Alternate title: "Things I learned at the We Are Ohio rally."
This afternoon I took a brief trip downtown to the Senate Bill 5 referendum rally organized by We Are Ohio, a union group with similar goals, membership, and methods to OneOhio Now. What do they want? Taxes! Who will they take ‘em from? You!
I snapped some photos of signs while at the Statehouse, but there wasn’t much remarkable going on between my arrival ~1:00 and the end of the last speech around 2:30. Speakers railed against tax cuts for the rich, sang the virtues of unhindered collective bargaining, and rehashed all the weak talking points OneOhio Now, the AFSCME, and the OEA have been pushing for months.
Workers' rights, the ubiquitous Solidarity Fist, and a teacher with awful grammar. This shot has it all.
Organizers did a good job of wrangling the craziest sign-wielders, but that didn’t prevent the crowd response chant of "WE ARE OHIO" and the near-omnipresent Solidarity Fist posters from being a little creepy.
And Turnaround Ted showed up. Anyone care? ...Anyone?
A summary of what awaits us when Senate Bill 5 takes effect:
- The dedicated leaders among Ohio’s teachers, firefighters, police, and other civil servants will vanish into thin air.
- Seriously – vanish! Without unions taking a cut of their pay, workers are incapable of both communication and cooperation.
- School boards and government officials will no longer be elected by Ohio voters. So, they’ll be free to unleash all that evil they’ve been storing up.
- Favoritism and politics – which have no impact now! – will pounce onto Ohio’s public workers like helpless lambs.
- Public employees will be unable to speak to local TV and newspaper reporters about the horrors they’re forced to endure.
- Ohio might not go bankrupt. This is the first sign that taxpayers are doing something immoral.
Here’s the full gallery of pictures from this afternoon.
Cross-posted at that hero.
Considering union members are also taxpayers, they should have a voice. Union members don't HAVE to join the union, and thus don't HAVE to contribute. Wages that are contributed are thus voluntary. Cities already do their best to fight to pay nothing, and they break the law and abuse the rights of workers, which is why unions are necessary. How else could a firefighter with a college degree and various accompanying certifications be paid only $7.00/hr? Imagine what they'd be paid without a union! Remember that the larger sums for these jobs are either the highest end, or an average, and that most of the smaller municipalities throughout Ohio pay far far less than what you see in the news. Public servants are often struggling just to eat and have a roof over their head, and SB5 is evil and heartless beyond measure to these people.
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