Ohio Group Loses Members Over Union Law Position

A half dozen companies have cut ties with a northeast Ohio business group whose leaders endorsed the state's new restrictions on public worker bargaining rights.

The Vindicator newspaper of Youngstown said the members who've left the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber in the last week all cited its board's support of the law signed Thursday by Gov. John Kasich.

Managing partner Dennis Haines of the Green Haines Sgambati law firm said in a letter to the chamber that the law is "a cynical insult" to public employees.

It bars them from striking, limits their collective bargaining and eliminates binding arbitration.

The chamber's vice president of government affairs told the newspaper the group has attracted new members as a result of the endorsement, but he would not say how many.