Organized Labor Looking to Defeat Ohio’s Governor in 2014

Vindy.com Fresh from the heady defeat of Toledo Mayor Mike Bell, Ohio labor union bosses are setting their sights on the 2014 gubernatorial race.  Bell supported Governor John Kasich’s attempt to restrict government employee union monopoly bargaining in Ohio.  While the attempt to restrict monopoly bargaining for government employees was voted down by Ohio citizens, Big Labor is determined no freedom-loving candidate will be installed in the Governor’s mansion next year.

Associated Press has the story in Vindy.com.

“A lot of what our membership responded to was that Mayor Bell aligned himself so closely with Gov. Kasich,†said Mike Gillis, a spokesman for the Ohio AFL-CIO.

Unions plan to remind voters often it was the governor who signed the law that would have prohibited more than 350,000 public employees from negotiating health care and pension benefits and would have banned public employee strikes.

Kasich has distanced himself from right-to-work supporters who want to ban mandatory union membership and prohibit Ohio unions from charging dues to non-members. He has said that making Ohio a right-to-work state is not one of his priorities.

Former Ohio Republican Party chairman Bob Bennett doubts that Kasich’s role in the collective bargaining fight will carry much weight outside union strongholds in northern Ohio.

“It’s not going to have an impact in other parts of the state,†he said.

Still, Democrats and union leaders are hopeful it will, especially after Bell’s defeat.

Ray Wood, who leads a United Auto Workers unit in Toledo, said he doesn’t believe that attempts to take away the bargaining rights of unions are over, and that will bring out more blue-collar voters next November.

“In some ways, they’ve awakened a sleeping giant,†he said