Union Sermons… and Salaries

To prevent needed public education and local government reforms, Ohio’s public unions are conducting a furious statewide campaign against Senate Bill 5. They must hope voters won’t recognize the source of this opposition: union bosses build wealth and power by demonizing the wealthy and powerful.

You didn’t hear it from me, but from Joseph Rugola, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees:

“It is nothing less than an assault on working families struggling to get by from those with their Wall Street values. We will not engage in a contest of who can work for the lowest rates.”

In fiscal 2010, Joseph Rugola was paid $243,712 in dues taken from public employees. If “Wall Street values” are the source of Ohio’s problems, what sort of values does Rugola represent?

“We need to have resources to run an effective campaign,” Ohio Education Association Executive Director Larry Wicks told teachers a month before the union decided to charge every member $54 to kill Senate Bill 5. Wicks was paid $210,858 in member dues in fiscal 2010, but who’s counting?

According to AFSCME Council 8 President John Lyall, Senate Bill 5 is “about eliminating the middle class, not just in Ohio but in the country.” A cartoonish example of class warfare; Lyall was paid $156,183 in member dues in fiscal 2010.

Carol Bowshier, Chief of Staff at the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, has played the same AFSCME tune:

“I think that there is nothing about this legislation at all that does anything to make workers benefit or the state benefit as a whole… you don’t create a middle class by destroying the middle class.”

Bowshier was paid $101,666 in dues in fiscal 2009, before being promoted to her current position. It’s clear Bowshier, Lyall, Wicks, and Rugola enjoy the benefits of their privileged status – as it’s clear Ohioans should take union rants against Senate Bill 5 with a block of salt.

Cross-posted at Third Base Politics and Columbus Tea Party.

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