with their co-workers, friends and neighbors about working family issues.
In California, union members distributed fliers outlining the Wall Street/corporate platform of Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina.
Kentucky working families were out in force for U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway who is running strong campaign against Tea Party-backed Republican Rand Paul and Paul’s platform to phase out and privatize Social Security and Medicare.
For more on Labor 2010, click here.
Trumka: Union Votes Can Beat False Populism and Economic Treason
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When U.S., corporations sit on more than $800 billion without creating jobs, when banks hoard more than $1 trillion in profits without lending to small businesses and consumers and when health insurance companies with tens of billions in profits demand huge premium increases, there are only two words to describe such greed says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
“Economic treason!”
Addressing the Ohio AFL-CIO convention in Columbus today, Trumka called on union members to mobilize and rally behind “economic patriots” in a “knock down drag-out” fight against the “false populism and name calling” that Tea Party and Republican leaders like House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) are employing in this fall’s elections.
Beware: Job Killer Candidates Lurk in Ohio
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Andy Richards, AFL-CIO Field Communications assistant in Ohio, sends us this report.
Beware of the Ohio Job Killers lurking among us. Outsourcing our jobs have been their agenda for years. And now, they are asking voters to disregard their job-killing record and put them in charge of some of Ohio’s most important political positions. Who are these job killers?
Job Killer #1: John Kasich: “If it’s in the Yellow Pages, outsource it.” This is the mantra of gubernatorial candidate and former Lehman Brothers executive John Kasich. But it doesn’t end there. There is no doubt John Kasich interests lie with Wall Street. Kasich worked for years as a managing director at Lehman Brothers, one of the Wall Street firms that helped create the economic crisis that caused the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in Ohio.
During his time there, he helped to move Ohio pension fund investments to Lehman Brothers. Lehman went bankrupt in 2008 and, as a result, the Ohio pension fund lost hundreds of millions of dollars. For his work at Lehman, Kasich was paid more than $1 million in salary and bonuses in 2008 alone. Click here for videos on Kasich’s job-killing record.
Labor Day Wrap: It’s Time for Jobs
While AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was in Milwaukee Labor Day with President Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler traveled throughout California, taking part in three Labor Day celebrations. In Los Angeles, she told an enthusiastic crowd at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor ’s Labor Day breakfast:
There’s nothing wrong with good jobs in America. There’s nothing wrong with trade that creates jobs—instead of killing them.
At Detroit’s massive Labor Day parade and rally, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the more than 50,000 participants we must use our votes to ensure that jobs are created:
For the next 57 days [until the election], the labor movement is going to be hard core about politics—the politics of change and not the politics of “No.” What we’re working for is jobs—jobs and the future.
Ohio’s Kasich has Long Record as Job Killer
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It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich wants to outsource and privatize state government jobs (click here for more from Labor 2010 in Ohio). While he was in Congress, Kasich voted to send tens of thousands American jobs overseas.
Kasich voted for NAFTA and trade deals with China that, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), cost more than 140,000 Ohio jobs. But when Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was in Congress, he voted to no on those bills because as he said: “I felt they take jobs out of Ohio and America.”
Just as devastating to the workers who saw their jobs outsourced, Kasich, while a member of the board of directors at Invacare, signed off in 2006 on sending 225 Elyria jobs to China and Mexico.
Check out more on the Invacare job loss here .
Findlay, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce Kills Parade Because Unions Backed It
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The Chamber of Commerce—that’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—proved once again how anti-American it is when it comes to supporting U.S. industry.
In Findlay, Ohio, unions had been organizing a parade and all-day event for this Saturday to highlight American-made products and the need for U.S. trade and economic policies that reward job growth in this country. The unions worked hard to get the business community involved and spent months meeting with the city’s Republican mayor, who supported the plans.
But in the end, GreaterFindayInc., the local Chamber arm, killed the Heart of Commerce and Community Celebration.
Says Donnie Blatt, United Steelworkers (USW) Rapid Response coordinator for District 1: “GreaterFindlayInc. did everything they could to sabotage us. They told business not to cooperate with us.”
