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Blog Page Content and Design Under Development: Help is needed from experienced blog designers to help develop this page. This notice will be removed when this page is in the form of a Blog, or has links to blogs dealing with nonpartisan, independent, and minor party reform activities. The bipartisan two-party system is beyond reform. These pages will promote the replacement of the bipartisan political system with a nonpartisan political system that promotes political participation and open ballot access for every voter. IVA leadership is invited to write nonpartisan blogs to comment on the local and state political scenes. All blogs linked on this page will originate within the State of Ohio. Your input and help is invited. Rich Stevenson 1-513-251-3155 | 08-02-07 |
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Initial Publication: 01-01-01 Latest Revision: 05-03-17 rls |
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Independent Voters Alliance (hamcoOHIVA)
State of Ohio Sounding Board (Positive, Creative Blogs) Have an idea on how to improve the political process and public policy that govern our civil society. Get in the conversation. This page will contain links to nonpartisan blogs (web logs) that discuss political changes needed to build a nonpartisan political system to represent all American citizens. Our society can more accurately reflect the intent of our founders in the Declaration of Independence and in the Bill of Rights. The blogs linked from this page will be positive and will seek to clean up the every day political life in the State of Ohio. Negative attacks will not be tolerated in replies to blog commentary. Contents will not be retained that consist of attacks against people, specific organizations, or ideas. The commentary we create will aim to improve what exists. Your comments can be part of the blog dialog. Brevity is a virtue. Your comment may open a new topic that needs to be explored. Interest Groups in support of ballot initiatives to implement political reforms may grow from blog conversations. Also see the (Referenda) Ohio Ballot Initiative Ideas Page for some needed reforms. NEGATIVE SINGLE ISSUE FREAKS MUST BE DELETED FROM THE CONVERSATION. FIGHTS OVER IRRECONCILABLE POSITIONS DO NOT LEAD TO WORKABLE SOLUTIONS. Negotiation (Politics) is the art of agreement. The sounding board conversations are presented as background for initiatives that could be useful in Ohio. Each initiative discussion will contain the expected public policy result anticipated by the writer. You are invited to sound off on your most positive ideas related to political reform. Blog link: http://cs2pr.us/IVA_opinion/ (A Blog by an OHIVA leader with a link thereto will be the main substance of the contents on this page: This page contained only essays on personal issues, with an invitation to others to use the sounding board by submitting articles. Unlike blogs, there was no interactive function. With the blog format we can get comments from a wide audience of participants in the blog discussion.) (Top of Page)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Statewide Ohio Blogs: a list of nonpartisan blogs that focus on state and Local political scenes will be chosen. links shown
will be from well-known and unknown bloggers who are Ohio citizens. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Top of Page) Content NoticeOld Sounding Board Content Shown Below, No way to Comment or Respond. Blogs are Better. 6-21-99 Regulation of Overtime Pay: We need to reduce the labor costs of Employers who "hire" contract, temporary, or part-time employee's through intermediaries, such as contract employment agencies or temporary worker agencies. One benefit would be to make a living wage available to a much larger proportion of the American workforce. Currently, all of these intermediaries can charge time and one-half overtime rates on their contract price on every hour worked above 40 hours by their "employees." I think it would vastly improve the possibility of more overtime for all these worker categories if the intermediary did not get "overtime" on the hourly contract price for doing nothing but "owning" the contract of the employee doing the work. All employee hours should get the same contract price for the intermediary. The only person to get paid an additional amount for overtime hours should be the actual employee doing the work. That employee is the only person making a sacrifice in working over 40 hours of his life in a week to complete the needed work. The intermediary already takes a disproportionate share of the fruits of the employee's work. Many times the contract rate is well over 150% of the employee's pay rate. With the client "employers" already trying to reduce costs, and faced with paying overtime on the intermediary's contract rate, they simply do not make overtime available to the employee. Overtime could make a tremendous difference in worker's lives. More people could pay their bills and avoid bankruptcy, or just have a less stressful life. The size of the middle-class could grow. Example: An employee is paid $16 per hour out of a $43 per hour intermediary contract rate (not unusual). For ten hours overtime, paying the intermediary overtime, the cost is $2365 to the client employer. If the employee is the only one to get the overtime rate, $1920 is the cost to the employer, a reduction of $445. Of $1920, the employee would get $880, less than 50% for 50 hours work with the intermediary not getting his "overtime." Oh yes, the employee would still get $880 out of the higher $2365 employer cost, but the middleman gets $1485. The intermediary gets nearly twice the pay of the worker. (Most taxes and deductions come out of the employee's $880.) Many times the investment of the intermediary to put the employee on the job is the cost of a few telephone calls and a stamp for sending a resume provided by the "employee." The rate of pay for employment recruiters employed by the intermediary is also low. By adopting this law, the middle class worker would have a better chance of working overtime for overtime pay to make a living wage in today's economy. One of the main reasons overtime rates to the intermediary are based on 1.5 times the intermediary's contract pay rate is that the intermediary does not want the employer providing the work to know the employee's hourly rate. The employer can expect more from an employee with a higher pay rate. Intermediaries would be embarrassed in many cases if their customers knew how little they pay their workers. Do not reward do-nothing intermediaries with money they do not earn. Overtime should reward only the employee actually doing the work. (Blog)RICH STEVENSON ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (Top of Page)Below are some
Sample Issues for the Sounding Board. Example 1: Declare Party Affiliation. Make political party ballot access status dependent upon the percentage of registered voters who declare themselves members of the political party. Have a goal of national model legislation for use in all fifty states. Current laws on the regulation and establishment of political parties are wildly divergent. There are few consistencies in current law from state to state. One percent (1%) registration would entitle a party to status as a Minor Party. Five percent (5%) registration would entitle a party to Intermediate Party status. Thirty percent (30%) registration would entitle a party to Major Party status. Current Ohio law and rules governing the three classes of political party would stay in effect. At their current 7% to 20% registration, the Democratic and Republican parties would weigh in as Intermediate parties. There would probably be no current major party in Ohio. RICH STEVENSON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Top of Page) Example 2:
Make the right to petition government for redress of grievances a practical reality by city ordinance, state law and national law.
Public access areas on private property will be presumed to be open to petition activities, and to the limited assembly of persons required for such activities. Interference with association and assembly must be limited to correcting unrelated problems, such as disorderly or unlawful conduct. Police can intervene only to enforce criminal law. The property owner will be under a duty to allow the freedoms guaranteed under our bill of rights. All property owners should have a duty in a free society, in which they are privileged members, to encourage free expression and the exchange of ideas among all citizens. Petitioners should also be under several restraints to protect the business of the property owner while in modified control of the public access space used for petition and limited assembly purposes. Amplified sound will not be allowed unless in a very remote area of a very large public access area not in use by pedestrian or motor traffic. No petition activity will be allowed within 120 feet of any commercial entranceway to the public access area or any building thereon. No pedestrian walkway will be constricted to less than a 10-foot wide pedestrian walk area. Petitioners would be individually liable under existing law for any property damage caused. In other words, property owners would not have the right to interfere with the constitutional rights of the people based upon personal disagreement or mere resistance to change. Public areas where citizens can go to discuss or act upon public matters are severely limited in our motorized society. Public access areas located on private property can become a focus point for the revitalization of democracy in America. Example: The stadium issue in Hamilton County. Local civil authorities all but shut down petition activities by cooperating with the owners of pubic access areas (mostly shopping centers) all over the county. Many asked petitioners to leave because they disagreed with the petitions against the public financing of stadium construction for the
"Bengals" and the "Reds." RICH STEVENSON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Top of Page)Example 3: Right to know Market Value of pay.
Modify contract law or labor rights laws so that employees involved in third party employment contracts have the undeniable right to know the amount of money which is charged for their time by the owner of the employment contract, which is the amount paid for their time by their actual employer, the company who provides the work to be performed.
The employment trend toward
the use of temporary, contract and part time workers to reduce costs paid
for benefits and to minimize ongoing wage and benefits costs to employers has lowered real wages to the point where a man and wife now
must take home wages from two or more jobs to equal the purchasing power of only one salary
with benefits paid 30 years ago. In addition, benefits may no longer be there in
any of the current jobs. The growth of very high profit temporary worker and contract employment agencies (intermediaries to eliminate benefits and employee rights) provide a valuable service to the above employers. However, employees are left to accept whatever meager pay is dictated by the intermediaries who absorb all increases in real wages that would have accrued to the employees' benefit in the former direct employment
situation common 30 years ago. Not since the days of African American slavery have persons been so deprived of the right to know and to benefit from the market value of their own labor. The contract or temporary worker, full or part time, does not have the economic ability to do the market research to determine the current market value of his/her work. The employee is to some extent dependent upon the honesty of the agency. Good paying jobs are scarce. Highly skilled jobs in the $15 to $100 per hour range change in value constantly and the challenge of the agencies is to get the high paid employee to accept as little as possible while charging the employer the highest rate possible. The employee who tries to find out the rate paid for his work is usually fired and black listed. The employee is paid as little as 25% to 50% of the billing rate although the intermediary provides little or nothing to the employee. Often the employee provides the
resume' mailed to the client and one or two phone calls is the only time needed to put the employee in place on the job. There is virtually no investment,
cost, or overhead paid by the contract or temporary employer. Contract, temporary, and part-time workers have been used as an end run around organized labor to increase corporate profits with no consideration of the overall health of our economy. RICH STEVENSON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Top of Page)Ballot access petitions will be available on IVA web pages and other web pages for use by populist nonpartisan citizens. Freedom is participation in power. Be a proactive petition circulator and Election Day participant. Be a proactive citizen in your voting precinct. A Little Effort — A Lot of Liberty Welcome to the populist ballot access movement. Interim_Acting_Chair, Interim Acting Chair, OHIVA, Email
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