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The labor movement and its allies scored a major victory with the repeal of Ohio Senate Bill 5 (SB5), a piece of anti-union legislation signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich. In a referendum that gave voters a chance to speak on the issue, Ohioans resoundingly rejected the law, which would have gutted the bargaining rights of 350,000 public-sector workers. In a landmark defeat for Republicans, voters turned out in large numbers and voted 61 percent to 39 percent to strike down SB5.

To understand how progressives pulled off this remarkable win, I spoke with Paul Booth, one of the chief strategists behind the campaign to repeal SB5. Currently, Booth is executive assistant to Gerald McEntee, the longtime president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). But he is also an organizing legend outside of the labor movement. In the 1960s, Booth served as national secretary and vice president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and in the 1970s he was a prominent figure at the Midwest Academy, an influential training ground for organizers. He has worked for AFSCME since 1974.

Delving into the Ohio victory, I opened with a simple question: “Why did we win?”

“The people of Ohio decided that this was as a power grab by the governor and his people,” Booth said. “They decided public service workers’ rights were worth preserving.”

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Cincinnati Fire Fighters (IAFF) member Doug Stern says yesterday’s overwhelming rejection of Gov. John Kasich’s (R) attempt to eliminate collective bargaining rights of workers like firefighters, nurses, teachers, bridge inspectors and others shows:

[T]he citizens of Ohio spoke and they made it loud and clear that the focus of government should be on creating sustainable middle class jobs, rather than  pushing a partisan political agenda.

Stern, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Louise Foresman, a member of Working America from Cleveland, took part in a telephone press conference this afternoon about the stunning victory for working families that sent Issue 2 down to a 61 percent to 39 percent defeat. Says Trumka:

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The common thread in yesterday’s unbroken string of Democratic and progressive victories was the popular rejection of right-wing overreach. From Ohio, where voters overturned by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent Republican Governor John Kasich’s law stripping public employees of collective-bargaining rights; to Maine, where voters overturned by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent Republican Governor Paul LePage’s law abolishing Election Day voter registration; to Arizona, where voters recalled Republican state Senate Leader Russell Pearce, the most vehemently anti-immigrant state legislator in the nation; to, will-wonders-never-cease, Mississippi, where voters rejected an initiative declaring a fertilized egg a person from the moment of conception, effectively outlawing abortion and just maybe birth control as well, by a decisive margin of 57 percent to 43 percent, voters shouted a resounding STOP to the rightward gallop of public policy at the hands of the radicalized Republican Party.

The series of elections held across the country yesterday weren’t supposed to yield a coherent narrative. The key ballot measures concerned very different issues, and they were on the ballot in very different states. Yet a common theme emerged: Radical-right Republicans hit a wall last night all over the country, even on a conservative social issue in what may be the most socially conservative state in the nation.

Like many Republicans elected one year ago, John Kasich and Paul LePage stormed into their respective statehouses aiming to transform their moderate states into laboratories for diminished democracy, with Kasich proposing to curtail the right to bargain collectively and LePage proposing to curtail the right to vote. Clearly, they did not bring their states’ voters along with them, and Kasich, in some polls, has become the least popular governor in the nation by turning so deaf an ear to his constituents’ beliefs. (more…)

Organized labor racked up a big win in a crucial state, Ohio, on Nov. 8, defeating Right Wing GOP Gov. John Kasich’s plan to kill collective bargaining for state and local workers by a 63%-37% margin.

The Associated Press called the referendum on Kasich’s law, SB5, just before 10 p.m., Eastern Time, with 904,391 “no” votes against the scheme, compared to 558,570 “yes” votes. And that was with only fragmentary returns from Cleveland, expected to be a stronghold of pro-union votes. There, Kasich’s law was losing by a 2-to-1 margin.

The Ohio victory wasn’t labor’s only win on Election Day. Right Wing GOP Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, author of that state’s notorious anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant law, was bounced in a recall election by GOP businessman Jerry Lewis, 52%-48%. The state AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers campaigned for Lewis, who made opposition to Pearce’s law – and its bad impact – a campaign plank.

After months of strong mobilizing and campaigning, the Ohio results elated unionists and their leaders. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, led the frenzied final campaigning against Kasich’s law, which killed collective bargaining rights for 350,000 state and local government workers, including police, teachers and Fire Fighters. (more…)

It may be that all the millions of dollars spent by both sides and the tens of thousands of precinct walks they (well, chiefly labor) undertook in the battle to repeal Ohio’s Senate Bill 5, which nullified the collective-bargaining rights of the state’s public employees, merely ensured that Ohioans would vote the way they originally intended to. The latest poll taken before today’s election—from Public Policy Polling (PPP), completed this past weekend—showed that voters backed repeal by a whopping 23-point margin, 59 percent to 36 percent. As PPP noted, voters also backed repeal by a 23-point margin when they were first polled back in March.

Initially, as Republican Governor John Kasich’s war on unions was moving through the state’s legislature, liberals feared that popular opposition was tepid. In Wisconsin, the crowds of protestors swelled to 100,000 in opposing that state’s legislation curtailing public employee’s collective-bargaining rights. The one demonstration in Columbus, by contrast, drew a scant 10,000. Had Ohio gone missing?

Apparently not, though we won’t know for certain until the votes come in tonight. Columbus may not have been Madison, a college town with a tradition of protest, but Ohio had other progressive traditions, as became evident when 1.3 million state residents signed petitions to put Issue 2—the referendum on Senate Bill 5—on November’s ballot. Indeed, Wisconsin liberals, lacking the option of a referendum, had to rely on the clumsier tactic of recalling the Republican state senators who’d passed that state’s anti-union bill. While they did manage to prevail in a couple of recall contests, they fell short of their goal of flipping the Senate into Democratic hands. If the polls are right, today’s vote in Ohio should have a more decisively pro-union outcome.

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On Nov. 8, Ohio voters repealed SB5, which took away the right of public employees to bargain for a middle-class life. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined working families at the phone bank and walking door to door to get-out-the-vote against the law, pushed by Gov. John Kasich and passed early in 2011.

Ohio voters today resoundingly overturned the anti-worker agenda pushed by Gov. John Kasich (R), Republican state lawmakers and outside interest groups, which took away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.

Moments ago, the vote was called: Buckeye State voters said “No” to Issue 2. The Associated Press reports it was defeated by a 63 percent to 37 percent margin. The “No” vote on Issue 2 repeals Kasich’s S.B. 5 that eliminated the collective bargaining rights of some 350,000 public employees, including teachers, nurses and firefighters.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who joined working families in phone banking and canvassing said Issue 2′s defeat ”is a major victory for working families in Ohio and across the country.”

Ohio’s working people successfully fought back against lies pushed by shadowy multi-national corporations and their anonymous front groups that attempted to scapegoat public service employees and everyone they serve by assaulting collective bargaining rights.

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On Nov. 8, Ohio voters repealed SB5, which took away the right of public employees to bargain for a middle-class life. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined working families at the phone bank and walking door to door to get-out-the-vote against the law, pushed by Gov. John Kasich and passed early in 2011.

Yesterday, Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected the effort to revoke basic worker rights, delivering a stunning rebuke to conservative Governor John Kasich. That spark was lit in Madison, Wisconsin last winter when workers took over the state capitol and launched unprecedented recall elections that sobered right-wing Governor Scott Walker and the Republican state legislature. The Occupy Wall Street movement turned the spark into a conflagration, transforming the political horizon.

Now, a range of progressive groups, led by Progressive Majority, are calling on citizen activists to Run for America, announcing a plan to recruit 2012 progressive candidates in 2012 to run for public office at every level — from school board to state legislatures to Congress.

Two years ago, the Tea Party turned protest into political power, fielding right-wing challengers to office holders of both parties. Public dismay with the failed economy enabled Republicans to capture the House of Representatives, and state houses and legislatures across the country. They captured 675 state legislative seats, the largest sweep since 1938. Shock doctrine conservatives then used the crisis to cut taxes on corporations while savaging public services. They moved to roll back worker rights to weaken unions, their most organized opposition. Realizing they represented a minority position, they passed a range of laws seeking to constrict voting rights, requiring photo IDs, limiting early voting, etc., Then they went after women’s rights, environmental protections, and the poor while doing most of what the business lobby asked of them.

Now from Madison to Wall Street and across the country, the new populist uprising is challenging the failed conservative ideas and corporate interests that have dominated our politics to devastating effect. The question now is whether that uprising will generate progressive challengers to conservative office holders in both parties. That will take not just inspiration but organization as well.

To supply that, Progressive Majority has joined with Moveon.org, US Action, the Center for Community Change, Rebuild the Dream, the New Organizing Institute and other partners in the emerging American Dream Movement to set the goal of recruiting and supporting 2012 candidates in 2012. (more…)

Despite favorable public opinion polls, Ohio unionists are taking nothing for granted and are ramping up their campaign to repeal Right Wing Gov. John Kasich’s anti-worker anti-union law, as a Nov. 8 referendum on it nears.

Workers are pounding the pavements showing the everyday impact of Kasich’s measure, SB5, which he pushed through the GOP-run Ohio legislature earlier this year.

They’re also advertising. In one spot, a woman says Fire Fighters saved her 2-year-old granddaughter’s life, yet Kasich’s law would take away the Fire Fighters’ right to collectively bargain for equipment and staffing to make such rescues possible. But the unionists are not really relying on an air war to win. Their troops are on the ground.

“Last weekend we had over 2,000 volunteers” on the streets, says Ohio AFL-CIO spokesman Jason Perlman. Unions expected to field even more on Halloween weekend and 10,000 in get-out-the-vote drives in the final weekend before the election.

“What’s really been great is that every union has come aboard – AFL-CIO, Change To Win, you name it,” even though Kasich’s law would end collective bargaining rights only for Ohio’s 400,000 state and local government workers, Perlman adds. (more…)