There's been quite a bit of talk on this and other Progressive sites about Wisconsin and Maine, but I haven't heard much about Ohio here.
I wonder why?
As someone who lived in Cleveland for several years, the recent bill feels personal to me. Under its provisions, public employees can no longer bargain over health care, pensions, and sick days. It moves from automatic cost-of-living raises to merit pay. Even firefighters and police officers are subject to the new bargaining limits.
As AP reports:
Unlike Wisconsin's high-profile effort to limit collective bargaining rights for public workers, Ohio's includes police and firefighters — who say it threatens the safety of officers and the people they protect.
Opponents have vowed to put the issue on the November ballot, giving voters a chance to strike the law down. The firefighters' union in Cleveland plans to hit the streets and help gather signatures.
To do that, the bill's opponents need 231,000 signatures in 90 days--by July 1.
90 Days. That's not much time. This bill is going to fire up the tea party wingnuts in every state. But opponents are already active.
Opponents of an Ohio law to limit public workers' collective bargaining rights have started gathering signatures to get a referendum on the measure.
Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik) signed the measure Thursday. It bans public worker strikes, eliminates binding arbitration, and restricts bargaining for 350,000 public workers.
The bill was supported by the Republican majority in the Legislature and by business groups and tea party activists, who say it's needed to help Ohio economically. Unions and Democrats opposed it.
But Gov. Kasich is also moving quickly, using the bill as a fundraising tool before he even signed it into law, according to the Plaindealer's Reginald Fields (written prior to the signing on April 1):
Gov. John Kasich is already trying to turn his Senate Bill 5 victory into a cash cow, even before he has had a chance to sign the controversial collective bargaining measure.
Kasich today emailed a letter to his supporters touting the passage of SB5, vowing to sign the bill today and asking them to support his "ongoing efforts to fight for Ohio taxpayers" by donating $5, $10, or $20. The email arrived at 10:30 a.m., about 13 hours after the Ohio Senate passed the bill, the final step needed for the bill to be sent to Kasich for his signature.
This law is worse than anything proposed in Wisconsin: as Fields points out, it "restricts collective bargaining, ends binding arbitration and bans worker strikes. It also gives workers the option of paying union dues, an amendment added by House Republicans this week that could curtail some fundraising efforts by unions."
Opponents need 231,000 signatures by July 1 to get the issue on the November ballot as a referendum.
We need to help them do that. Let's send a message that union busting is going to hurt the GOP at the ballot box.