A Vote to Inspire the Nation
AFSCME fought back for the working middle class in Ohio. Our success there must be replicated across the country this year.
AFSCME fought back for the working middle class in Ohio. Our success there must be replicated across the country this year.
What began one year ago, on the steps of an Ohio Statehouse whose doors were locked by elected officials to their own constituents, ended in November with the stunning repeal of the anti-worker Senate Bill 5. Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected Gov. John Kasich’s bill in a citizens’ veto, saying no to its elimination of collective bargaining and its direct attack on working, middle class families’ livelihoods.
“We delivered a clear message to corporate-backed politicians across the country that we will no longer stay silent as Wall Street tries to steal the American Dream,” said AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee.
In the most heated days of the campaign, AFSCME Sec.-Treas. Lee Saunders traveled the state, rallying volunteers.
“This is going to be the vote heard ‘round the world,” Saunders told those packing a union hall in Columbus. “We will send a message to folks who want to attack labor and attack the middle class. We’re going to fight like hell for our country.”
It is important to understand why a coordinated attack spurred citizens to come together in Ohio, because their stories of long days canvassing and missed family suppers – and the success that those sacrifices yielded – must be replicated in other states this year. Far from being chastened by Kasich’s resounding defeat in Ohio, his counterparts persist in targeting workers’ rights.
“We knew we had to succeed,” said John Lyall, president of Ohio Council 8, also an International vice president. “Because if they won in Ohio, they were going to march their agenda across the country. Of course, they’re still going to try that. But we showed that you can be ready for them, and you can win.”
Opponents of the working, middle class are counting on their power. They are counting on their money. What they aren’t counting on is a Main Street movement of workers across the country rising up to stop them on behalf of America’s working families. They can be stopped in every state, with relentless organizing by union members and supporters to get out the vote for progressive candidates. Read more about seven AFSCME members who did just that.
A Vote for Financial Stability
Matthew De Voe, Zookeeper
Matthew De Voe and family (Photo by Tessa Berg)
Senate Bill 5 hit zookeeper Matthew De Voe where he lives. Literally. The bill demanded that employees pay even steeper contributions to their health insurance and pensions, posing disastrous implications for families on a fixed income like the De Voes. A sudden loss of take-home pay could have meant an inability to pay his mortgage and other bills.
As Election Day drew closer, De Voe, a member of AFSCME Local 2950 (Council 8), knew the fear that had taken up permanent residence in his home was palpable in rural communities, suburbs and cities across Ohio.
“I’m scared for my family,” he said one night near the end of the campaign, seated at the kitchen table in his family’s modest home in west Columbus. He motioned to his three children playing nearby with the family’s pet Chihuahua. “Every penny is budgeted. If I lose income I could lose my house, my car. The impact is just so incredible.”
And the law would have affected every Ohioan. That’s why De Voe spoke out against it, even though talking publicly about politics was new for the 19-year veteran employee. Each year, more than 2 million visitors come to his workplace, the world-famous Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and he knows that he and his colleagues keep everyone from the visitors to the animals safe.
On election night, when news broke that Senate Bill 5 had gone down 61 to 39 percent, De Voe exhaled for what felt like the first time in months.
“I am breathing a sigh of relief right now,” he said. “I looked at my kids the other night and had this fear that I wouldn’t be able to provide for them. Tomorrow I can go back to work energized.”
A Vote for Solidarity
James Beverly, Jr., at left (Photo by Robert Allen)
James Beverly, Jr., Corrections Officer, Next Wave member
In the final weeks of the campaign, James Beverly, Jr., set off on a 12-stop tour of the state, letting Ohio residents know that the collective bargaining attack facing them had happened earlier in the year to workers in Wisconsin, and that if they didn’t take a stand, it would happen somewhere else next.
“We told them to be strong, that the nation was watching,” said Beverly, a member of AFSCME Chapter 7010 (OCSEA) and a corrections officer in Ashland County. “We talked about Wisconsin and how this was all an obvious attack on the labor movement. It opened up people’s eyes that the middle class was under attack.”
On election night, with the Ohio victory just minutes old, Beverly learned from a fellow union member about AFSCME’s effort in Wisconsin to re-enroll members pushed out of their union memberships by Governor Walker’s anti-worker tactics. So a few weeks later, he went to Wisconsin to help re-enroll them.
“A corrections officer in Ohio is a corrections officer in Wisconsin, Michigan,” Beverly said. “We do the same job and we see the same things. We hear the same lies about our pay and our ‘golden nest eggs.’ My message to our brothers and sisters is that we have to stay together.”
A Vote for Retirement Security
Jamie Fant, Retiree
Jamie Fant (Photo by Cynthia McCabe)
The reverend would have to forgive AFSCME retiree Jamie Fant for ducking out of the Turner Road Church of Christ a bit early during campaign season to do some preaching of his own.
Fant was one of the thousands of volunteers who gave up their usual free time routines to knock on doors and call voters to urge them to vote against Senate Bill 5. He took a little good-natured ribbing at the union hall when he collected his neighborhood canvassing packet in a pinstripe suit and tie. It was all worth it though.
If Kasich had gotten his way, “the pension system as we know it (was) not going to exist,” said Fant, an Ohio/AFSCME Retiree Chapter 1184 leader who served 18 years as a corrections officer, until retiring in 2001. “We as retirees need to protect and preserve the rights of those who come after us.”
As for skipping out early on church when necessary, Fant said he hoped his fellow congregation members understood. “I’m always out here trying to do what’s right,” he said. “I’m out here fighting the good fight.”
A Vote for Women
BJ Simmons-Talley, School Bus Driver
BJ Simmons-Talley (Photo by Tessa Berg)
Imagine a time when women gave birth and then went back to work driving school buses two days later. BJ Simmons-Talley doesn’t have to imagine it. She lived it, driving in 1970s Ohio when women risked losing their jobs every time they had a baby and needed to take maternity leave.
“Before collective bargaining, if you went on maternity leave, you came back to having lost your place,” said Simmons-Talley, a member of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4), who has three children of her own. “You’d be scared to go on leave, so you’d damage your body because you wanted to get back. You’d stay out two or three days and then you went back to work. We ain’t going back there.”
To make sure we didn’t, Simmons-Talley spent nine months fighting Senate Bill 5, testifying at the Statehouse, knocking on doors, feeding other volunteers at campaign sites and collecting signatures to get the law on the ballot for a citizens’ veto. Simmons-Talley knew the 29,000 women in her union would be unfairly hurt if the law left lawmakers and management calling all the shots.
“The majority of my people are single parents,” said Simmons-Talley of her female colleagues at Columbus Public Schools. “All we want are decent wages, good health insurance and to be able to send our kids to college.”
In the 1960s, the Alabama native marched there with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Testifying at the Ohio Statehouse this winter on behalf of public workers’ rights brought back memories of the civil rights struggle. With one noted exception.
“We’re not getting beat down by the police,” said Simmons-Talley. “This time, the police are with us.”
A Vote for Secure Employment
Adam Ruth and Mike Tenney (Photo by Cynthia McCabe)
Adam Ruth and Mike Tenney, Corrections Officers
Sometimes the strongest argument against an unfair law that targets unions isn’t a speech at a rally or a campaign pitch on a doorstep. Rather, it’s a call reminding workers how important the union is when their employment is threatened by that law.
That’s the call corrections officer Adam Ruth was making one day in late October as he rang a fellow officer about to be unemployed when her prison privatized. He was offering her a lifeline: an alternate job placement made possible by state law and collective bargaining. But there was a catch: if Senate Bill 5 passed a few days later, that lifeline would disappear.
More than 500 employees at the North Central Correctional Institution would have been unemployed as of Jan. 1 if not for the provision known as an “1814” that offered them placement at another facility in the state. It wasn’t just corrections officers about to be out of work. There were secretaries, mail clerks, store keepers, nurses and prison library assistants.
Ruth and his colleague Mike Tenney, both of Chapter 5188 of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA)/AFSCME Local 11, raced against the clock. They needed to reach the hundreds of fellow union brothers and sisters who were affected and get them into new jobs before Election Day.
Tenney saw the privatization of his prison and the push for the union-busting Senate Bill 5 as inextricably linked. During the nine-month campaign, he talked to anyone who would listen about the importance of taking a stand against politicians and corporations more interested in the bottom line than public safety and workers.
On his phone call, Ruth walked the corrections officer on the other end through the 1814 process. It’s “a safety net,” he told her, answering a few more of her questions then listening as she talked.
“I’m glad I made your day,” Ruth said finally and hung up, allowing himself a quick smile before moving to the next union colleague’s name on his list. Election Day was only seven days away.
“Hey Susan, this is Adam Ruth calling from OCSEA…”
A Vote for the Next Generation
Karen Holdridge (Photo by Tessa Berg)
Karen Holdridge, School Bus Driver
School bus driver Karen Holdridge knows that she’s going to retire in a few years. So her decision to spend months knocking on doors, urging people to oppose Senate Bill 5 was about those just starting their work at her compound.
“I want a good environment for the young people I work with,” said Holdridge, an Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4) Chapter 336 member who has been driving for Columbus Public Schools for 16 years. “Many of them are raising families with young children and I want the best life possible for them.”
But Senate Bill 5 was a direct attack on those Ohio working families, especially the youngest members of them.
Holdridge is a consistent presence for these students, giving them leeway when they’re abiding by the rules of Bus No. 70 and making them her “new best friends” up front when they’re not. “I can see the difference I make with them.”
When it came to canvassing for the campaign, her energy was impressive. Her personal best was visiting 159 houses in one day. She collected seven books of signatures during the drive last summer to get the bill on the November ballot.
Holdridge hadn’t always been so vocal.
“In years past I was always in the background,” said Holdridge. Seven years ago, with her three children grown, Holdridge decided it was time to get active in the affairs governing her life. “Everyone else had had their say so it was time for me to get involved.”
And on Election Night, it paid off.
“We did it,” Holdridge said. “We made history. I am so proud of our unions. We stood up and said, ‘We are Americans and you can not take our rights away.’”
View an energizing video about AFSCME’s win in Ohio, featuring many of the workers written about here. AFSCME.org/ohio
