Columbus Leaders Won't Even Tweet in Support of Teachers
"Nobody wins with a strike," according to the loaf of Wonder Bread that serves as our mayor.
Give Mayor Suburbs this much: We can no longer say he hasn’t tweeted about the impending Columbus Public Schools teachers’ strike.
In his typical fashion, Andy Ginther couldn’t get through the first sentence without stepping into a steaming pile of shit.

“No one wins from a strike” is an incredible statement from somebody who just last year bragged about their grandmother being a union organizer at BF Goodrich in Akron. I have no doubt Grandma Ginther, peace be upon her, is rolling in her grave at how far her family name has fallen.
The labor movement is rife with stories about workers winning improvements by going on strike. Just last year, Gahanna-Lincoln teachers went on strike for four days and received a contract in which 98% of its members voted in favor.
Even more despicable is when Ginther uses Columbus Public School students as props while he tries to tweet out of both sides of his mouth on the issue.
Before Ginther was appointed to City Council in 2007, he served as a Columbus City School Board member. He cared so much about his work improving area public schools that he sent his daughter to Wellington, “an elite private academy in Upper Arlington,” in 2016.
As mayor, Ginther has done nothing to ease the conditions that put the city on the precipice of a teachers’ strike. Students have been suffering in this city long before the pandemic.
In February 2020, Ginther took $74,500—including $175 earmarked for his makeup—from companies with millions of dollars of business in front of the city. Shockingly, Ginther was shamed into returning that dirty money, but he’ll never be able to absolve himself of what transpired that night.
From Bill Bush of dispatch.com in February 2020:
The mayor raised $74,500 to stage his speech, much of it from firms with multimillion-dollar city contracts. The money transformed part of the crumbling West High — with its shattered windows above an emergency exit to the auditorium — into multiple large video screens, lights, sound system and control panels.
This quote has stuck with me for over two years because it perfectly represents Columbus’ ethos towards education. The shattered windows in a crumbling school are good enough for the students, but they’re not good enough for a one-night soiree of Ginther, his pimps and his flunkies. They needed champaign and nightclub vibes.
Ginther’s single tweet, sadly, is more of a statement on the year-long crisis than what a majority of City Council has mustered:
Council President Shannon Hardin: Zero tweets.
Councilman Nick Bankston: Zero tweets.
Councilman Emmanuel V. Remy, the Republican Realtor: Zero tweets.
Councilwoman Shayla Favor: Zero tweets.
Councilwoman Lourdes Barroso de Padilla: Zero tweets.
Council members Elizabeth Brown and Rob Dorans tweeted separate threads on the issue.
Brown, a CCS parent, issued the stronger statement of the two, but she too danced around the topic, which is that the city has fucked over teachers and their students for 40 years, and the bill is coming due.
Nobody in the city government is single-handedly responsible for the current labor strife. But they all weaseled their way into a seat of power by playing the game of the local political machine, so I have zero sympathies for them.
I had a conversation with a friend who works construction on a crew trying to install air conditioning in Columbus schools before the teachers’ contract expires on August 22nd, two days before classes commence.
A local TV outlet misleading their suburban audience in the name of the status quo? That’s hard to believe. Fairwood, in this case, is Fairwood Alternative Elementary School. Nothing like starting ‘em young on asbestos!
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