Teachers, Police, Firefighters, Government Employees Planning Opposition To SB 5
Bill Would Stop State Employees From Collective Bargaining
By Patrick Preston
Published: February 14, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio --
Firefighters, police officers, teachers and government workers are preparing for the battle over collective bargaining to resume Tuesday at the Ohio Statehouse.
Supporters of Senate Bill 5 - which would end collective bargaining rights for state employees - are scheduled to testify before the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee Tuesday afternoon. Opponents are slated to give testimony on Thursday morning.
Republican Senator Shannon Jones of Springboro told NBC4 last week she wants greater transparency in how public contracts are negotiated.
The bill would also end binding arbitration for public safety workers at the local level. Currently, police and firefighters cannot strike. If a contract negotiation stalls, an arbitrator can make the final, binding decision.
In addition, Governor John Kasich has said he does not support collective bargaining and public workers' right to strike. Kasich has indicated he may use his state budget proposal to push for changes that make striking illegal, punishable by firing or two days of lost wages.
"We need to have a collective bargaining law and the right to strike because we want to have a say in how the schoolhouse is run," said Rhonda Johnson, president of the Columbus Education Association. "The reason we organized is because we were poorly paid. Teachers were expected to live in genteel poverty. we certainly don't want to go back to living in genteel poverty."
Johnson characterized Senate Bill 5 and the push to stop public workers from striking as attacks on middle class workers that form a path to poverty for teachers.
"There's always room for negotiations, but this is so far extreme that the middle ground would be extreme in itself," Johnson said.
Kasich's spokesperson, Rob Nicholls, said the Governor was not available to for an interview Monday. In a speech to the Toledo Chamber of Commerce last week, Kasich said, "All the power is in the union, none of it is in the management...I want to restore balance between management's ability to run and control their costs versus the needs of organized labor."
OSU law professor Charlie Wilson, a lawyer who has represented management in labor disputes, believes Kasich's push to ditch collective bargaining and strikes would not work.
"It would be a disaster for this state," Wilson said. "If you don't learn from your mistakes in the past, you're destined to repeat them. There are going to be walk outs. There's going to be working the rule. There are going to be strikes. There were before 1983 when it was still illegal to strike. Ot happens in states today where it's illegal to strike."
