Ohioans Fired Up – to Support Candidates Who Defend Collective Bargaining

by Clyde Weiss  |  March 09, 2012

Mitt Romney may be celebrating his close-call victory in Ohio this week, but the prospects for any GOP Presidential candidate taking Ohio in November may have been severely handicapped by the right-wing’s efforts to repeal collective bargaining there last year, according to a report from Reuters this week.

Author Jeff Mason writes,

“A failed attempt by the state’s Republican governor to limit collective bargaining rights for public unions last year altered the political landscape in this battleground state.”

Mason quotes Brian Barnhart, 33, a lieutenant with the Columbus fire department, to explain the prevailing sentiment:

“I am socially conservative, I am a registered Republican voter and voted a strict Republican ticket in 2010 – but I am voting with Democrats in ’12. The main reason is the attacks on workers that I have been seeing with the Republican Party,” Barnhart said.

As a consequence of Gov. John Kasich’s failed attempt to undermine the rights of workers, Mason says that “Ohio Democrats are enjoying greater fundraising and the unlikely return of middle class ‘Reagan Democrats’ to the party…” Online donations to the party, he added, quadrupled last year.

This should be a heads-up to other lawmakers who seek to turn the clock back on collective bargaining. Whether it’s at the state or local level, when corporate-backed politicians take on the 99%, they will get a fight they never expected.