Going After the Middle Class-Again

Gov. Kasich and the Ohio GOP are going after the middle class just like they did with
SB 5. With Kasich up for re-election, you wonder why he'd even allow the Republicans to push for "right-to-work" legislation for Ohio.

Dispatch:

House Republicans have given themselves three options to make Ohio the 25th right–to-work state, including placing a proposed constitutional amendment before voters this fall....

...the effort to defeat Senate Bill 5 at the ballot box was led by a coalition of labor groups, perhaps none more vocal than police unions. Jay McDonald, president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, said right to work is “a big deal” for his members.

“My concern is it’s another attack on the middle class in the state of Ohio,” McDonald said. “I think the statistics prove out that they don’t create jobs – six of the 10 states with the highest unemployment are right-to-work states. What is indisputable is wages are lower, considerably lower. It’s another attempt to remove the voice of the worker from the workplace.”

A DetroitFreePress article has some facts:

“Right to work is not high on employers’ things to consider when they move to a state,” Dale Belman, a professor at Michigan State University’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, said Thursday. “For existing employers it doesn’t provide a benefit and may be a detriment,” he said, because of worsening labor relations in right-to-work states...

....Of the bottom 10 states with the lowest per capital income, seven were right to work states. 

“There is a lot of evidence that wages and benefits are lower in right-to-work states. There’s a redistribution of wages and benefits toward owners’ capital,” Belman said Thursday....

Ohioans should note those words from Professor Bellman...."wages and benefits are lower in right-to-work states. There’s a redistribution of wages and benefits toward owners’ capital..."

In right-to-work states, workers are on the losing end, and owners will gain larger profits. I guess that is what you get from the anti-middle class Republican Party.