On the last day of March, Ohio governor John Kasich signed the Republicans’ anti-democratic law, Senate Bill 5 (SB5). Soon after, a citizens alliance began using the state’s democratic public referendum law to repeal it.19With 40-some clauses that weaken workers and their unions, SB5 practically cancels the public worker’s right to collective bargaining, which is a form of workplace democracy. 627 SB5 has two clauses that seriously weaken workers’ bargaining leverage.8 One clause, SB5’s first, totally bans strikes. The other bans arbitration in case of no agreement, and lets the public employer choose its own last offer. SB5 also has clauses that weaken the contract. Two ban bargaining for the major benefits of health insurance and retirement. Another allows a public employer to break the employment contract, if the state auditor declares a fiscal watch. Other SB5 clauses weaken the union. For instance, one bans fair share payment by non-union workers to the union for costs of bargaining and upholding their contract. Another classifies more workers as “supervisors”, ineligible for union membership. Yet another bans any bargaining to limit privatization, or compensate the worker for it. But Ohio’s public referendum law empowers citizens to repeal a new law — though it isn’t easy.3 First, a citizens committee gets its ballot language approved by the secretary of state, after which the new law goes on hold until the referendum process plays out. Then the committee has 90 days from the time the newly-passed law was filed to gather the valid signatures of 6% of the electorate that voted in the last governor’s race, with at least 3% in each of half of the state’s counties. For the referendum on SB5, that meant 231,149 valid signatures, and about 450,000 signatures total to ensure enough valid ones.4 But the committee got thousands of volunteers to circulate petitions, and ended up with 1,298,301 signatures — nearly three times the goal — from all 88 counties.5 Last Wednesday, one day before the deadline, a parade of 6,000 people and a semi-truck marched through Columbus to deliver the petitions in 1,502 boxes to the secretary of state. Next, the petitions will go to the county boards of elections for validation. And in November Ohio will, with hardly a doubt, hold a public referendum on SB5.
Some countries in the Western Hemisphere have given constitutional rights to non-human entities — with opposite effects on their democracies. While Ecuador and Bolivia stand to strengthen their democracies by declaring human-like rights for Pacha Mama, that is, Nature, the United States, has weakened its democracy by giving human rights to the business Corporation. Ecuador and Bolivia take from their indigenous Andean people a tradition of reverence for Nature as a living being, which encompasses human and all other life.1 In 2008, Ecuador held a national referendum and resoundingly approved a new constitution, in which “Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.”2 And last year Bolivia, following adoption of a new constitution, wrote similar rights for Nature into its laws. Now persons and communities in those countries, where oil and gas drilling, and mineral mining have ruined much land, and farming has cleared much rainforest, can petition the government on behalf of Nature to stop such damage.3In contrast, the United States takes from its founders a tradition of respect for the “unalienable Rights” of the individual.4 Its 223-year-old constitution has stood to protect those rights, and makes no mention of the Corporation.5 But in 1886, the Supreme Court reporter led his summary of a run-of-the-mill Supreme Court case with a claim that the court had never ruled on — “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”6 Later court rulings mistakenly used that claim as precedent, and wrongly gave the Corporation equal protection rights.7 Since then, the courts have stretched that errant precedent to give other human rights, such as free speech and privacy, to the Corporation, which has used them to overturn health, safety and environmental laws made by elected legislatures.89 But last year’s Supreme Court ruling using the right of free speech to allow the Corporation to pump unlimited money into elections has fueled a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to state what the average child could tell you: that the Corporation is not a real person, and does not have human rights.10131112When backed by a constitution that bans human rights for the Corporation and recognizes human-like rights for Nature, a nation’s elected governments — local, regional and national — may better uphold the people’s will for health, safety and a natural environment.
My 85-year-old father, whom we call “Pappy,” has his land line telephone service with AT&T. Last spring, AT&T sent Pappy a DSL modem and a brochure with a cheery welcome to its internet service. But he hadn’t ordered it. And when we realized that neither had any of his children ordered it, Pappy sent the modem back — but by then it was beyond AT&T’s return deadline. Pappy called AT&T and told the lady he reached “I don’t even have a computer.” She told him that the matter would “be taken care of.” But AT&T sent its next bill with the DSL charge. Pappy called AT&T again, and the gentleman said to scratch out the DSL line items, and just pay the rest — and that’s what Pappy did. AT&T sent the next bill with an additional monthly DSL charge and a late fee. Pappy called again, and got passed from one person to another for an hour. Next, AT&T made a robo-call, warning Pappy of possible service cut-off or collection action. For five straight days at 9 in the morning, AT&T robo-called him with that message. Again, Pappy called AT&T, but this time demanded to talk directly to the billing department. “I am the billing department,” said the lady. Soon after, Pappy noticed some fine print on his phone bill: “Residential customers may also contact the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel for assistance with complaints and utility issues at 1 877 742 5622 (toll free).” So he called the number and told his story. The next day, a lady from AT&T called Pappy, apologized, deleted the DSL and late charges, and gave him the amount to pay. The company offered nothing for his time and trouble, but it was a relief nonetheless — problem solved.
That was how a state agency, the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, worked under the administration of the Democratic governor, Ted Strickland. But now Ohio has a new, Republican governor, former Fox News host and Wall Street bank exec, John Kasich.1 +2 Gov. Kasich is at the fore among Republican office-holders that are now swinging a meat axe at the commonwealth: public health, safety, schools, transportation, the social safety net, and so on.3 +4 In addition, Kasich calls for cutting the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel’s budget by half — even though its funding comes not from the state, but entirely from the utility companies.5 Should that go through, then next time there may be no one to goad AT&T to ease up on somebody’s old pappy.
“Extravagant pension and health benefits” is a charge made against public service workers by the billionaire-backed political group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP).1 The charge is one of several on the web site the group put up to support the billionaire-backed Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, in his effort to bust the state’s public sector unions.2 Walker’s bill to cancel public service workers’ collective bargaining rights has spurred tens of thousands in Madison and nationwide to rally over the past three weeks to keep those rights, and has put Wisconsin at center stage in a national Republican union-busting campaign.3 “Exorbitant benefits,” “plush benefits,” “lavish contracts,” AFP complains. But, compared with private sector workers of like education and age, public sector workers’ earn less.4 So, if AFP really wants to fight extravagance, it would surely do better to look away from workers struggling to stay in the middle class, and towards their, and the governor’s, billionaire benefactors — the brothers David and Charles Koch.5+ 6 Beyond the usual extravagances of a billionaire, the Koch brothers have slathered think tanks, politicos and media with more than a hundred million dollars to push their political agenda: dismantling public health, safety, retirement, education, climate and clean energy programs, and leaving big corporations, such as their own Koch Industries, to pollute and skip taxes.7+ 8 To fight that kind of extravagance — and to keep good public service — we would surely do better to bring back the 70% millionaire’s tax bracket of the 1970’s (or maybe the 91% rate of the 1950’s), than to cancel the rights and renege on the contracts of public service workers.9
As throngs of citizens rally for the twelfth straight day at and in the Wisconsin state house, and as thousands more have been rallying in Ohio and other states, they are fighting for a long-held human right — that of collective bargaining.1 The right to join a collective-bargaining group — a labor union — is stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the right to collective bargaining itself is stated in the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.2+3 Those rights flow from the basic right of freedom of association. Collective bargaining, carried out by a committee of workers and elected union representatives, is a form of workplace democracy — it gives a worker a say in ones wages and working conditions.4 In the United States, private sector workers gained their collective bargaining rights in 1935, and in 1962 federal public sector workers gained theirs.6+7+8 In 1959, Wisconsin became the first state to assure collective bargaining rights to local public servants, and since then most states have done the same.9+10 Now, Republican governors and legislators of Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, and other states have moved to severely cut or cancel collective bargaining rights for state and local public servants. And yesterday, crowds all around the country rallied in support of the fighters for workers’ rights in Wisconsin, and to stop the erasure of an established human right.11+12
Photos
Photos from some of the rallies in support of Wisconsin public servants and collective bargaining rights across the nation on Saturday, February 26, 2011:
Madison, Wisconsin (Andy Manis / AP)
Columbus, Ohio (Jay LaPrete / AP)
Albany, NY (Twitter user @_1134)
Augusta, Maine
Austin, Texas (Stephen C. Webster)
Boise, Idaho
Boston, Massachusetts (Rick Tudor)
Washington, D.C. (Jeff Bloom and Josh William)
Denver, Colorado (Twitter user @RadicalRonRand)
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Asheville, North Carolina (Douglas Ross) / Jackson, Mississippi (Landon Wilson)
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