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Mich. man leads charge on Youngstown charter-amendment to give part-time workers increased rights
YOUNGSTOWN
A Grand Rapids, Mich., businessman is spearheading a charter-amendment initiative in Youngstown to require employers to give part-time workers increased rights such as health care benefits and equal hourly wages as full-timers.
The goal of the proposal is to not only increase the rights of part-timers in the city, but also to get women – particularly unmarried lower- to middle-class – to vote in the Nov. 8 general election, said Bob Goodrich, executive director of Part-Timers Rights.
Goodrich said he chose Youngstown because it’s in Ohio, a key presidential swing state, and the number of valid signatures wasn’t very high. He said he also will target Cleveland with a similar initiative for the November ballot. Goodrich says he’s spent about $15,000 on the Youngstown proposal.
City Law Director Martin Hume has said the Youngstown charter requires valid signatures on amendments from at least 3 percent of the total votes in the last general election. That would be 378 valid signatures.
Goodrich contends he needs at least 10 percent, which would be 1,259 valid signatures.
Goodrich turned in petitions to the city clerk Tuesday with 3,935 signatures. The number of valid signatures on the 151 petitions ultimately will be determined by the Mahoning County Board of Elections.
Goodrich said he hired a firm out of Chicago that coincidentally used numerous people from Michigan to circulate petitions. State law permits anyone to circulate petitions in Ohio unless there is a provision in a city charter forbidding it, said Joshua Eck, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office. Youngstown’s charter is silent on the issue.
Goodrich initially wanted to do this in his hometown of Grand Rapids, but he said Michigan permits only issues such as this to be on the statewide ballot, and obtaining a few hundred thousand signatures would be difficult. That isn’t the case in Ohio.
“The signature requirement is a bit more modest in Youngstown,” he said. “No one from Youngstown asked me to do this. I chose Youngstown because it’s in a swing state and the cost of gathering signatures isn’t as expensive.”
Goodrich also said he wanted to use the charter proposal “as a platform to get people, particularly women, to vote and vote for this.”
Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, said, “I’m concerned if we’re creating laws to drive voter turnout. They’re manipulating our local government to further their political gain. It concerns me about the unforeseen consequences of this.”
Goodrich – who owns a company that operates 30 movie theaters and employs about 1,250 workers, most who are part time – said he is a Democrat and unsuccessfully ran for Congress two years ago. But the initiative isn’t to help Hillary Clinton, the party’s presidential candidate, or other Democrats, he said.
The proposal would require part-timers to receive the same benefits as full-time workers in “the same job classification,” but in proportion to the amount of hours they work.
It would require employers to pay part-timers the same starting hourly wage given to full-time workers for jobs that require “equal skill, effort and responsibility, and that are performed under similar working conditions.”
Meanwhile, backers of the anti-fracking Community Bill of Rights, which has failed five times, are gathering signatures to get the measure on the Nov. 8 ballot. Goodrich said some members of his committee are supporters of the anti-fracking initiative, but the two groups aren’t coordinating their efforts.