[BonRad]

c’mon- ya gotta sign in to read this?? Can’t something be done about that?

Here’s a small piece on this by Dick Morris-and no I haven’t checked if the site’s on the list of ‘don’t make full curt & paste’-no time for that:

URGENT! THE OHIO SHOWDOWN
By Dick Morris
10.17.2011
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/urgent-the-ohio-showdown/
On Tuesday, November 8, the public employee unions in Ohio are hoping to pass a ballot measure repealing the labor reforms Governor John Kasich has passed this year. They want to kill reforms to teacher tenure, stop merit pay for teachers, eliminate school choice, stop union members from paying more for pensions and health insurance, and keep mandatory collection of union dues.
Conservatives – everyone – needs to give money to stop the unions from winning this fight. If they repeal Senate Bill 5 – Kasich’s reform legislation – it will reassert union power and block reforms all over the nation.
The unions tried to kill similar reforms in Wisconsin by recalling state legislators. But they were turned back by a special outpouring of national conservative activism. Now they are trying outright repeal in Ohio.
The Wisconsin reforms are changing the face of public education. Giving teachers the right to pay their own union dues has triggered a 50% cut in teacher union funding. Particularly important is control of health insurance for teachers. The union uses this power to make profits of 30% which fund its political action operations. The Wisconsin and Ohio laws put an end to this ripoff.
If we sustain Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, we will doom the political power of the public employee unions. They will not have the muscle to dominate legislative elections anymore and the teachers union will no longer run our public schools. (And, if they do, we will have school choice and can send our children to good private or church schools or home schooling).
The stakes couldn’t be higher. The early polls in Ohio have shown the union winning by twenty points. Now the margin is down to less than ten. With a determined effort we can pull off the same kind of magnificent victory we had in Wisconsin.
We are working on providing a link to donate to help this extremely important cause, but it is not ready yet. But please, Click Here to sign up and we will send you the donation link as soon as it is ready to receive funds.
Thank you,
Dick Morris

[willowsdale]

Sorry about that, BonRad. Here's the whole thing: Over the past four decades, the share of Ohio private-sector employees' pay that is consumed by the Buckeye state's heavily unionized state and local government workforce payroll costs has soared dramatically. U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis data show Ohio's state and local government employee compensation (including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses) amounted to 11.2 percent of all compensation for private-sector employees in 1970. By 1990, the number had soared to 14.6 percent. Last year alone, total state and local compensation rose 7.7 percent, to $29.4 billion — or 17.3 percent of total compensation for private-sector employees. Ohioans' government employee spending burden grew vastly over the past 40 years even as the state's constituencies for several key services furnished by state and local employees shrank as a share of the total population. For example, in 1970, 26.4 percent of Ohio residents were K-12 school-aged (5-17 years-old). By 2010, just 17.4 percent of Ohio residents were in the same age bracket. As of 2010, 46.2 percent of the Buckeye state's public employees were laboring under a contract negotiated by union officials wielding monopoly bargaining power. By comparison, just 9 percent of Ohio's private-sector employees were unionized. Ohio is far from the only state in which business employees and employers are increasingly overburdened by a Big Labor-dominated government sector. But Ohio's private sector is having an especially hard time. While private employer expenditures for employee compensation increased by an inflation-adjusted 4.3 percent from 2000-2010 nationwide, Ohio businesses spent 6.6 percent less on employee compensation in 2010 than they had in 2000. Ohio is one of just five states with negative private-sector compensation growth over the past decade. All five of these economic laggards have something in common: They lack a right-to-work law protecting employees' freedom to refuse to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, without being fired as a consequence. In fact, 13 of the 14 states with the lowest 2000-2010 private-sector compensation growth don't have right-to-work laws. In the 22 states that have right-to-work laws in effect, real private employee compensation over the same period grew by an aggregate 11.3 percent — two-and-a-half times as much as the national average. Meanwhile, private-sector employees in 20 of the 22 right-to-work states experienced compensation growth above the national average. The best news Ohio business employees and employers have had in many years was the passage into law this spring of Senate Bill 5, a government reform package that includes provisions protecting the right to work for all state and local public employees. It also reduces the scope of government union officials' monopoly-bargaining privileges in several other ways. While a full-fledged right-to-work law would do much more to get Ohio back on track, Senate Bill 5 marks a significant step in the right direction. Nearly half of the forced dues-paying employees in Ohio are government workers. A huge chunk of the loot Big Labor rakes in from such workers goes into electioneering and lobbying efforts in support of union officials' tax-spend-and-regulate agenda — greatly impeding private-sector job and income growth. Over the course of the next few years, Senate Bill 5 can begin undoing the damage Big Labor has wrought on Ohio over the years — if union officials' ongoing, multimillion-dollar, forced dues-fueled campaign to overturn it is first thwarted. A few months ago, union strategists successfully collected the number of signed petitions needed to block implementation of Senate Bill 5 and put their forced-dues reinstatement referendum, known as Issue 2, before voters on Nov. 8. For Senate Bill 5 to take effect and become permanent law, a majority of Ohio voters must vote yes on Issue 2. Ohioans overwhelmingly support the principle that no one should be denied a job, or lose a job, because he or she refuses to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union. They also understand that in a state where, real private-sector compensation has fallen by 6.6 percent over the past decade, but real state and local government compensation has increased by 11.8 percent, something must be done to restore the balance. Nevertheless, Issue 2 is in serious danger of being defeated if enough voters are confused by Big Labor propaganda that falsely implies Senate Bill 5 would slash school and public-safety budgets. If this fear campaign succeeds, independent-minded public servants' hopes of regaining their freedom to refuse to join or bankroll a union will be dashed. And Ohio's already beleaguered private sector will sink deeper into the mire.