Stop attack on injured workers

4/25/2005

In 1997 the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 45, a workers' compensation benefit reduction measure. This law would have reduced coverage and benefit payment levels to Ohio's workers who were injured, diseased, or disabled on the job. The law was a corporate welfare scheme to further reduce Workers' Compensation obligations for big employers at the expense of injured workers and their families.

The voters in Ohio challenged this law and the referendum became known as State Issue 2. At the polls in November, 1997, 57 percent of the voters in 77 out of 88 Ohio counties defeated the proposed benefit cutbacks for Ohio's injured workers. The message to Big Business was clear - "Stop the Attack on Ohio's Injured Workers!" And "No To Corporate Welfare Schemes!"

Right after the defeat of State Issue 2, the Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) refunded more than $44 million to employers. In the last eight years, more than $10 billion have been received by corporations in the form of givebacks from BWC. And now we learn that BWC has $50 million in spare change lying around to invest in rare coins!

Unfortunately, corporate greed has no limit. This year, measures have been reintroduced in the legislature that once again revisit the same benefit reduction proposals that the voters already rejected. Sponsored by Republican legislators and supported by business, every issue from the 1997 State Issue 2 has been proposed again for passage.

You have to wonder what motive there is to attack benefits for injured workers in a system already so flush with cash. When is enough enough?

It is time to remind the General Assembly of the lessons taught in 1997. Stop the attack on Ohio's injured workers, and say no to corporate greed.

WILLIAM E. TAKACS

Emden Oaks Lane

I was glad to see you focus attention on the problem of judicial nominations and the filibusters that have prevented the Senate from being able to take up-or-down votes on several of the President's nominees to federal courts.

Your statement that Republicans filibustered Lyndon Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice of the Supreme Court is inaccurate. In October, 1968, at the time of Judge Fortas' vote, there were 63 Democrats in the Senate, three more than needed to override a filibuster. With only 37 senators, Republicans could not even come close to successfully filibustering anything at all.

A motion to end debate and proceed to a vote failed 45-43; the judge did not even have the support of a simple majority of senators. Given that there were 63 Democrats in the Senate at the time, it is clear that Mr. Fortas' nomination wasn't even supported by a large number of senators of the President's own party. In fact, 19 Democrats voted against cloture.

A controversy over his past legal fees and his involvement with an investment banker clouded his nomination and he resigned in 1969 to avoid impeachment. Calling this a Republican filibuster is wrong.

I hope the current stalemate can be resolved in a bipartisan way because denying the Senate the right to have final votes on judges obstructs the Senate's constitutional obligation to advise and consent on judicial nominations.

Barring a resolution, however, to set aside the filibuster in these instances only allows the non-constitutional tradition of the filibuster from getting in the way of the Senate's constitutional advise and consent obligation. I doubt anyone would disagree that the Constitution should take priority over subsequently created Senate rules not found in the Constitution.

The filibuster can and should remain, however, for legislative business so that the Senate's tradition of in-depth debate and minority rights can be protected.

George Voinovich

United States Senator

Ohio

Shame on the Toledo Storm's general manager and sales staff for not making money on their product this year! If they were unable to make money this year they will never be able to market the team. This year there was no NHL; the Toledo Storm should have made more money than they knew what to do with.

Detroit is called "Hockeytown" and all of those fans had no hockey to watch. I don't know a lot about hockey, but I do know about being a sports fan. Sports fans will look for their favorite sport even if their favorite team is unavailable.

Why was the Toledo Storm not promoted in Detroit?

Why did the Toledo Storm staff not solicit the Red Wing fans?

If this had happened I would bet that the Sports Arena would have been full for every game. And I would also bet that some of those new Storm fans would have stayed and purchased season tickets for next year and years to come.

The current Toledo Storm management does not deserve a new arena. If they failed to market the Storm to a hockey hungry group and lost money, a new arena will not help.

MINDY RAPP

Continental Boulevard

The Blade's Dan Simpson, a member of the editorial board, recently stated that he believes it is the job of the media to keep our leadership in Washington honest because one party is in control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

I think we would be better served if the media worked at keeping themselves honest. This could easily be accomplished by reporting in a factual and unbiased manner without opinion or agenda.

We could then decide for ourselves what is right or wrong. We need more fair and balanced reporting, and less of the kind of spin we got from the likes of Dan Rather and Jayson Blair.

Jim Smith

Maumee

The Blade recently reported the shocking disparity in school performance between boys and girls. Boys are failing in ever-larger numbers, and the gap between girls and boys is widening. Of course, school performance for all students is gradually declining: it's just that the boys are sinking much faster.

The main problem is that radical feminists are in control of our education system. Schools traditionally channeled natural male aggression and competition into civilized and productive areas, but today's educators seek to eliminate what they call "toxic masculinity," with disastrous results.

Schools now wage war on boys: "gender equity experts" have removed numerous activities that boys enjoy, from dodgeball to reading about battles and war heroes, in a malicious attempt to re-engineer "gender identity."

Boys forced to read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, however, become turned off to reading, and fall further behind. Schools have become hostile environments for boys.

Little girls, playing with a Hasbro "unisex" dollhouse, dressed and kissed the dolls. Little boys catapulted the toy baby carriage off the roof. This is entirely normal, and entirely healthy. Scientific research shows what parents have always known: boys and girls are different.

Scientists who dare to suggest that masculine traits are hard-wired, however, are subject to angry attacks. Gloria Steinem even called such research "un-American."

We cannot allow left-wing social activism to overturn what science and common sense show to be true.

Children raised by their biological parents are generally far better off than children in divorced or single-parent homes, but radical feminists have been busy destroying the traditional family for 40 years. Not content with the human misery they created, they are waging a spiteful war against boys in our schools. These dangerous extremists must be exposed, and they must be suppressed.

Michael O'Brien

Bradner, Ohio

Let me join the chorus against one of the worst name changes of all time. MUOT? You have got to be kidding. The Medical College of Ohio will always be MCO. I'm heading to the Franklin Park Mall to try to figure this one out. By the way, see you at the TU games this fall.

Jim Perlman

Sylvania