Jobs and the Blog (updated)

Right now hundreds, if not thousands of state employees are awaiting word on whether they will have a job in the new administration. One of those employees is named Brian Eastman. Mr. Eastman responded to a posting by an anonymous commenter here (and at Ohio2006), who had encouraged activism in opposing any appointments for him in the new administration.

Mr. Eastman speculates that the comments are being placed by a disgruntled employee, denies the charges that he had been approached by Blackwell for a similar position in the event that the election had gone the other way, and states that he has been recommended for a high-level post in the Office of Collective Bargaining by "by at least two or possibly even three of the Labor Unions representing state employees."

Given that I really was not sure that this was an appropriate topic (both in terms of relevance and privacy concerns), I wanted to put it all to rest by confirming broad-based support from the unions representing state employees in Ohio, and decrying the use of the blog for anonymous attacks. I contacted a few of the relevant unions, and I received a response from the Ohio Civil Service Employment Association (representing by far the largest number of state government employees), who informed me that their organization had not recommended Mr. Eastman for a role in the new administration. I also heard back from one other union, where my contact told me that OCSEA's opinion was the one that was really relevant, and that they had nothing to add for the record.

There are apparently a total of 5 unions representing State Employees, so OCSEA's statement, and even the corroboration from one of the remaining unions, don't necessarily invalidate Eastman's claims, but I certainly didn't find the support I expected to find. So for now, in what must certainly be an eagerly awaited pronouncement, Blue Bexley declares that it has no idea whether or not Brian Eastman would be good for the Strickland administration.

UPDATE: I've received an e-mail from Brian Eastman. In that email he clarified his earlier remarks. I'm satisfied that nothing he said in his earlier remarks is actually inconsistent with what I heard today, nor is it inconsistent with what I wrote above.
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How this blog ended up in the midst of of this dispute is something that still confuses/amuses me, but it just goes to show that I'm a sucker for readers who express an interest. For instance, one regular reader pointed me to this story, covered on other blogs as well, about an erosion of worker's protections by the Ohio Supreme Court. These are the cases that really frustrate me. I'm not a particular fan of defending the position of a sixteen year-old fast-food employee who insisted on ignoring repeated warnings that his labor saving shortcut was unacceptably dangerous, did it anyway, got injured, and is asking for his former employee to bear the costs of his lost wages.

But I will. Beyond the fact that Ohio has established a system that does not allow a finding of fault in determining eligibility for Workman's Comp, and that this ruling effectively guts the legislative intent, it seems to me that it actually goes further. The news report states that 1) The employee had been warned against this particular procedure several times. 2) When the employee disregarded those warnings and boiled the water, he effectively abandoned his job, and was no longer an employee of KFC.

So, why did KFC get to determine that the employee had not abandoned his job after the first or second or third incident, but had abandoned it at the precise moment before everything literally blew up in his face? I'm not a lawyer nor a judge, but it seems to me that this ruling sets the bar way too low in terms of allowing employers to assert abandonment. If the employee had not been fired for the behavior before, he would have had no reason to believe that it would result in the termination of his employment on the day in question.

As my reader pointed out, judicial elections are every bit as important as legislative and executive branch elections. Rulings don't get a whole lot more corporation-friendly than that one.

And finally, as to readers and jobs: I got a video today from someone who has a major grudge against Todd Bosley, the newly elected Stark County Commissioner, who defeated Republican Richard Regula (son of Ralph and former heir apparent to the OH-16 seat). The website and YouTube ID governorgirlieman (.com) contain a disparate set of accusations ranging from shipping jobs to China to conflicts-of-interest. Who gets so worked up about a County Commissioner that they are still producing video content after the election? Seriously, who? The domain registrations (toddthetrustee.com, governorgirlieman.com) are all held by proxy.

Like I said before, this dispute also has nothing to do with local/regional politics, and has come somewhat out of the blue. I'm kind of hoping that, like the tendency for 'house.gov' to show up on every liberal blog's traffic reports, these are near random events. I probably do way to much to encourage them by blogging them, but enquiring minds, as the commercials used to say, want to know...