Governor Lehman Brothers Kasich is trying to bust up unions much like Governor Walker is doing in Wisconsin. He was met with a similar response:
Today is the first sign that Republicans are feeling some pressure!
The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that "Senate Republicans say the will not eliminate collective bargaining" That is the headline of the article as well as the first paragraph. Unfortunately there is a second paragraph that begins like this:
Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, said Senate Bill 5 will still ban unions from bargaining for benefits, including health insurance.
This too is unacceptable!
Today I've been looking through the bill to see exactly what it says and I have to admit that I'm not a scholar of the subject so I'm going to quote parts of the bill and see if anyone here can help me understand what it means and what possible consequences would be.
The beginning of the bill appears to give the state the right to privatize prisons:
The department of rehabilitation and correction may contract for the private operation and management pursuant to this section of the initial intensive program prison established pursuant to section 5120.033 of the Revised Code, if one or more intensive program prisons are established under that section, and may contract for the private operation and management of any other facility under this section. Counties and municipal corporations to the extent authorized in sections 307.93, 341.35, 753.03, and 753.15 of the Revised Code may contract for the private operation and management of a facility under this section. A contract entered into under this section shall be for an initial term of not more than two years with an option to renew for additional periods of two years.
Never a good idea IMO.
Sec. 124.14. (A)(1) The director of administrative services shall establish, and may modify or rescind, by rule, a job classification plan for all positions, offices, and employments the salaries of which are paid in whole or in part by the state
followed by....
An employee whose position is included in the job classification plan established under this section shall be paid a wage or salary fixed by the employee's appointing authority. The wage or salary shall be based solely upon merit. Unless otherwise provided, if an appointing authority is authorized by the Revised Code to fix the wage or salary of a public employee without reference to this chapter or other parameters, the appointing authority shall fix the public employee's wage or salary based on merit.
This appears to establish merit based pay (bold is mine).
(B) The following subjects are not appropriate subjects for collective bargaining:
(1) The conduct and grading of civil service examinations, the rating of candidates, the establishment of eligible lists from the examinations, and the original appointments from the eligible lists are not appropriate subjects for collective bargaining;
(2) Health care benefits, except that, subject to division (E) of this section, the amount of the premium for which a public employer and the public employees of the public employer pays is an appropriate subject of collective bargaining;
(3) The payment of a contribution by a public employer to the public employees retirement system, the Ohio police and fire pension fund, the state teachers retirement system, or the school employees retirement system on behalf of an employee, contributor, or teacher, as applicable, that the employee, contributor, or teacher otherwise is required to pay.
This appears not to ban collective bargaining...just banning using it for anything useful.
Sec. 4117.081. (A) This section applies only to school districts, educational service centers, community schools established under Chapter 3314. of the Revised Code, and STEM schools established under Chapter 3326. of the Revised Code.
(B) No public employer to which this section applies shall enter into a collective bargaining agreement on or after the effective date of this section that does any of the following:
(1) Requires the public employer to employ a minimum number of total personnel or any category of personnel;
(2) Restricts the authority of the public employer or a district or service center superintendent to assign personnel to school buildings or restricts the authority of a building principal to designate the responsibilities and workloads of personnel assigned to the building;
(3) Establishes a maximum number of students who may be assigned to a classroom or teacher;
(4) Prohibits the public employer from making reductions in teachers or nonteaching employees for any applicable reason specified in division (B) of section 124.321 or section 3319.17 or 3319.172 of the Revised Code or in a policy adopted under section 3319.171 of the Revised Code;
(5) Restricts the authority of the public employer, when making personnel reductions, to determine the order of layoffs;
(6) Restricts the authority of the public employer to acquire noneducational services from another public or private entity through competitive bidding;
(7) Otherwise relinquishes, impairs, or restricts the managerial rights and responsibilities of the public employer described in division (C) of section 4117.08 of the Revised Code.
again...bold is mine...#3 is bad for education.
Ok that's all I have for now...I will try to do more of this later so that we can wrap our minds around the problem that is this bill. For those interested...the bill can be read here.
I leave with a poster that I thought was great...from the rally yesterday:
"All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason. If a man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other" --Abraham Lincoln
Updated by mos1133 at Wed Feb 23, 2011, 07:53:23 PM
My friend has a theory I'd like to get a comment or two on. He thinks Gov Kasich has no ambition to actually govern this state and is instead building his "cred" so that he can become the VP candidate in 12. Anybody agree?
Thanks to Mogolori for this:
Walker notes that Republican governors in other states are employing similar strategies of removing power from unions, noting that he has spoken to Ohio Gov. John Kasich on the subject.
In Ohio, lawmakers are debating a bill that would abolish collective bargaining rights for state workers. Thousands of protesters have shown up at that state's Capitol.
"I talk to Kasich every day. John's going to stand firm in Ohio. I think we do the same thing with Rick Scott in Florida. I think (Rick) Snyder, if he got a little support, could do the same thing in Michigan. I think if you go down the list, a lot of us new governors got elected to something big."
bold mine.