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Community organizers present platform on jobs, oppose Issue 2
Youngstown
While urging a no vote on state Issue 2, the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative unveiled its jobs platform Thursday at St. John Episcopal Church on Wick Avenue.
Bill Mullane, chairman of the MVOC board, said the platform focuses on creating 70,000 jobs by changing Ohio’s tax structure.
The platform also calls for restoration of funding to schools and local government and providing second chances to workers convicted of a felony.
“When people commit crimes at a young age, that does not mean they need to pay [for] it their entire lives,” Mullane said to applause at the session.
The initiative also called for “making Wall Street pay.”
“People will position this as class warfare,” he said. “But no one is against an entrepreneur.”
Instead, Mullane said he was referring to those who rise to the top but haven’t paid anything back.
The session also included public workers speaking against Issue 2, the Nov. 8 ballot initiative that would make Senate Bill 5 law and place restrictions on collective bargaining for public workers.
Sgt. T.J. Assion from the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office and president of Fraternal Order of Police Club 141 said health care and pensions are only two points that SB 5 would affect.
“Those are two little points in a bill over 300 pages long,” Assion said. Bargaining, he said, “is so vital to what we do. We didn’t take this job thinking we’d be millionaires.”
Local religious leaders also spoke out on Issue 2.
“The reality is that so many working people are out looking to provide for their families and to sit at a bargaining table to ensure a safe workplace,” said Chris McKee, a pastor from Christ Center Church in Youngstown.
Mullane also called for solidarity among unions, noting that it was unification of needs that created unions in the 20th century. “We need to learn to work together,” Mullane said.