State workers fear pay cuts

Kasich officials say Issue 2 is about efficiences, not public worker pay.

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By Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Bureau Updated 10:09 AM Tuesday, September 20, 2011

COLUMBUS — Just a few weeks after Ohio voters decide whether to keep or kill Senate Bill 5, state officials and labor leaders will head to the bargaining table around the holidays to start negotiating new contracts that will cover 38,567 unionized state workers.

If Issue 2 passes, the two sides won’t have much to talk about.

Grievance procedures, layoff rules, shift assignments, staffing minimums, health care coverage and scores of other items will be off the table. The union could still bargain on working conditions and wages, but management would have the right to impose its last offer if the two sides reach impasse.

“I think they have a plan to go heavy on (unpaid) furlough days, especially in some agencies. I think we will take a major step back and see an attack on the 40-hour work week,” said Tim Shafer, operations director for the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, which represents about 30,000 state workers.

Not so, said Dan Kaman, legislative agent for the state Department of Administrative Services, which negotiates the contracts on behalf of the administration.

His message to state workers: “Whatever you’re making before Senate Bill 5, you’ll make after Senate Bill 5.”

During the next several weeks, and particularly  as the opposing ad campaigns kick in, voters will be inundated with claims and counter-claims about the bill that led to Issue 2, the referendum on the November ballot. To give readers as much information as possible, the Dayton Daily News this week is examining the bill’s impacts on both workers and taxpayers.

State workers — today’s focus — are affected slightly differently than other  public employees. Two provisions in Senate Bill 5, for example, will have no impact on the pocketbooks of state workers: pension pickups and health care premiums. The bill would require workers to pay the entire employee contribution toward their retirement and contribute at least 15 percent of their health care premiums. State workers already do both.

Rob Nichols, press secretary for Gov. John Kasich, said state workers are already living under conditions that would be imposed by Senate Bill 5. The goal of the bill, he said, wasn’t intended to achieve savings on state workers, but to provide more flexibility to local schools and local governments so that they can better manage their work forces.

Union officials, however, say many of the protections they’ve long fought for would be gone if the bill becomes law And they say their members have already made concessions to help out the state. The current three-year contracts, which expire April 12, included 20 unpaid days off, pay freezes and health care concessions that amounted to more than $250 million in givebacks.

“These people stood up and answered the call. They’re not only public employees, they’re citizens of Ohio and taxpayers of Ohio. We are accountable to all,” said Christopher Mabe, a prison guard who was just elected the union’s president.

State workers pay 16.9 percent of the health care premium for a single plan and 17.8 percent for family plan coverage, according to the State Employment Relations Board health care survey. However, under SB 5 the union will have no say in what sort of health plans are offered and what kind of co-pays workers face.

Here are some of the bill’s other impacts:

Merit pay

State workers would see a big change in compensation rules if Senate Bill 5 becomes law. Longevity pay and step increases would be replaced with a merit pay system. Workers would be evaluated on the communication skills, technical knowledge, reliability, teamwork, customer service and other factors, Kaman said. High performing employees would be eligible for more pay, including the 25,500 state workers who have already reached their highest pay level in their current classifications, he said.

Shafer and Mabe counter that the union contract already has a provision that tied step raises to employee performance, but they say managers rarely conduct thorough worker evaluations.

“It’s time-consuming and it comes down to a lot of supervisors don’t know what their subordinates do in their jobs,” said Shafer.

Banking leave time

Senate Bill 5 would impose more restrictions and caps on how much paid leave time they are allowed to bank and later cash in. For example, banked vacation would be capped at 600 hours, instead of the current 720 hours, and workers who leave state service could only cash out up to 1,000 hours of banked sick time, Kaman said. This could help limit some of the huge payouts that sometimes occur when an employee leaves public service, SB5 backers have said.

Workplace safety

Mabe and Shafer said they are worried about what will happen to workplace safety rules if Senate Bill 5 becomes law. The bill allows “safety forces” to negotiate for personal safety equipment, such as bullet-proof vests or firefighter gear but gives the unions no say in minimum staffing rules such as how many guards must work a shift at a state prison.

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