Up In the Air

At 9:44 p.m. I was driving home from campus when our local NPR station interrupted the BBC with Governor John Kasich. He was conceding that his side had lost on Issue 2.
Yay, I wanted to cheer. He said the other side had run a good fight and he planned to take a breath and think about his options.
He said Issue 2 was about giving local governments tools to cut costs, but apparently, Ohioans did not like the tools he had given him.
I thought about other tools I knew.
Anyway, he sounded a little desperate and reminded me of a recent picture of the cat.
Gov. Kasich is hanging on by his toenails. I can't wait to see if he can do flips in the air too.

I Voted

Today was voting day. Since it's an odd year, no state or national politicians are on the ballot.
Just some local city council, mayoral and school board member.
Still, the polling places were expected to be busy because Ohio is voting on Issue 2. Issue 2 determines whether the law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor should be overturned. That law takes away unions' rights to collectively bargain. That means workers would not be able to band together and agree together to accept certain wages or vacation time or benefits. That means the firefighters wouldn't be able to negotiate and say they need more firefighters on duty. They'd just have to accept what management gave them.
The people who support Issue 2 say that local governments can save money, but who are they kidding. The local firefighters, teachers, police officers and snow plow drivers are not getting rich.
If Issue 2 remains the law then the average worker has no power against management. The worker can take the deal or quit his job.
Sometimes unions go too far, and everyone can tell a story about a person who didn't have to do any work because the union protected that person's job. Overall, though, unions have protected the working people. They've allowed many of us to move up to a middle class lifestyle that we might not have had.
So I hope tomorrow you'll hear that Issue 2 was defeated and the state workers of Ohio are still allowed to collectively bargain.
There's no excuse if people don't get to the polls. It's gorgeous out there today.