11 The Middle Class Defended

By September, We Are Ohio had regional field directors and organizers set up all over the state. In Hamilton, Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties (that is, Cincinnati and the surrounding counties), there were at least ten people assigned to the job of organizing many more volunteers. Over the course of the campaign, the AAUP at UC had interactions with several of them and found them young, enthusiastic, and professional. Already quite well organized, we did not need their help the way other groups did, but we collaborated with them and often directed them where their efforts would be most effective. There were also other groups active in Ohio and the Cincinnati area, including Organizing for America staff and volunteers—often the continuing presence of the 2008 Obama campaign in Ohio, who would still be in place for Obama’s 2012 campaign.

But the key for our coalition’s dynamic and effective drive toward the November election was the thousands of people who simply volunteered. Often union members or church members, they were always people with a conscience and concern for the kind of state and country we were becoming. For our part, at the UC AAUP, we were trying to block Gov. Kasich and his conservative allies from ending our 40 years of collective bargaining at the University of Cincinnati. As the election neared, I was constantly concerned that there was something more we could do to protect the university and preserve our right to have a say in our workplace. I didn’t want to leave anything undone that might help us.

I received a message from Catholics United on September 7, illustrating my fear: “Don’t wake up on Nov. 9th wishing you did more.” Noting that there were only 63 days left before the vote, the Catholic organization emphasized that there was not a single minute to waste: “Every added day, our opponents lie to Ohioans about the effects of Senate Bill 5 . . . We may be outspent by our opponents but with your help, we will not be out worked or out volunteered. Now more than ever we need to be talking to voters about the facts and the harmful consequences of Issue 2.” Catholics United beseeched people to volunteer to go door-to-door asking for people to “vote No on 2.”¹

In early September, I met with Hollie Hinton, a mayoral candidate for the city of Chillicothe who was planning a We Are Ohio rally/ fundraiser event for the Cincinnati area. She asked me to be on the organizing team, and, of course, I agreed. Shortly after the meeting with Hinton was the annual Labor Day Picnic at Coney Island, on the edge of the city along the Ohio River. The UC’s AAUP chapter faculty had for years sponsored a booth at the picnic, and our signature effort at the picnic is hauling in a couple of helium tanks so we can blow up balloons, stamped with the AAUP logo, for the hordes of children who throng the event. While I was handing out balloons with my colleagues at the 2011 picnic, I encountered Bill Dudley of the UFCW. We talked, and it occurred to us that we should combine Hinton’s We Are Ohio rally and fundraiser with an event Dudley was arranging for the same day, October 11, with the Teamsters. Hinton and I took the idea to our organizing team, and we agreed to put the two events together. The next few weeks would involve planning for this event as well as many other efforts to try to build the momentum we needed for victory in November.

We Are Ohio offered a workshop at this point that we thought particularly useful, the “Friends and Family” program. Held the evening of September 12 at the IBEW Hall in Cincinnati, the program appealed to those who were uncomfortable approaching strangers to convince them to vote against SB 5 but would feel better talking with friends and family. Not only did the program offer a lot of useful strategies for broaching the issue, but it also helped the campaign in another way. By taking their friends and family off the lists to contact, participants would reduce the number of people that We Are Ohio volunteers would have to contact. This was one more way that the campaign to repeal SB 5 was innovative and comprehensive in its strategy.

In early September, I had published in several places a long essay entitled “The War on Higher Education.” It was initially written for Passport, the newsletter of my professional organization, the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. After its initial publication, I shared it widely. In the essay, I summarized the attacks that unions and higher education were facing in Ohio and several other states, and reviewed the problems with Senate Bill 5, House Bill 194, and especially the charter university concept. The piece was useful in spreading the knowledge of just how extensive, systematic, and potentially damaging to society were these concepts being promoted by conservative forces, largely through ALEC. Some of the most interesting comments on the essay came from faculty in Europe, who had been fighting their own battles against politicians and trustees working to impose corporate models and micromanage their universities to the detriment of higher education. “I just read your piece on ‘The War on Higher Education’ with alarm, but also with gratitude for your efforts in bringing these fast-moving stories to broader attention,” wrote Professor Howard Hotson, a historian of early modern intellectual history at England’s University of Oxford. “Unfortunately, what you are describing appears to be taking place right around the world—not least here in Britain—though as usual the U.S. is setting the pace in many respects.”²

“A primary focus of any faculty union,” I wrote in the piece, “is on the twin issues of academic freedom and shared governance, and these are issues particularly under fire by the conservative movement. Faculty unions have been expanding in Ohio and elsewhere, largely in response to university budget decisions that have taken place without faculty input and without regard for the instructional mission of the universities.” I reviewed the recent unionization victories at Bowling Green State and at the University of Illinois at Chicago (and since that time, the University of Oregon). “Questionable resource allocations by university administrations,” I noted, “were key motivating factors in both the BGSU and UIC certification drives.”³>

Our battles on multiple fronts began to come to a head during this period. The charter university plan had been announced in mid-August, the deadline was approaching for signature collection for House Bill 194, and the campaign was well underway for Senate Bill 5. While we had great support from a significant portion of the student body, we felt it necessary to seek specific statements of support from the two student representative bodies, the Graduate Student Assembly and the undergraduate Student Senate. To do this, I made appointments with Paulette Penzvalto, president of the Graduate Student Assembly, and Alan Hagerty, undergraduate student body president.

I met with these student leaders on September 26 in the graduate student offices. We had a productive meeting. I introduced the issue to them and explained to them how much this mattered to UC’s faculty and to the future of education in Ohio. Faculty members do a great deal of service for students by advising and assisting student clubs and organizations. I explained that while this service may not be specifically barred by Senate Bill 5, many faculty, including myself, would simply stop doing service if the state were to dictate to us that we could do some important forms of service but not others. I also pointed out what a flawed concept it was to block faculty from taking part in decisions about hiring, promotion, and tenure. Both Paulette and Alan asked good and perceptive questions, and said they would bring the issue to their groups and get back to me. The undergraduates invited me to speak to them, which I did on September 28, and the graduate students on October 5.

The Student Senate meets in Tangeman University Center, room 425. Interestingly, there is a plaque on the wall recognizing longtime librarian Les Vuylsteke’s devoted service as an advisor over many years to the Student Senate. Now retired, Vuylsteke had been devoted to the AAUP and had recruited me to the executive council years ago. I provided the student senators with some history of the AAUP, both nationally and at UC. I explained how SB 5 would undermine faculty rights at the university, how the issues we had struggled so hard to defend—academic freedom and shared governance—would be at the whim of the university were it not for our contract. I emphasized how this was not just about us but about the campus police, the food service workers, the people who sweep the halls, cut the lawns, and shovel the snow. Further, it was a sweeping attack on all workers across the state. Finally, I emphasized the problems that SB 5 would create for faculty in doing service. I was asked whether this meant that faculty would be barred from their important role as advisors to student groups. I said we could not be sure how this would be applied in the end, but that the students should put themselves in the shoes of the faculty who would certainly be barred from the important advisory role in curriculum decisions and hiring and promoting other faculty. How would they, the students, then feel about cooperating with an administration that would do this to them? I asked that they consider passing a resolution opposing Senate Bill 5 and urging a no vote on Issue 2. The undergraduates clearly took their responsibility seriously, and I was, once again, impressed with the maturity and ability of the students.

Not surprisingly, university administrations all over the state began to attempt to take advantage of the crisis facing their employees before the November vote. At Wright State, the administration agreed to begin negotiations, but then began to stall. Late in the spring, even though all previous contracts had been for three years, the administration proposed that only a one-year contract be negotiated, a proposal that caused the faculty’s negotiating team to walk out of the negotiating session. Shortly thereafter, as it became clear that the effort to repeal Senate Bill 5 had considerable momentum and was likely to succeed, the administration began real negotiations for a new three-year contract with the WSU faculty. That contract was then approved by the university’s Board of Trustees and the membership of the bargaining unit in October 2011, ahead of the November referendum on Senate Bill 5.

Much more aggressive behavior occurred at Youngstown State University and Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. The Youngstown State faculty union, part of the Ohio Education Association, came very close to going on strike. They were the subject of harsh and unreasonable editorial attacks by the local newspaper, The Youngstown Vindicator.⁴ As at many other universities, the Youngstown State administration and board of trustees were making bad choices about its financial resources. Stan Guzell, chief negotiator for the faculty, was clear about the university’s misplaced priorities: “It’s not that they don’t have the money, it’s that they want to spend it on things that don’t include [the faculty],” he said. The administration remained intransigent, and the faculty, for the good of the students, eventually agreed to the concessions being demanded.⁵

Cincinnati State, an AAUP chapter representing about two hundred faculty, did go on strike for a week in protest over a workload issue that faculty pointed out would require them to teach 20 percent more than their peers at other Ohio community colleges. The administration disagreed. It was the first labor strike in the school’s history. Along with several other AAUP faculty and staff from nearby universities and our state office, members from UC walked the picket lines with our Cincy State friends.⁶ Our view was that, once again, faculty members were having to make a stand for quality in the face of an administration whose focus was primarily on production. As at Youngstown, the Cincinnati State faculty eventually accepted the concessions rather than punish the students.

While opposition to SB 5 was strong in the polls—including one in late July that showed the public behind us in defeating SB 5, 56 percent to 32 percent—we became concerned when another Quinnipiac poll showed that our lead had dwindled to 51 to 38 percent. Although this was still a significant margin, the numbers were moving in the wrong direction. “This is a wake-up call, as well as a call to action,” Sara Kilpatrick wrote to the AAUP statewide leadership.

“Issue 2 is not in the bag for us, and we need to mobilize and educate everyone we know about what this law actually does.” She noted that she feared that the pro-SB 5 forces were being successful in their misrepresentations of the bill as just a moderate “common-sense” reform. She added that she had personally donated money and had signed up for canvassing shifts with We Are Ohio. Despite the great activity we were already generating, we had to do more. “Issue 2 is ours to lose,” Kilpatrick said, “but luckily, we still have six weeks to get the job done. So let’s do it!”⁷

Our strategy continued to be to correct the misinformation being generated by the pro-SB 5 side—and one group, of course, that they targeted with particular venom was the public school teachers, college faculty’s allies in education. So, in collaboration with some public school teachers and a group of students that called themselves Concerned Students of the University of Cincinnati and Miami University, we jointly sponsored a showing of The Inconvenient Truth of Waiting for Superman on October 24. This film was produced by a group of New York City teachers who were being targeted by “reformers”; it was a response to the controversial and distorted film Waiting for Superman, which vilifies teachers and teachers’ unions. In May, Gov. Kasich had brought former Washington, DC, school superintendent Michelle Rhee, a darling of the right-wing set, to Cleveland for a special showing of Waiting for Superman. We showed The Inconvenient Truth because it corrected many of the misrepresentations in the original film and proposed using the advice of the teachers and parents themselves to improve the schools, rather than high-priced paid consultants who have never taught. We had a good audience at the Esquire Theater near the university, including faculty, students, neighborhood residents, some families, and politicians, including Rep. Denise Driehaus (D-Cincinnati). There was a rewarding discussion in a Q&A period afterwards.

On September 1, A. J. Stokes, campaign director for We Are Ohio, sent a communication to the coalition. It said in part that the advertising campaign would start that day. “We didn’t choose this fight,” Stokes observed, “but we know that the people of Ohio will be with us if we continue to run a strong campaign and communicate our message.” We Are Ohio opened the advertising blitz with an ad featuring Doug Stern, a 15-year veteran of the Cincinnati Fire Department.⁸ Stern pointed out that Senate Bill 5 made it illegal for his union to negotiate for enough equipment and manpower to safely and adequately do their job.⁹ The resulting slower response times could mean the difference between life and death, he said. The pro-Senate Bill 5 side quickly produced an ad by Toledo Mayor Mike Bell, a former Toledo firefighter, who discussed his own experience. He noted that he had been laid off as a firefighter early in his career because of city finances (he was later rehired) and said that he believed that Senate Bill 5 would provide officials like him with the tools necessary to prevent doing that again or raising taxes. Mayor Bell, who had been elected in 2009 in Toledo as an independent, was rare among those who appeared in pro-Senate Bill 5 advertisements, which rarely featured real people; they usually used actors or no one at all. Meanwhile, Jason Mauk, a former chief of staff for Senate Republicans and spokesperson for Building a Better Ohio, spent time denying that the ad was a response to We Are Ohio’s firefighter ad.¹⁰

One after another, real Ohioans pounded home the destructive aspects of Senate Bill 5 in We Are Ohio’s ads during the months of September and October. In one very effective advertisement, Shawna Turner, a nurse at Ohio State University’s Heart Hospital, noted that—as for the firefighters—SB 5 would make it harder for nurses to negotiate for adequate staffing levels. In response, Building a Better Ohio spokesperson Mauk once again tried to inaccurately soft-pedal Senate Bill 5 as a modest reform. And a Plain Dealer fact-check column was simply incorrect in claiming the BBO advertisement was “mostly false.” The column argued that hospital administrators would not reduce staffing once nurses could no longer negotiate to defend staffing. This perspective is much too naïve and ignores the corporate influence infiltrating all areas of medical care.¹¹

“Thousands of teachers across Ohio oppose Issue 2 because we care about the kids we teach,” said Courtney Johnson, a school teacher in Hilliard, near Columbus, in an ad about SB 5’s impact on schools. “Issue 2 would restrict teachers’ rights to bargain collectively for smaller class sizes, for up-to-date textbooks, even negotiating on school safety issues.” She went on to note that Issue 2 could mean even more standardized testing and less time spent on classroom learning. “Teachers know what our students need to succeed. Don’t let the politicians take away our rights to speak up for Ohio’s children,” Johnson asked. Because SB 5 was designed to muzzle professors, we particularly identified with this advertisement.

And just before the November ballot, one of the most famous Ohioans stepped forward. “Here in Ohio, we rely on everyday heroes to teach our children, take care of the sick, and keep our community safe,” former astronaut and Ohio Senator John Glenn said in an ad. “Issue 2 will make it harder for teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other public employees to protect and serve us.” After a brief pause, he concluded: “Here in Ohio, we don’t turn our backs on those who watch ours. That’s why I’m joining millions of Ohioans who are voting no on Issue 2.”

So desperate did the backers of Senate Bill 5 become in trying to craft some legitimate advertisements that would actually feature Ohioans that it led the organization into making a huge advertising mistake. Perhaps the most powerful advertisement produced by We Are Ohio was one called “Zoey.” It was about a little girl in Cincinnati whom firefighters had saved from a burning home, and it featured the girl’s gray-haired great-grandmother, Marlene Quinn. “When the fire broke out, there wasn’t a moment to spare,” Quinn explained in the ad. “If it was not for the firefighters, we wouldn’t have our Zoey today,” she continued, as film of a happy Zoey at play filled the screen. Quinn went on to note that Issue 2 would make it illegal to negotiate for enough firefighters to do the job. “How many of those politicians in Columbus have fought a fire?” Quinn asked and then, in a powerful statement, looking directly into the camera, went on: “Those politicians don’t care about the middle class. They’ve turned their backs on all of us. I don’t want the politicians in Columbus making decisions for the firefighters, the police, teachers, nurses, or any organization that is helping the people. Fewer firefighters could mean the difference between life and death, and that’s why I’m voting no on 2.”

What Building a Better Ohio did next is a little short of baffling. But consider their position. The Republican arguments for crushing the public unions lay in tatters. The state was in an uproar. No one had ever stepped up to cosponsor Senate Bill 5. The polls were badly against them. They were unable to find any Ohio citizens to appear in their ads, except for the Toledo mayor. And because of all of this, the money that national right-wing groups had promised to them was not forthcoming on the scale they had expected.

On the morning of October 11, I was getting ready to leave for class when I caught what I thought was the Zoey ad running on television, with Marlene Quinn featured prominently. But the voice was wrong; it was another woman, not Quinn, and at the end of the ad was the statement, “That’s why you should vote yes on 2.” And then there was a note that the ad was paid for by Building a Better Ohio. What had I just seen? I could not replay it, of course, and I had to hurry to class. That afternoon was the joint rally-fundraiser that our coalition had been planning for a couple of months. There was a festive atmosphere, with hundreds of people from different unions, especially the UFCW, and other groups at the Teamster’s Hall, Local 100, that afternoon. A stage had been set up, Teamsters national president Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., would speak later, and hamburgers, hot dogs, and soft drinks were being served. In a room inside the hall, I had a chance to speak to union members, students, and donors about how SB 5 was a special attack on the unionized faculty at the universities and would cripple our ability to defend academic freedom and shared governance. At the end, I brought up the ad I had seen that morning, which had apparently stolen Marlene Quinn and used her words for the opposite purpose. “These are the kind of people we are up against,” I said, stressing the dishonesty of the act. People were in disbelief, saying that could not be. But others spoke up who had also seen the ad that day.

A firestorm of criticism spread across the state as the ad was continually replayed. As The Columbus Dispatch reported:

Last week, Marlene Quinn was starring in a television ad explaining how Cincinnati firefighters saved her great-granddaughter, and urging Ohioans to vote against Issue 2 so firefighters could continue to negotiate for proper staffing levels. Yesterday, the 78-year-old Quinn was startled to learn that she also was starring in a new ad by the Republican group Building a Better Ohio, her image and words swiped from the Issue 2 opposition ad and spliced to sound like she is a supporter of the anti-collective-bargaining law.¹²

“I think it’s dishonest and downright deceitful that they would use footage of me to try to play tricks and fool voters,” Quinn said in a statement released by We Are Ohio. “It’s insulting to the brave firefighters that saved the lives of my grandson and my great-granddaughter Zoey. I’m outraged. They did not ask my permission. I feel violated.”¹³

As the Dispatch pointed out, Building a Better Ohio had taken the original ad, splicing Quinn’s statements with the words of a female narrator who said instead that failing to pass Issue 2 would force firefighter layoffs, which would threaten safety, because communities have to pay for “excessive benefits” of public workers. The ad ends with Quinn’s statement about “life or death.”

Donald McTigue, an attorney representing We Are Ohio, sent “cease-and-desist” letters to television stations that served Ohio’s markets, including a letter from Quinn: “I demand that all television stations or other forms of media immediately stop airing this misleading advertisement by Building a Better Ohio,” Quinn wrote. “I also request that Ohio media outlets refrain from accepting any future advertisements in which my likeness is used to advocate in support of Issue 2 or Senate Bill 5.”¹⁴

Shockingly, Senate Bill 5 backers supported the blatantly dishonest ad. Far more serious than an ad that simply shades the truth, Building a Better Ohio’s enthusiastic embrace of this dishonest action was appalling but really was reflective of the entire story of Senate Bill 5 since the first day it was introduced. The brazen attitude was nevertheless stunning.

“That’s the kind of stuff you just don’t do,” Jack Reall, president of the Columbus firefighters union, said of the ad. “This is a group that wants us to believe our politicians are going to do the right thing when it comes to safety, staffing, training. Then you turn around and make a decision like this.”¹⁵

Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building a Better Ohio, stood his ground in the face of the criticism. “Opponents of Issue 2 chose to use a personal story to make a political argument, but the same story makes an even more powerful case for supporting the reasonable reforms we’re asking of our government employees,” he told the Dispatch, again misrepresenting SB 5 as a moderate reform. “Without Issue 2,” he maintained, “our communities will continue to lay off police officers and firefighters because they can’t afford to pay them.” Reall, however, in a more accurate observation to the Dispatch cut through Mauk’s rhetoric by pointing out that the layoffs were not about collective bargaining: “We’re laying off public safety workers because we’ve cut local government funds, and we’ve decreased taxes on the wealthy.”

“We’re certainly not taking the ad down,” Mauk told the Plain Dealer. “We absolutely stand by it and our right to air those arguments.”¹⁶ While Building a Better Ohio would not back down in the face of the facts, Ohio television stations did. Reluctantly at first, but then rapidly, television stations stopped running the ad. So heated was the controversy that the Plain Dealer editorial board weighed in on October 13: “Building a Better Ohio has a right to its predictions about the consequences of a failure of Issue 2, but it has no right to mislead viewers about where Marlene Quinn stands. The group should pull the ad off the air—something a number of TV stations already have done—and move on.”¹⁷

As for the anti-SB 5 campaign, we were, of course, delighted about the impact such disreputable behavior would have on public opinion. True to my initial reaction, it did reveal to the public just what kind of forces we were fighting against: people who would do anything to crush unions, to eliminate workers’ rights, and, in our case, to eliminate our faculty union.

The proponents of Senate Bill 5 had two other sets of advertisements. One was based on using Gov. Kasich as a spokesperson. This was funded by Make Ohio Great, a front group for the Republican Governors Association (RGA). The RGA had spent at least $9 million to get Kasich elected and so poured more money into Kasich’s campaign to pass SB 5. A spokesman for RGA told The Columbus Dispatch that Make Ohio Great is “connected to the RGA and was formed to support all of Gov. Kasich’s agenda” not just SB 5. Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building a Better Ohio, said that he knew nothing about the new group and that they were not affiliated with BBO: “Asked if Make Ohio Great was an organization set up for secret cash to flow into the defense of Senate Bill 5, Mauk said, ‘I don’t know, but it’s not a vehicle affiliated with this campaign, I can tell you that.’” The trick, the Dispatch explained, was for the ads to support Kasich and his fellow Republicans’ efforts to promote Senate Bill 5 without actually mentioning the bill or ballot issue by name. An ad done that way can skirt the law and maintain that it was not a political ad—and thus would not have to reveal details about its organization to the Secretary of State’s office.¹⁸

Another set of pro-Issue 2 ads were based on a study by the right-wing American Enterprise Institute and funded by the conservative Ohio Business Roundtable. Predictably, AEI’s work provided right-wing talking points with scholarly apparatus. Its arguments were thoroughly discredited in the months of the campaign. The plan, for example, exaggerated the benefits that union members receive and even argued against all other studies to say that public employees were paid more than their private sector counterparts. Finally, it further inflated the numbers by calculating a dollar value for “job security,” an idea that economists found very dubious. Saying this ad was “misleading” and left out “critical facts,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s fact-check column ruled the ad “mostly false.”¹⁹

At the beginning of October, the AAUP at UC announced to our faculty our three-pronged plan to get out the vote. First, we feared that the confusion surrounding HB 194 would prevent county boards of elections from doing their job. So we had earlier mailed out a registration card and an application for an absentee ballot to every UC chapter member; they would have received that material in early September. Second, we continued to emphasize the need for people to use the “friends and family” strategy. We noted that too many union members failed to “vote union,” and that was only self-destructive. We hoped that the way the backers of SB 5 had attacked union members would change that situation and open more eyes to the real problems facing the state and nation. An effective way to do that would be by talking to friends and family. Third, we created a member-to-member phone bank, organized largely by the chapter’s Political Issues and Academic Freedom Committee, chaired by Dr. Andrea Tuttle Kornbluh, a professor of history. Even if we could not get all of our friends and family to vote no on Issue 2, surely we could talk to our colleagues. The phone bank consisted of about 50 faculty and librarians, who called hundreds of our faculty union colleagues to make sure they were going to get out and vote. Our list of questions included asking them whether everyone in their household was registered and whether they had talked to their family members about SB 5. Finally—and this was perhaps the most important question—we asked whether they were willing to volunteer for phone banking or canvassing with We Are Ohio. In doing the phone banking myself, I was struck by the anger and determination that continued to be obvious among the faculty. Even all these months later, the manner in which Senate Bill 5 was passed still appalled people, and the fact that our union was being singled out for elimination remained deeply offensive. And there was fear of what would happen to higher education in Ohio if faculty were silenced.

In the newsletter the UC-AAUP provided to members on October 4, we noted that the campaign was now in its final stages. “It’s simply not true that TV ads win elections,” we told our faculty colleagues, because, “especially on issues like this, what really makes the difference is person-to-person contact.” We needed to spend a few hours each week helping to turn out the “no” vote among our friends, neighbors, and family members—and among those who had no social relationship with a professor or any other union member. “By reaching out to our friends, family, and neighbors and asking them to vote with us to repeal SB5, we can win the day,” we wrote. “Remember our motto: No regrets on Nov. 9 . . . Let’s make Nov. 9th a day we celebrate long into the future.”²⁰

As the campaign worked into its final days, one of my objectives was to make sure that the University of Cincinnati community, as the state’s second-largest university, made a united statement against Senate Bill 5 and in support of a no vote on Issue 2. Paulette Penzvalto, president of the Graduate Student Assembly, shared with me in mid-October that the graduate students had passed a resolution condemning SB 5 and urging a no vote on Issue 2. I was thrilled. Then, on October 13, I learned from Alan Hagerty that the undergraduate Senate had moved as far as they could. They had earlier considered a resolution that would have urged a No vote on Issue 2. But, with no history of political involvement, that became a bridge too far. Instead, the student senators passed a resolution to ask the state legislature and the university to work together to see that shared governance was not destroyed whatever the fate of Senate Bill 5. Since Senate Bill 5 would have undermined shared governance at our universities, I interpreted the Student Senate resolution as yet another voice of opposition.

At about the same time I also learned the Faculty Senate was not going to pass another resolution simply expressing its opposition to Senate Bill 5. Instead, the Faculty Senate Cabinet believed that the resolution would be a more powerful statement if it were voted on at the All University Faculty (AUF) meeting on October 25.

Those final days of the campaign went quickly, as the routine of teaching my classes, grading papers and quizzes, and phone banking and knocking on doors continued, running together now in my memory. When the topic would come up in class, I was honest with my students: “I’m not unbiased about this. I’m president of the faculty union at UC. SB 5 would eliminate the union, and I personally think that is a terrible idea. But investigate, read, make up your own minds about what kind of state you want Ohio to be.”

Our defense of collective bargaining rights was getting plenty of national attention. “In dozens of towns across Ohio,” The New York Times reported on October 15,

rival sides have set up phone banks and door-knocking efforts. Unions and their allies have created We Are Ohio, a group that is leading the repeal effort, which has 10,000 volunteers and hopes a victory will discourage Republicans in other states from adopting anti-union legislation. Mr. Kasich’s allies have created Building a Better Ohio, financed by business and conservative donors, to block repeal.

The story was accurately headlined, “Ohio Wages Fierce Fight on Collective Bargaining,” and quoted famed Buckeye football coach Woody Hayes’s grandson, Phil Hayes, a public school teacher:

As someone who set out to serve his students, I don’t work on Wall Street; I serve Main Street,” Mr. Hayes said. “I didn’t cause the economic and financial problems caused by Wall Street, but now public employees like me have to suffer the consequences. We don’t sell collateral debt obligations, but we do sell cookies to help keep our schools going.”²¹

As we got closer to the All University Faculty (AUF) meeting, I have to admit that I was nervous about the vote on the anti-Issue 2 resolution. Instead of the 45 members at a Senate meeting making the decision, it would instead be the hundreds of university faculty who attend the annual meeting, which features addresses by the university president and the Faculty Senate president. In the course of the meeting, any resolution the Senate wishes to bring to the entire faculty is voted on. At UC, with over 2,000 faculty, there are hundreds of faculty who, for one reason or another, have chosen not to be union members. The AUF, with so many AAUP members and nonmembers, is a difficult situation to predict. But, again, I fell back on my faith in the collective wisdom of the faculty. Our unity had always involved some dissension and disagreement—we are university faculty, after all, and are trained to question authority and consider every angle of an issue, whether it be in biology, a financial plan, the Cold War, or a symphony. Through it all, for more than 40 years, we had hung together. Surely we would this time too.

An especially large group was assembled in the Great Hall in the university center for the 2011 AUF—perhaps to hear what President Williams had to say about an academic master plan that was being developed, or perhaps to hear about the resolution on Issue 2. Early in the meeting, the resolution on Issue 2 was introduced by Faculty Senator Stephena Harmony. She read the proposed resolution aloud for all to hear as a copy of the text was placed on an overhead projector. The resolution condemned Senate Bill 5 in some detail because of its negative impact on the faculty, and then urged faculty to vote no on Issue 2. Then, Faculty President Harknett opened the floor for discussion.

Much to my surprise, Prof. Dale Schaefer, who had written the column in The Cincinnati Enquirer back in early May that I had had to correct in detail, got up to speak. He once again made a series of inaccurate and misleading statements and tried instead to introduce a motion of his own, which Harknett, correctly, ruled out of order. Having said his piece and urged a yes vote on Issue 2, Schaefer sat down. Harknett asked whether there was more comment. I could not let Schaefer’s misrepresentations pass as reflecting the faculty’s view, particularly with the university’s trustees sitting in the audience. So I asked for the microphone.

“Almost everything that Dr. Schaefer has just said is not true,” I began. I then proceeded to lay out specifically what SB 5 would do to the AAUP at UC, especially that it sought to eliminate the AAUP by making faculty into managers, and thus ineligible for union membership, simply because of doing their normal service role. I emphasized that this was a completely unwarranted attack on the values that the AAUP exists to defend: academic freedom and shared governance. “But this is not just about us,” I said, “because it is a broad-based attack against labor all across the state.” Even at UC, it attacks the secretaries, the food service workers, and “those employees who set up this big room for us and who will sweep up after we leave.” I emphasized that Senate Bill 5 would begin to create an Ohio that none of us would want to be part of, a Mississippi with ice. I urged my colleagues to support the resolution and to vote No on Issue 2, and I sat down.

No one else spoke. Harknett called the question. It was to be a voice vote. The “ayes” rang out in the Great Hall. The “nays” were much quieter. Harknett correctly ruled the motion passed. I was exhilarated. The University of Cincinnati—the faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates—had spoken with one united voice of opposition to Senate Bill 5. At the end of the meeting, Harknett asked whether there was anything further to come before the AUF. I had to speak again. I thanked the faculty for standing together against SB 5. I said that if we had the historic victory that the polls were suggesting on November 8, it would be because of all of them, because of all the big things and the small things that so many faculty had done since the struggle had been forced upon us.

More good news kept coming at us from the pollsters now. A Quinnipiac poll on October 25 showed that we had extended our margin to 57–32. As Columbus’s Business First newspaper reported, “The campaign to save Senate Bill 5 is taking on water.” Gov. Kasich’s approval rating had declined by nearly the same ratio, with Ohioans now disapproving of the governor by a 52–36 margin. The Quinnipiac poll had followed closely on the heels of a Public Policy poll that showed that Issue 2/Senate Bill 5 would go down by a crushing 56–36 margin.²²

“Two weeks before election day,” The Columbus Dispatch announced, “Ohioans appear ready to stomp Senate Bill 5 out of existence.” Opposition to the bill, the Dispatch noted, was almost universal, except for Republicans, who still favored the bill 59 percent to 32 percent. The Dispatch quoted Peter Brown, executive director of Quinnipiac, that: “Anything is possible in politics, but with such across-the-board support for repealing SB 5, the governor and his team can’t be optimistic about the fate of their law.” With all this good news, our own leadership was careful to stay focused. “Between now and Election Day,” Sara Kilpatrick wrote to the statewide AAUP leadership, “complacency is our greatest opponent.” She emphasized to us that the election would still come down to turnout. “Can you imagine if we get 60% or more of the vote? Let’s win this big so that we send an unequivocal message to Kasich and his legislative followers that Ohioans will not tolerate any more attacks on workers’ rights!”²³ By late in the campaign, most of the newspapers had weighed in on Issue 2. Since most of them, especially the big dailies, are part of the Republican establishment and local chambers of commerce, they predictably advocated in favor of Senate Bill 5. Even so, most of them found distasteful the way the Republicans had mishandled the process of passing the legislation. Some newspapers were able to reject the misconceptions promoted by Building a Better Ohio. “[Kasich Republicans] used the moment to deal a hammer blow to their political adversaries, Democrats and organized labor,” the Akron Beacon Journal observed in an editorial, “going after the way unions are structured and function, seeking to diminish their capacity to participate in the political process.” The paper, which recommended a no vote on Issue 2, noted that proponents of the bill during the campaign had talked about modest changes and correcting problems: “All of this serves as cover for the partisan power play, Republicans asking the public to approve the sensible so that they can belt the other side . . . Consider the provision eliminating ‘fair share,’ the required payments to unions from workers who opt out of the bargaining unit. Again, this has nothing to do with tools or savings. Fair share long has reflected that all workers benefit from provisions of a contract.”²⁴

“Overall,” The Toledo Blade editorialized, “Issue 2 is primarily a partisan, ideological, and special-interest attack on the ability of union-represented workers—many of whom do difficult and dangerous jobs—to negotiate working conditions as well as pay and benefits. Its net effect would be destructive not only to government employees but also to the taxpayers they serve. It deserves a NO vote.” The Blade and the Beacon Journal were highly critical of the ideologically driven process because they believed that some changes ought to have been made by reaching compromise. “The history of Issue 2,” the Blade acknowledged, “is a shameful commentary on the partisan polarization of Ohio government. Before they approved Senate Bill 5, Mr. Kasich and GOP lawmakers excluded Democratic legislators and union officials from meaningful participation in its development.”²⁵

On November 2, a lengthy column written by two of my AAUP colleagues, Marty Kich of Wright State University and Dave Witt of the University of Akron, appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Disappointed with a Chronicle story that appeared to show Ohio university faculty as being sidelined in the fight to defend collective bargaining, Kich and Witt explained that the situation was actually the opposite. Their comments detailed the deep and assertive involvement Ohio’s faculty members had engaged in during the campaign. The AAUP, in cooperation with other unions, “has contributed a great deal to the efforts of We Are Ohio,” they wrote. They maintained, accurately, that—faced with the complete elimination of collective bargaining at our institutions—the AAUP had “become a more significant, not less significant, factor at the state level.” Moreover, they wrote, “We are proud of our collaboration with every union in We Are Ohio, and expect the fruits of our friendships to continue on into the future.” They argued that the Chronicle had not recognized the “galvanizing effect” the campaign against SB 5 had had on all unions, public and private. “Ohio voters are aware of the political swindle currently underway,” Kich and Witt argued, “the anti-union legislation being only one of many patently one-sided schemes designed to favor the far right’s corporate sponsors.”²⁶

In the final days of the campaign, Inside Higher Ed did a story focusing on faculty efforts against SB 5. “When faculty members at Ohio public universities mention their governor’s quest to end their collective bargaining rights,” reporter Kaustuv Basu wrote, “they talk as if they were in a war.” Sara Kilpatrick, state executive director of the AAUP, told Inside Higher Ed that “The campaign has really placed the Ohio Conference AAUP on the labor map.” Previously, the AAUP had not been very involved in the larger labor movement, Kilpatrick explained, noting that the AAUP has both union and nonunion chapters. “But the AAUP in Ohio really stepped up to combat this bad legislation, and even our nonunion members have been active and supportive.” David Jackson, president of the Bowling Green chapter and a professor of political science, said that the university presidents had been quiet but were “continuing a trend in backroom-type behavior.” Noting the extremist nature of Senate Bill 5, I told Basu that “It is a new thing to be so politically involved, but we have been forced into it. Ohioans recognize the great injustice of this law.”²⁷

At UC, we issued pleas for more of our faculty to do phone banking and participate in the labor walks. And on the Sunday before the election, I lit a row of candles at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral after Mass in downtown Cincinnati, since by that time the outcome of the vote really was out of our hands.

Cincinnati-area union and political folks appropriately chose the Holy Grail tavern on the Ohio River, downtown, as the site of our viewing party on election night. The AAUP had t-shirts made that explained our efforts over the last several months: “Faculty and Students United for What’s Right: No on 2.” We had to be confident, given the polls, but it was nevertheless stressful as we waited to receive the results. Early results began to roll in, showing SB 5 being roundly defeated everywhere. Suddenly, at about 9:30 p.m., the Associated Press called the election. Senate Bill 5 was being crushed, working people were being vindicated, and there was joy at the Holy Grail.

“SB 5 was designed to eliminate the AAUP,” I told Inside Higher Ed that night, “and would have undermined the standards of academic freedom and shared governance that our union has fought for over the decades at more than a dozen Ohio institutions. The result would have been universities with all the academic integrity of a Burger King.” I praised the historic coalition to which we belonged, that had assembled to bring this victory for all Ohioans.²⁸

“It takes a whole lot to repeal a law, but when you go against the working class and the middle class, this is what happens,” Gary Rhoades, former national general secretary of the AAUP and a University of Arizona professor, told Inside Higher Ed. He called on college presidents in Ohio to try to reestablish trust with their employees: “They should come to the table and bargain in good faith,” Rhoades said. “University presidents should not be behaving like Wall Street executives.”²⁹

It was only in the next few days that we became fully aware of the sweeping nature of the victory. The final margin was 61.33 percent to 39.67 percent. Only 5 out of Ohio’s 88 counties voted in favor of Senate Bill 5. The three most populous counties—where Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus are located—all heavily rejected the legislation. Of the counties that surround Cincinnati in probably the most conservative part of Ohio, only Warren County favored the union-busting bill. Perhaps most important, many more Ohioans voted against Senate Bill 5 (2,148,042) than had voted for Gov. Kasich (1,889,186) back in 2010.

“The overwhelming veto by Ohioans of Senate Bill 5, a GOP plan to crush public-employee unions,” political columnist Thomas Suddes wrote in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, “was a massive defeat not only for Kasich but also for the blind partisanship of General Assembly Republicans.” Suddes went on to describe other historic Republican defeats in Ohio. In 1964, Barry Goldwater won only 5 of 88 counties. In 1958, a union-busting right-to-work initiative pushed by the GOP received the support of only 37 percent of those voting, and, Suddes noted, that number was very close to the 39 percent who had supported Senate Bill 5. Suddes, who doubted Gov. Kasich would learn from the defeat, concluded with a quote from a historian I greatly admire, Gordon S. Wood, about the lessons of history: “History has no lessons . . . except one: that nothing ever quite works out as the participants quite intended or expected. In other words, if history teaches anything, it teaches humility.”³⁰