Watch Union Bosses Go Berserk Over Right to Work

Cross-posted from the archived Media Trackers Ohio site.

Union bosses launched a volley of propaganda against workplace freedom and its backers as legislation to secure Ohioans’ right to opt out of paying union dues was being introduced in the Ohio House. Video from the May 1 meltdown is available online courtesy of Marc Kovac at Ohio Capital Blog.

Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga and Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Executive Director Joe Rugola stuck with the strategy union front We Are Ohio and the Ohio Education Association (OEA) have employed for more than a year: lie relentlessly about what workplace freedom is.

Here’s what Burga, who was paid $140,420 in 2011, had to say about letting workers choose whether to pay union dues:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/P_Wxix_ja3E

“Like Senate Bill 5, so-called ‘right to work’ and the workplace freedom act will attack middle-class, working families, they’ll attack worker’s rights, and it’s gonna drive down wages, it’s gonna make us less free, less safe, and worse off,” Burga said.

“Ohioans clearly spoke when they voted down Senate Bill 5, which was a similar sort of attack,” Burga told the press, continuing to draw false parallels between public union collective bargaining reform and a policy which would simply let workers choose whether to pay a union.

Because no union presser would be complete without cries of victimhood at the hands of corporations, Burga warned, “we need to ask ourselves, when is the last time a multinational corporation got behind something for the good of workers and working families and the middle class.”

Rugola, who was paid $253,351 in OAPSE dues last year, addressed the crowd next:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/VvQ5zfftC94

“America’s right to work states are the poorest, most unhealthy, and undereducated states in the union. That is a fact,” said Rugola, who later in his remarks compared workplace freedom supporters to Nazis.

“There is no question in our minds that right-wing corporate interests – motivated by what, I’m sorry to call, but what I believe is a godless greed – no doubt, no doubt would like to line up with the right-wing extremist legislators all over the country and here in Ohio to add our state’s middle-class and working families to the long honor roll of desperate workers in right to work states,” Rugola added.

“For 35 years, I’ve had to talk every one of those members into voting to create a union, ok? So, right to work is anti-democratic in the extreme,” Rugola said.

Workplace freedom does not make it more difficult for anyone to form or join a union. Why do Joe Rugola and Tim Burga feel compelled to lie so aggressively to block a policy that would let workers choose whether to pay them?

In addition to the obvious merit of securing Ohioans’ right to choose whether to support powerful, progressive labor unions, Ohio has lagged far behind workplace freedom states in job creationwage growth, and disposable income growth so far this century.