Ohio Results Show Voter Focus on Jobs

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Cincinnati Fire Fighters (IAFF) member Doug Stern says Tuesday's overwhelming rejection of Gov. John Kasich’s (R) attempt to eliminate collective bargaining rights of workers shows 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 Wednesday afternoon about the "stunning victory for working families" that sent Issue 2 down to a 61 percent to 39 percent defeat. Said Trumka, "Last night the people of Ohio — from autoworkers to teachers and firefighters to  jobless workers — sent a message that will reverberate across the country: politicians need to stop scapegoating workers and pushing an extreme partisan agenda. They need to instead work to create jobs for working people and commit to restoring balance to our economy." The Ohio victory, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the earlier uprising in Wisconsin and other battles  across the nation show, says Trumka, that working families are fighting back against, “the dramatic overreach of many politicians in Ohio and across country. “ Foresman, who works in a nonunionized workplace, says she believed Issue 2 was an "attack on all working people.…Our governor is fond of saying that 'A rising tide lifts all boats'…But what he was proposing would have lowered all boats…our boats can’t afford anymore holes. A lot of people who voted against Issue 2 are not unionized." The Ohio victory “matters everywhere,” said Trumka. "What you can take away from yesterday is that working people, the 99 percent, are standing up to corporate CEO’s to say, 'Enough.'" Voters elsewhere also cast their ballots against Republican overreach, including in Arizona, where citizens recalled Russell Pearce, the Republican president of the state senate who drafted the state’s extreme anti-immigrant law. In Maine, voters repealed a new law enacted by state Republicans to end a 40-year state tradition of allowing people to register the same day as voting. In Kentucky, state Senate President David Williams—a “clone” of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker—was easily defeated by incumbent Gov. Steve Beshear (D). - adapted from a report on the AFL-CIO's blog