backers

Exposing the real "Right to Work" supporters agenda

Efforts to pass "Right to Work" laws go back decades (a measure was defeated in Ohio in 1958, by the massive margin of 63.3% No to 36.7% yes), and have always been pursued by monied interests looking to put a dent in the power of workers ability to stand up for themselves and each other through collective action.

It should not be lost on anyone that the major backers of this latest anti-union push are billionaires and big business, none of whom actually belong to a union. Having seen previous "right to work" efforts defeated, the extreme right, and their big business backers have had to send their latest effort through a rebranding exercise and they have come up with a new catchy title "work place freedom".

Who doesn't love freedom? Well apparently the very people promoting the effort. LimaOhio.com reported on a meeting of Tea Party members discussing "work place freedom" and why they were pursuing it

Speakers at an Allen County Patriots meeting Thursday made the case that the National Education Association abuses teacher dues to support a liberal agenda that disrespects Christian values.
[...]
According to Boyatt, NEA gave close to $15 million to advocacy groups in the 2011-12 school year and $18 million in 2010-11. The advocacy groups, she said, included the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Human Rights Campaign, Women’s Campaign Forum and Rainbow Push Coalition.

From there, it got uglier, much uglier

Harvey said the NEA has supported an “immoral, deviant and destructive” gay agenda for at least 25 years, citing its gay and lesbian caucus started in 1987. Harvey criticized the union for supporting a gay and lesbian history month, diversity training that included homosexuality, and pro-homosexual school counseling. She said the NEA has asked schools to protect students and staff from sexual orientation harassment and discrimination and has replaced the word “tolerance” with acceptance and respect.

“Kids are being trained as activists now,” she said.

Harvey said the NEA has voted to lobby for same-sex unions and said petitions are currently circulating to overturn the 2004 Ohio marriage amendment, which stated that that only a union between a man and woman would be recognized as a valid marriage. The OEA opposed the amendment.

This is why the Tea Party in Ohio wants to pursue "right to work" legislation, not to create any kid of "freedom", but to enable their ongoing bigotry by attacking organizations that have a long history of standing up for equality and fairness. Public opinion polls show strong majorities now supporting marriage equalityand how out of the mainstream these Tea Party "Patriots" truly are.

The NEA and its members should be rightly proud of their support for equality, even when it was unpopular to do so.

Big business backers of this effort ought to take a closer look at who some of their allies are. The world has moved on from 1958, but voters are likely to deliver an equally stinging defeat to the purveyors of this ugly bigoted agenda.

SB5 Supporters go live with their astroturf campaign

The corporate backers of SB5 have an official organization, with a not-so-originally named website.

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 this morning.

The group's website, www.betterohio.org, says, "It's a grassroots coalition of Ohioans who support the effort to reform Ohio and to restore fairness and flexibility to middle class taxpayers, while getting the cost of government under control."

Plunderbund has already dispelled most of the untruths this astorturf organization has published. But let's take a look at their other claim - that of being a grass roots organization in favor of SB5. Let's ask a simple question. Is there any real grassroots support for SB5?

Back in February, the leading Pro-SB5 facebook group had 373 likes, today that same group still only has 1,530 likes. Compared to the leading Anti SB5 facebook group which has grown from 11,008 in February to over 17,075. The Anti-SB5 group is 10 times as large and growing 10 times as fast. And "Bulding a Better Ohio"? - it has a meagre 59 friends on the day of its launch.

Corporate backers might be able to provide the millions of dollars to be spent on attack ads, but they can't buy genuine grassroots citizen support. The kind of support that has over 10,000 on the ground volunteers who have colected over 200,000 signature in just 1 month. If further proof were needed of where the true majority opinion lies on this bill that attacks the middle class, we need look no further than poll after poll