Ohio voters undo anti-union law

Ohio voters thwart Republican efforts to destroy collective bargaining by two-to-one margin.

As anyone knows who has followed national politics for any amount of time, Ohio represents one of the most important battle grounds in determining who the POTUS will be.  Ohio voters cast their ballets yesterday and said “no” to Republican efforts to take us back to a simpler time when workers didn’t have any rights and were open to inhumane abuse by their employers.  Is this a sign that Ohio voters will lean in favor of Obama in 2012, and give him four more?Here’s the story from NPR.

Ohio voters have overturned Senate Bill 5, the controversial law that stripped public employees of their rights to collectively bargain, by a nearly two-to-one vote. The law, which was the centerpiece of Republican Gov. John Kasich’s legislative agenda and passed by a GOP-dominated state legislature this spring, will no longer be on the books after Tuesday night’s referendum vote.

“It’s clear the people have spoken,” Kasich said tonight. “We’ll continue to work with local governments. People obviously didn’t like the tools we offered here.”

This was the most closely-watched off-year election in the nation, as the repeal vote is being viewed as an important barometer in the struggle between unions and pro-business budget cutters headed into 2012. After organized labor and their Democratic allies suffered a string of defeats in states like Wisconsin and Indiana earlier this year, the Ohio campaign was an all-out battle for survival.

This hard-earned and expensive victory for unions represents a momentum shift in their direction at a crucial time. Ohio will likely be a key electoral battleground in the coming presidential election, and supporters of the repeal say this win signals that the sweeping, Republican-led efforts to curb the power of public employee unions may have gone too far.

Good job Ohio voters.

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