Amid cries of “Taft gave us the shaft” and “We are the union – the mighty, mighty union,” hundreds of state employees gathered outside of the Statehouse yesterday to protest statewide budget cuts.
The rally was led by the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, a union which represents public prison workers and employees for state-run mental health institutions, among others. They were joined by members of other state employee unions such as the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, the Ohio AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Ohio Council 8.
According to Sally Meckling, spokeswoman for the OCSEA, budget cuts throughout the course of last year left many statewide agencies in a compromising position. Meckling said there may be more cuts to come since at least one cut which originated from Gov. Bob Taft’s executive order in December is still being evaluated.
“We still don’t know the fallout from that cut,” Meckling said. “But we’re expecting further layoffs.”
According to Dave Regan, president of the Service Employees International Union, $223 million in cuts were imposed on state agencies in late summer and early fall of 2001. The public prison sector appears to be one of the hardest hit areas, incurring a $19 million cut.
“It’s one thing to support the administration’s war against terrorism, but it’s another thing to support an economic stimulus package that provides a huge amount of money to 1 percent of our citizens and gives $2 billion in rebates to Corporate America,” said Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME International, to the crowd.
Corrections Assembly President Tim Shafer expressed similar opinions in his speech.
“State savings that are realized by laying off the front-line workers in Ohio will come back to haunt this state’s administrators,” Shafer said. “What the state is saying is it will save in the short-term, which could mean the loss of lives in the long term.”
Shafer also referred to the overcrowding of prisons, one of the factors that led to the riot at the Lucasville Correctional Facility eight years ago.
Overcrowding of prisons was a major issue addressed at the rally, due to the impending closure of the state-run Orient Correctional Facility. Two privately owned Ohio prisons, Lake Erie Correctional Facility and North Coast Correctional Facility, will remain open despite revenue going from the prisons to a company in Utah, a fact that angers many union members.
“We’re in a budget cut, and we’re writing $30 million checks to Utah,” Charles Williams, a correction officer at Lucasville Correctional Facility said.
Williams said they are feeling the strain of the cuts at Lucasville.
“Our staffing levels are very low right now. We have mandatory overtime, and the staffing situation is getting dangerous,” Williams said.
Tim Roberts, a correction officer at Marysville Correctional Facility, said he has experienced a similar situation.
“We now have six retentions a day, which means that those six people not only have to work one eight-hour shift, but are being forced to stay for a second eight-hour shift,” Roberts said.
“We’re not going to let the government balance the budget on the backs of state employees,” said Irwin Scharfield, executive director of the OCSEA.
