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FEBRUARY

Is it the Right Time for “Right to Work”

Legislation in Ohio?

By Neil S. Clark
Grant Street Consultants

Will Ohio follow the lead of Indiana and become a “Right to Work” state? Numerous articles and political consultants are pontificating just that after Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’ successful campaign and recently enacted law made it the 24th state – and the first of the so-called “Rust Belt” states to abandon strongly held labor principles.

Detractors in Ohio simply say this is Issue 2/Senate Bill 5 all over again. My experience as a lobbyist and political consultant for thirty+ years urges me to believe otherwise and any comparisons are simply naive. The opponents have a real tiger by the tail here.

Let me explain my rationale: First, Issue 2 prohibited collective bargaining, while “Right to Work” allows workers to choose whether or not to join a union, and one cannot lose their job if they don’t join. The mere use of the words PROHIBIT vs. CHOICE should concern the opponents. That’s why poll after poll, whether its Ohioans for Workplace Freedom or Quinnipiac University, show a wide majority of Ohioans’ support the “Right to Work” amendment. Second, is that the poll numbers generated by Quinnipiac University on ISSUE 2 and “Right to Work” are complete opposites. In July 2011, REPEAL was supported by a margin of 56-35, while this February, Ohioans SUPPORTED “Right to Work by 54-40. So, those simple word choices really do make a huge difference in the minds of Ohioans.

From the first day of my employment with the Ohio Senate in 1980, the 1958 Right to Work ballot issue and the fact that it killed the Republican Party were pounded into my head. I never challenged that conclusion because I was too naive and because I enjoyed working with labor (having been a former steelworker and growing up in Cleveland).

Two months ago, I came across an eye-opening piece of research which thoroughly explores the events of 1958. The senior thesis written by OSU Honor Student Michael B. Hissam, entitled C. William O’Neill and the 1958 Right-to-Work Amendment, is a must read for those of us interested in such policy. The author enumerates many causes to the sound defeat of the Right to Work amendment: the popular Republican Governor O’Neil was bed-ridden and had mismanaged his administration; the economy had turned south and tax increases were on the horizon; O’Neil was fighting with the Republican Party; and finally, the business community ran the Right to Work campaign. Essentially, the electorate was mad as hell at the incumbents and tossed them and the amendment out onto the street. Problem was, most incumbents were Republican. One could make the spurious relationship between the two, but if the Right to Work amendment was such a watershed issue, why did Republicans recapture their majority status in 1960? You would be surprised what great gems are in the book Ohio Politics 2ndedition.

According to the AFL-CIO website, in 2011 there were 4.7 million workers in Ohio. Total union employees were 647,000; meaning 13.4% of the entire workforce belongs to a union. When I researched the numbers for Ohio Union membership dating back to 1958, I found a range as low as 24% to a high of 31%. So, for purposes of my theory, let’s work with the low number of 24%. From 1958 to 2011, union membership waned from 24% to 13.4%, which equals a 44% reduction – while Ohio’s total population increased by 22% from 9.4 Million to 11.5 million. Even more telling is that in 1958, nearly 920,000 union members were affected by the Right to Work amendment. Today the amendment would affect only 647,000 union members.

According to the 2011 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national union membership accounts for 11.8% or 14.8 million workers. Of that, 7.6 million workers were from the public sector. That means 37% of ALL public employees belong to a union. At the local government level, that number jumps to 43.2%. Now the real kick in the pants is that the remaining 7.2 million workers in the private sector represent only 6.9% of ALL private employment. This all amounts to public sector unions being five times larger than the private sector.

At the moment, organized labor is at a disadvantage and should shudder at the prospect of this issue going to the ballot or being enacted into law by the General Assembly. And who says words aren’t important?

ABC Endorses

Mitt Romney for President

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today endorsed Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to be the 45th president of the United States. The association’s endorsement of Romney came during the ABC National Board of Directors meeting in Phoenix.

“The election of Mitt Romney as president is a top priority for the commercial and industrial construction industry and the millions of Americans it employs,” said 2012 ABC National Chairman Eric Regelin, president of Granix, LLC, Ellicott City, Md. “He has articulated a clear position on issues important to ABC members, including opposing federally mandated project labor agreements, returning the National Labor Relations Board to a neutral arbiter of labor disputes and supporting the free-market, merit shop philosophy.”

In his speech before the ABC board, Romney said, “If I become president of the United States I will curb the practice we have in this country of giving union bosses an unfair advantage in contracting. One of the first things I will do - actually on day one - is I will end the government’s favoritism towards unions in contracting on federal projects and end project labor agreements. I also will make sure that workers in America have the right to a secret ballot and I will fight for right to work laws.”

ACTION ALERT!

We are looking for 1,000 good people! You can help!

If you know anyone interested in circulating the workplace freedom petition, please give them this website address. At this web site applicants can submit an online application. Applicants will be screened by regional coordinators. If hired, the regional coordinators will train the applicants.

www.conservativejobsohio.com

Please do everything you can to spread the word. This is where all of your corporate fundraising efforts are being brought to bear.

Individual Incentives through March 6:

Signatures Collected Pay Per Signature

0 – 30 = $0.25

31 – 60 = $0.50

61 – 90 = $0.75

91 – 180 = $1.00

181 – and over = $1.50

Bonus

The state will be broken into 6 regions. The top regional circulator as of March 6 will have their pay doubled. The top statewide circulator will have their pay tripled.

Group Incentives through March 6:

We will make donations to any group that collects signatures. This way they can turn this project into a group fundraiser.

Signatures Collected Donation

1,200 = $1,000

1,500 = $1,050

1,800 = $1,100

2,100 = $1,175

2,400 = $1,250

2,700 = $1,350

3,000 = $1,450

3,000+ = $1,650

Bonus

The state will be divided into 6 regions. The group that collects the most signatures in each region will be awarded an additional $1,000. The top group in the state will be given a second $1,000 bonus.

We need regional coordinators in the following regions. They get paid $500/week.

1. Portage/Summit

2. Medina/Wayne

3. Lake/Geauga/Ashtabula

4. Ottawa/Sandusky/Erie

5. Lucas/Hancock/Wood

6. Cuyahoga

7. Stark

Ohioans like ‘right-to-work’ idea,

poll says

By Darrel Rowland

Three weeks ago, Indiana state troopers guarded the state House chamber in Indianapolis as legislators debated a right-to-work bill, which eventually became law.

Ohio should become the nation’s 24th “right-to-work state,” voters in a new poll declare.

By a 14-point margin – 50 percent to 36 percent – participants in the Quinnipiac Poll say the Buckeye State should join Indiana in making it more difficult to mandate union membership. The poll comes less than four months after Ohio voters crushed Senate Bill 5 by 23 points in a referendum on slashing public employee union rights.

“Given the assumption that the SB 5 referendum was a demonstration of union strength in Ohio, the 54 – 40 percent support for making Ohio a ‘right-to-work’ state does make one take notice,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement.

“In the SB 5 referendum independent voters, who are generally the key to Ohio elections, voted with the pro-union folks to repeal the law many viewed as an effort to handicap unions. The data indicates that many of those same independents who stood up for unions this past November on SB 5 are standing up to unions by backing ‘right-to-work’ legislation.”

The concept draws favor from independents 55 percent to 39 percent. Republicans back “right-to-work” by 77 percent to 20 percent, while Democrats are opposed 61 percent to 31 percent.

Respondents were asked: “Indiana recently became a ‘right-to-work’ state, meaning that workers can no longer be required to join a union or pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment. Do you think that Ohio should become a ‘right-to-work’ state or don't you think so?"

The poll shows that Ohioans also favor raising the speed limit on interstates to 70 mph and back a bill that would ban smoking inside a car when a child 6 or younger is present.

Gov. John Kasich’s approval rating crept higher, to a net minus 6 points; 40 percent approve of his performance and 46 percent disapprove.

“When a governor’s approval rating in his own party can’t overcome the disapproval by the opposition party and he is getting bad reviews from independent voters, it is a sign of political weakness,” said Brown. “The governor still has almost three years until he faces the voters, but he would certainly like to get his job approval into the mid-40s, at least. The good news for him is that he is slightly more popular than the legislature, which gets 48 – 35 percent disapproval.”

The telephone poll, which includes land and cell lines, from February 7 through Sunday of 1,421 registered Ohio voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

Poll finds 54% of voters like

idea of Ohio becoming

‘right-to-work’ state

By Jim Provance

Blade Columbus Bureau Chief

Legislative Democrats oppose it and Republicans, still shell-shocked by the shellacking they took last November over Senate Bill 5, are afraid of it, but 54 percent of voters say they like the idea of making Ohio a “right-to-work” state, the latest Quinnipiac Poll said Tuesday.

Registered voters also like proposed laws that would increase Ohio’s highway speed limit to 70 mph and ban smoking in cars whenever young children are passengers.

“Given the assumption that the SB 5 referendum was a demonstration of union strength in Ohio, the 54 to 40 percent support for making Ohio a ‘right-to-work’ state does make one take notice,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“In the SB 5 referendum, independent voters, who are generally the key to Ohio elections, voted with the pro-union folks to repeal the law many viewed as an effort to handicap unions,’’ he said. “The data indicates that many of those same independents who stood up for unions this past November on SB 5 are standing up to unions by backing ‘right-to-work’ legislation.”

Some of the same people who were behind last year’s successful vote thumbing Ohioans’ noses at portions of President Obama’s health care reforms are pursuing another proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent Ohioans from being forced to pay “fair share’’ or other fees to help support workplace unions they refuse to join.

This follows on the heels of passage of recent legislation in Indiana making that the first new “right to work’’ state in the Midwest and northeastern Rust Belt. The petition process in Ohio is just beginning, so it remains to be seen whether backers of the amendment can collect the roughly 386,000 signatures necessary to put the question on this November’s ballot.

At no point did a Quinnipiac Poll last year ever show voters supporting Senate Bill 5’s restrictions on the collective bargaining power of public employees.

Republican Gov. John Kasich, among those urging caution in pursuing the right to work amendment, is still upside down when it comes to his own approval numbers. But the poll of 1,421 registered Ohio voters show public opinion of his performance has improved slightly.

Just 40 percent of voters give a thumbs-up to the job he’s done a little more than a year into office compared to 46 percent who disapprove of his performance. That’s a little better than the 39 percent and 48 percent numbers, respectively, recorded in the last poll in October prior to the overwhelming defeat of the public employee collective bargaining law at the ballot box.

“When a governor’s approval rating in his own party can’t overcome the disapproval by the opposition party, and he is getting bad reviews from independent voters, it is a sign of political weakness,’’ Mr. Brown said. “The governor still has almost three years until he faces the voters, but he would certainly like to get his job approval in the mid-40s at least.

“The good news for him is that he is slightly more popularly than the legislature, which gets 48 to 35 percent disapproval,’’ he said.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and is reportedly a contender for a vice presidential nod to help put the former Massachusetts governor over the top in battleground Ohio. But it remains to be seen how much that might help Mr. Romney, given that more than a third of Ohioans have yet to form an opinion of their new senator.

Mr. Portman has a job approval rating of 42 percent compared to a disapproval number of 25 percent. That means more that 34 percent haven’t made up their minds yet.

The poll, at a glance shows:

By a margin of 55 to 41 percent, voters like proposed legislation that would ban smoking in cars if a child under the age of 6 is present.

Fifty-three percent of voters like the idea of raising the current highway speed limit from 65 to 70 mph while 13 percent want to drive even faster. Thirty-one percent would prefer to reduce the current limit.

By a margin of 49 percent to 40 percent, voters oppose the idea of preventing schools from opening before Labor Day and closing after Memorial Day.

ABC Celebrates Indiana's New

Right-To-Work Bill

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today commended the Indiana legislature for approving a new right-to-work bill that will protect all workers in the state from being forced to pay union dues as a requirement of employment. Once Gov. Mitch Daniels signs the bill, Indiana will become the 23rd state in the nation to enact a right-to-work law.

“No American should be forced to join a labor union just to keep a job, and no resident of Indiana should be required to pay dues to an organization he or she does not believe in,” said 2012 ABC National Chairman Eric Regelin, president of Granix, LLC, Ellicott City, Md. “The new right-to-work law will allow workers to freely decide whether to join a union.

“In addition, right-to-work legislation has been introduced in 13 other states,” Regelin said. “This suggests that state lawmakers – strapped with massive budget deficits, falling revenues and stagnant economic growth – are considering right-to-work laws to lure new businesses into their states and help turn their economies around.”