This week, a National Right to Work Foundation spokesman gave a talk at Ohio University bashing their favorite target: public sector unions. What he didn’t anticipate is the crowd that greeted him outside the event that was bigger than the audience inside.
OU students and labor activists, some from OCSEA, protested ahead of the speech and were joined by elected officials, all chanting, “Athens is a union town.” Ohio AFL-CIO Pres. Tim Burga lit up the crowd as they marched around Galbraith chapel where the event was held.
The event highlighted the fact that the Koch brothers and their front groups, which include the National Right to Work Foundation and the Buckeye Institute, continue to try to gain ground in Ohio each year.
It also illustrated how the National Right to Work Foundation and the Buckeye Institute continue to try to bring down public sector unions and get members to drop their union using anything they can: lawsuits, ad buys, mailers and public information requests to get more and more of members’ personal information.
While they may claim they care about workers and their union rights, nothing could be more transparently false. Remember: these are organizations with deep ties to dark money politics from big corporations and big money donors. They have an agenda that’s about keeping the economy rigged in THEIR favor. Not ours.
But Ohio activists and are not taking their dirty tricks lying down. Not only did dozens show up last night to rally in Athens, but a new website, Buckeye Institute Exposed, is laying bare their lies and telling truth to power.
The website was launched at OCSEA’s convention to educate members and the public about the lies these groups are telling regarding public employees’ freedoms and liberties and to expose whose interests they really are protecting. (HINT: it’s not the worker.)
The website and digital and social media campaign explains who these groups are, who is funding them and what their REAL agenda is.