88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
BY ALICE OLLSTEIN POSTED ON MAY 28, 2015 AT 8:00 AM
CREDIT: AP
Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is preparing to run for President in 2016, is currently trying to tamp down rumors that he wants to implement a controversial right-to-work law in his home state. He said this week on the pre-campaign trail in Georgia that he believed Ohio “doesn’t need” such a policy. The stance echoes his previous commentsthat the bill “isn’t on [his] agenda.” When pressed on whether he’d sign it if it came to his desk, thus banning unions from collecting fees from all workers who benefit from their organizing efforts, he demurred, saying he doesn’t “live in the future.”
Labor and progressive groups are now sounding the alarm, saying that Kasich’s line on right-to-work echoes what Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said, and both later supported and signed the policy into law.
Kasich’s record with workers in his state has been checkered at best. He has activelybeen courting unions and sought their endorsements — a sharp contrast with some of his likely opponents, who are firing up crowds on the campaign trail by criticizing unionsand blaming them for everything from the gender pay gap to state budget shortfalls.
Republican strategists have repeatedly referred to Kasich as a “moderate” or “pragmatist”who can appeal to blue collar workers.
But in 2011, Kasich pushed through a law barring public sector workers from collectively bargaining for better wages and working conditions — a law that went beyond a similar move in Wisconsin by including firefighters and police. That law that was overwhelmingly overturned by voters a year later, a strong rebuke of Kasich’s policies left his approval rating in the 30s. He won back significant support by expanding Medicaid to nearly 300,000 uninsured, low-income residents.
However, just before this Memorial Day weekend, the Governor issued an executive order stripping away union rights from nearly 10,000 independent home health-care and in-home child-care workers. The move undoes a law implemented by former Democratic Governor Ted Strickland that extended the ability to bargain with the state to thoseoverlooked and underpaid sectors. Unions that used to represent those workers in Ohio, including the AFSCME and the SEIU are calling it a “war on caregivers,” warning that it will discourage people from pursuing those careers.
Somewhat ironically, Kasich credited the success of the President’s Affordable Care Act — which he opposes and wants repealed — as part of his rationale for repealing those union rights. He said would have repealed his predecessor’s law earlier, but held off out of concern that those independent workers would lose the health insurance provided by their unions. But “since that time,” he wrote, “health insurance has become widely available through other means, such as the federal health insurance exchanges.”
Kasich is expected to declare his bid for the White House sometime around June 30.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2...vernor-tries-please-unions-anti-union-voters/
CREDIT: AP
Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is preparing to run for President in 2016, is currently trying to tamp down rumors that he wants to implement a controversial right-to-work law in his home state. He said this week on the pre-campaign trail in Georgia that he believed Ohio “doesn’t need” such a policy. The stance echoes his previous commentsthat the bill “isn’t on [his] agenda.” When pressed on whether he’d sign it if it came to his desk, thus banning unions from collecting fees from all workers who benefit from their organizing efforts, he demurred, saying he doesn’t “live in the future.”
Labor and progressive groups are now sounding the alarm, saying that Kasich’s line on right-to-work echoes what Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said, and both later supported and signed the policy into law.
Kasich’s record with workers in his state has been checkered at best. He has activelybeen courting unions and sought their endorsements — a sharp contrast with some of his likely opponents, who are firing up crowds on the campaign trail by criticizing unionsand blaming them for everything from the gender pay gap to state budget shortfalls.
Republican strategists have repeatedly referred to Kasich as a “moderate” or “pragmatist”who can appeal to blue collar workers.
But in 2011, Kasich pushed through a law barring public sector workers from collectively bargaining for better wages and working conditions — a law that went beyond a similar move in Wisconsin by including firefighters and police. That law that was overwhelmingly overturned by voters a year later, a strong rebuke of Kasich’s policies left his approval rating in the 30s. He won back significant support by expanding Medicaid to nearly 300,000 uninsured, low-income residents.
However, just before this Memorial Day weekend, the Governor issued an executive order stripping away union rights from nearly 10,000 independent home health-care and in-home child-care workers. The move undoes a law implemented by former Democratic Governor Ted Strickland that extended the ability to bargain with the state to thoseoverlooked and underpaid sectors. Unions that used to represent those workers in Ohio, including the AFSCME and the SEIU are calling it a “war on caregivers,” warning that it will discourage people from pursuing those careers.
Somewhat ironically, Kasich credited the success of the President’s Affordable Care Act — which he opposes and wants repealed — as part of his rationale for repealing those union rights. He said would have repealed his predecessor’s law earlier, but held off out of concern that those independent workers would lose the health insurance provided by their unions. But “since that time,” he wrote, “health insurance has become widely available through other means, such as the federal health insurance exchanges.”
Kasich is expected to declare his bid for the White House sometime around June 30.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2...vernor-tries-please-unions-anti-union-voters/