By theresa

January 24, 2011 11:46 AM | Link to this

guess what people!!! I’m a state employee and I don’t know how got a raise lately but it wasn’t me. I gave back 10 days pay for the last 2 years~! Also a raise in my health insurance,and remember STATE EMPLOYEE ARE TAX PAYER TOO!!!!!

By occupational therapy

January 23, 2011 1:47 PM | Link to this

Beneficial info and excellent design you got here! I want to thank you for sharing your ideas and putting the time into the stuff you publish! Great work!

By Paul

January 16, 2011 12:13 PM | Link to this

I’m asking DDN to do a study, comparing city/state government workers (union and non-union) to comparable jobs in private sector. Also, what is the ratio of city worker to resident? I’d like to see a complete list by department: job title, primary responsibility; salary/benefits/pension; What percent of healthcare insurance is paid by employee ? Taxpayers in the private sector are tired of being “CHUMPS”; we’re tired of funding city and state workers who have “UNREALISTIC” salaries, benefits and pensions. Many in the private sector pay 100% of their healthcare insurance; and many don’t even have a pension plan. Its time for everyone in Ohio to SHARE THE PAIN.

By garyd

January 15, 2011 11:41 PM | Link to this

so explain to me how this will help our economy? taking money from middle class working families is going to help this states economy? i don’t think so. contrary to what you hear on fox news, public salaries and benefits lag behind the private sector on a national average so the claims made on huge union salaries is false. i should tell you that i am a proud (private sector) union member and i am by no means wealthy or rich. i live within my means and make around 50,000 dollars a year. i enjoy decent health care and have a small amount of money in my retirement so when i turn 65 i don’t have to rely on the government to take care of me. i can’t wrap my head around the fact that some people are calling for the “death” of all unions. we need our citizens to be descent wage earners, we need our citizens to carry thier own health care and we need our citizens to have the abitlty to contribute to our local and state economies. sure your taxes may go down a few bucks but at what expense? we need the people in our state to have good jobs. when kasich repeals the prvailaing wage workers will be back to making 12-15 bucks an hour. this is simply a step in the wrong direction and our state will suffer more…

By Great in Dayton

January 15, 2011 12:35 PM | Link to this

Shannon Jones just eliminate the clause about state workers in your bill. Make it all workers not just state workers. You are going to throw away our chance to get Right to Work in this state if you don’t do it soon.

By Great in Dayton

January 15, 2011 12:32 PM | Link to this

All unions need to go not just the public ones. They drive up costs to the consumer and this country. Don’t forget that the gov’t buys a lot of equipment and supplies from these forced union employers. The cost of gov’t would go down quite a bit if we had the Right to Work legislation enacted country wide.

By -1to jack

January 15, 2011 10:00 AM | Link to this

Jack, atleast the support there member which live in the state, not wnat to make them unemployed so they can create 150k per year jobs to gie to there friends on OUR dime!!!! talk about a theif.. look at the gov’s office first!!!

By Jack

January 14, 2011 1:48 PM | Link to this

Unions steal money from employees while doing very little to help them. One heck of a scam.

By Lt Dan

January 14, 2011 11:27 AM | Link to this

Paul, You could’ve been talking about my father. I also worked more than 1 job on occasion. matter of fact, I am working 2 jobs now. The sad but true commentary is that many people in this day and age do not look at themselves as the primary reason for their problems, and also do not look at themselves as the primary solution. People like Paul G., likely an union member, who have been trained to beleive that, because of the union, they are entitled, where the private sector is not. They want you to support their viewpoint, (honor their picket lines, buy union products 1st ect) while denegrating anything and anybody who is not union. A hypocritical, me first, screw everybody else attitude.

By Paul

January 14, 2011 10:03 AM | Link to this

So many people unconsciously have an “entitlement attitude”… those who say “we deserve our fair share”, for example! I don’t know what that means. I was raised to believe you’re paid for your level of responsibility and how well you carry out your work. If that means you have to work 2 jobs to support your family, that’s what you do. My dad worked 3 jobs to support our large family. He had a full-time job in a factory and then after supper he also worked part-time. Then he smartly invested any extra money that was left over after paying bills. It took years, but he was very successful.

By Perspective

January 14, 2011 7:44 AM | Link to this

@Paul G Please Paul G,tell us what misinformation we are laboring under? How is a “fair share of the economic pie” determined? Do you think everyone should be paid the same? Do you think those that don’t work at all but are able should also get a “fair share of the economic pie”? What rights are being torn down?

By M.A. Zimov

January 14, 2011 7:37 AM | Link to this

If we are not to drown in a sea of public debt, as is the case in socialist Europe, then we must stop looking at what people should get paid compared to other less-qualified individuals simply because of perceived disparity. Smacks of the USSR where doctors were paid less than custodians, so no one bothered to work to become a doctor. We’ve grown government too fast and are working on the creation of a social welfare state. I am pleased to hear Kasich talking fiscal retrenchment and sustainability. It should have happened 10 years ago and maybe we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

By Paul G

January 13, 2011 5:45 PM | Link to this

It’s amazing—but tragic—that the goal today is how to tear down the rights and benefits of other workers (truly a race to the bottom) rather than to seek ways to secure a fair share of the economic pie. The misinformation under which many of the commentators to this article labor (no pun intended) is equally tragic.

By Perspective

January 13, 2011 2:59 PM | Link to this

larry green I’d like to thank you for being a hardworking man who understands and takes care of his responsibilities. If more people were like you the world would be a better place. I know I’ve done many different jobs that I didn’t like or didn’t pay much but I have the responsibility to take care of myself and my family and so I’ve worked those jobs to make ends meet.God Bless You and hopefully your future will be brighter.

By larry green

January 13, 2011 2:08 PM | Link to this

j long as obama reminds us elections have consequences and your terrible brand of government lost because we all know it is a failure…try to find a real job where you get 1/2 the benefits you complain about as not enough…after being laid off 3 times in 3 years I know that I accept a job that feeds my family

By Great in Dayton

January 13, 2011 6:02 AM | Link to this

Let’s don’t forget that most of the unions members are forced members with private companies. Gov’t workers are a lot smaller workforce than in the private section. If I were a company in Illinois I would not come to Ohio until the Ohio Chamber gets Right to Work Legislation for Kasich to sign or else he can just let it sit on his desk and not sign it and it goes into law anyway. That way he can say he did not have anything to do with it in public for the next election. We have such an advantage I don’t know why we are not publicly advertising Right TO WORK RIGHT NOW!!!! Should be the chant. We need companies to locate here and they will not with over 651,000 forced paying members funneling money to the Democrats. Eliminate this money now.

By Paul

January 12, 2011 11:32 PM | Link to this

Its math and its economics; it has nothing to do with ideology. The states can’t afford the Unions’ ridiculous salaries, benefits and pensions anymore! The unions already sent manufacturing overseas or out of business with their unreasonable demand. We cannot stand by and watch while they ruin this entire country.

By Marcia L

January 12, 2011 5:36 PM | Link to this

Go get em Gov. Kasich. I’m sick of paying taxes that go to the automatic pay increases and plentiful benefits of union workers who work half as hard as I do and get paid twice as much.

By greg

January 12, 2011 5:04 PM | Link to this

First of all J long needs a valium. Second imagine an anti-conservative union thug cutting and running when he knows he might have to answer for all the underfunded pension plans. I wonder what happened to all that money. Must be the evil Wall Street guys. We all know how efficient public employees are. They would never slack off on the job or take advantage of all that liberal sick time.

By Paul

January 12, 2011 4:08 PM | Link to this

Ohio needs to open their arms to those Illinois residents who will be Hit with a 66% iNCREASE in Income Tax, along with Illinois businesses who will receive huge increase in taxes and needless to say.. will be Moving Out of Illinois! Ohio would Love them to come to our state, now that we have a business-friendly governor like Kasich! As far as the Unions, I wonder what the Unions in Illinois gave-up?? Taxpayers have to absorb a 66% INCREASE in income tax! What did the UNIONS give up in Ill.?

By Paul

January 12, 2011 4:07 PM | Link to this

Ohio needs to open their arms to those Illinois residents who will be Hit with a 66% iNCREASE in Income Tax, along with Illinois businesses who will receive huge increase in taxes and needless to say.. will be Moving Out of Illinois! Ohio would Love them to come to our state, now that we have a business-friendly governor like Kasich! As far as the Unions, I wonder what the Unions in Illinois gave-up?? Taxpayers have to absorb a 66% INCREASE in income tax! What did the UNIONS give up in Ill.?

By Jack

January 12, 2011 4:00 PM | Link to this

J. Long, your brand of entitlement makes me sick. I work in a large state department and am a union member. The union environment is the largest taxpayer ripoff ever suffered by the people of Ohio. No one is ever disciplined. People come in at 9 or 10am and leve at 2pm. They say they are doing field work when they are at home. Some spend the entire day reading the newspaper or surfing the net. Several are highly incompetent, and got promoted. I hate the union envoronment. I will cheer the day Kasich or anyone else makes us a open shop or just kicks the union out! The sole purpose of the union is to protect malfeasence and gain higher pay for those who won’t work. Go Kasich! Go GOP! When bus drivers make over a $100k per year, and teachers make $70 to $90k a year for part-time work, something is wrong. The taxpayer is getting screwed.

By cd

January 12, 2011 3:58 PM | Link to this

Do you see some “Jail Time” in this man future?

By Reece M.

January 12, 2011 2:50 PM | Link to this

Hey J long, get your head out of the sand. You’re probably as big, or bigger, a freeloader as Rugola. Taxpayers are tired of getting screwed by you and your kind. It’s about time you find out what it’s like for the real working men and women who pay your salary. That’s why people in this state voted for a new governor.

By News to J Long

January 12, 2011 12:49 PM | Link to this

You know buddy you’re the typical whiner. You and your govt types have the cush jobs, that require too little of an education, pay too much, provide your types with too little oversight and provide you with too much discretionary power and freedom to screw the public. I am all for any politian that takes a meat axe to the government budget. ITS ABOUT TIME. Get ready to live like the rest of us

By LarryH

January 12, 2011 11:56 AM | Link to this

Let’s see. This guy makes about the same money as the governor of Ohio; many public employees make far more than people in the private sector, and all we get is waah, waah, waah.

By j long

January 12, 2011 11:43 AM | Link to this

This is the individual who came in and threatened (get on the bus or get ran over). OUR GOVERNOR started right off bullying. People have been in front of a judge for less threats. He is another politician that is out of touch. He wants to privatize everything. He wants to privatize prisons! This is where everything comes to two things MONEY & PROFIT! That is the bottom line. You pay family men and women less money to do a job that a politician would never consider doing. They put 1 or 2 officers in a dorm with 300 inmates and say you get paid high dollar. His high dollar is about twice what the poverty level is, COMPARED to what he and his people make which would be 5 times or more. And they try to tell us they are just upper middle class. Ohio has approx. 30,000 state employees out of over 1.5 million people and he wants to blame those working people for this mess! People are losing their jobs every day, losing thier homes and families. This man does not care about any of the real working class people, we are all expendable as far as he is concerned. Going back to private prisons if you run out of toilet paper TUFF you get more in when it is aloted (cuts into profits) Someone is sick and cannot be at work, you don’t fill the position (cuts into Profits) Small portions of food, which some may say oh well they are just inmates but men and women have to watch those inmates that tend to go into riot mode when they don’t get fed. Again enough food (cuts into PROFITS). But do’t worry the Govenor Promises that won’t happen TRUST HIM I’m sure he has our best interest at heart. I mean his best interest at heart. He didn’t hire a private prison manager for nothing. He also wants to take away benefits. We have not had a raise in 6 out of 9 yrs. Lost money on other benefits. And pay more for insurance. WE have done our jobs and now he wants to penalize workers because he does not like unions. So the few of us that are barely keeping our heads above water he wants to sink. Lose our jobs , homes and some cases it will split up families so he can make a name for himself. Again out of touch, why is it terrible for us to barely make a living? He should be leading by example. He and his need to take hefty pay cuts but instead he pays his people more! Why do the tax payers have to pay their health insurance (FOR LIFE) they make huge amounts of money compared to us. With every thing he says about coming together to make this work, Again he means we get screwed and he still(along with his buds)gets to live the life without taking any cuts. What ya gonna do POLITICIANS! Didn’t he say he wanted to keep families in ohio? Wanted to create jobs for families? Thats right minimum wage jobs that way he can state he created jobs just you still can’t afford anything. Take away the few decent jobs that we have, cause stress and financial ruins for the working class bums and call it a day. RIGHT GOVERNOR?