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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2011 > April > 15
Friday, April 15, 2011
Referendum ready to go
Labor leaders looking to repeal the new collective bargaining law got the go-ahead from Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday.
DeWine certified the wording used to summarize Senate Bill 5 for the referendum petition and Husted certified that We Are Ohio, the group seeking to block the law, collected the 1,000 valid signatures from voters needed to kick off the effort.
We Are Ohio now must collect 231,147 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters by June 30 in put Senate Bill 5 before the voters in November.
Senate Bill 5 guts collective bargaining rights for nearly 360,000 prison guards, police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public employees statewide. It bans strikes by public workers, institutes a merit pay system, and limits unions to bargaining on wages, terms and conditions. It also requires workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health care costs and in some cases pay more toward their pensions. It blocks unions from collecting ‘fair share’ fees from workers who don’t want to join the union.
Republican lawmakers and Gov. John Kasich say the changes are needed to give local governments the tools needed to manage their budgets in the face of dwindling resources. Kasich’s two-year budget, now pending in the Ohio House, calls for deep cuts to schools and local governments.
Opponents say it is an unnecessary attack on workers and unions who are willing to negotiate concessions at the bargaining table. They note that some provisions, such as blocking fair share fees, are designed to weaken union power, not save government money.
