Collective Bargaining Repealed in Ohio


         It is today’s story that will get less coverage than it deserves ― especially in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and New Jersey. These are states where “balanced news coverage” ― especially in recent years, have come to mean “the republican views on the issues are going to be favorably exaggerated, while the democratic views are going to be marginalized and down-played: Ohio voters by a 2 to 1 margin repealed the state’s collective bargaining law (Senate Bill 5).  
        Finally the citizens are beginning to say, “We’ve had enough of your empty promises. We’ve had enough of your unsupported claim that lowering corporate taxes create new jobs. And most importantly, we’ve had enough of your deliberate attempt to infringe on our constitutional rights to assemble and act in concert with each other for our common good. Hear ye, hear ye, enough is enough!”
        True that! But I hope “enough” isn’t “too late!” I hope that the horse isn’t already out of the barn. I hope that this repeal of the collective bargaining law in Ohio is the beginning of the course reversal that will return us to the right path. However, I must admit, I am pessimistic about the outcome, because I believe that the major damage to our education system, our public institutions, our work force (public and private), our trust and faith in each other, and our lost of faith in the democratic principles of the United States are, perhaps, beyond repair.  But even if they can be repaired, there is a new challenge that we are facing: While we were busy destroying the system, which made us the greatest nation in the world, other countries were busy embracing it. As a result of this, it appears that it is only a matter of time before our best and most skilled workers will be working in foreign countries, where they and the highly skilled work forces in those countries will dominate the world economy with the most modern, most durable, most productive, and cheapest products. And the United States of America, although willing, will be too far behind innovatively to compete. Some economists cite the recent bankruptcy of Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, and SpectraWatt as the early symptoms of this impending epidemic that will spread throughout the United States in next few years.  
         I pray to God, for the sake of our nation, that these economists and I are wrong.

By
James A. Porter 


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