The Labor Movement has a rich history in Ohio. In 1881 Samuel Gompers organized the group that was to become the American Federation of Labor in 1886 in Columbus, Ohio. With the shift away from heavy industries like steel and automotive, the service sector has become the front line for workers' rights in sectors such as communications, healthcare, and education. With the advent of Covid 19, we have been forced to recognize the essential nature of the 4 most common jobs in America (retail sales, cashier, food service, registered nurse), all of which have direct physical proximity to the open public. But most importantly, the purchasing power a living wage gives Ohio working people is necessary for the demand that drives a robust, healthy economy. In short, if working people don’t have money in their pockets, the economy tanks!
I have worked jobs and have been paid to: deliver papers, push mowers, shovel snow, shovel mulch, and shovel manure; I’ve waited on tables, bussed tables, mopped floors, cleaned toilets, unplugged toilets (I was a janitor in a nursing home), and hawked boiler room sales for a living.
I understand and believe in the dignity of work.
- Public Spending at Prevailing Wages supports working people and surrounding communities. Why should the government try to undercut the market in a race to the bottom in quality and standards?
- Abusive Worker Misclassification, in essence, Calling Employees Independent Contractors, is an insidious ruse to avoid paying for health care, liability for malfeasance, and fair share of taxes. In the emerging gig economy, this abuse has become supercharged by giant corporations using high tech to exploit working people.
- And finally, Right to Work is nothing but Orwellian double speak for the right to work for scraps, and for the right to be exploited with no rights to organize. Money is not speech, and corporations are not people.