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The
Columbus Dispatch...
Anti-SB
5 coalition not up for
bargaining
Bill’s backers say they’re still open
to compromise
By
Joe Vardon
Tuesday
August 9, 2011
Even
if there is a deal to be had that
would water down Senate Bill 5 and cancel a fall referendum, the group
opposed
to Ohio’s new collective-bargaining law isn’t interested.
We
Are Ohio, the coalition leading the
effort to repeal Senate Bill 5, said in a statement yesterday that it
would
“not back down” from its campaign amid grumblings that a potential
compromise
had been floated by Gov. John Kasich to repeal the bill and replace it
with
legislation that included some of its original cost-saving provisions.
“The
time for compromise has passed,”
said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio, citing the
1.3 million
signatures collected to place a referendum on the ballot. “Not to
mention, that
following the lack of ‘compromise’ witnessed during the legislative
process,
why would any Ohio worker believe those same leaders would now be
willing to
come to the table and reach a reasonable ‘ compromise’?”
Senate
Bill 5, the Republican-crafted
bill that would weaken collective bargaining for 360,000 public
employees, will
go before voters on the Nov. 8 ballot. The referendum — identified now
as Issue
2 — must be withdrawn from the ballot by Aug. 30 to cancel the
referendum,
giving the two sides less than a month to reach an agreement.
On
Sunday, a Dispatch editorial called
for proponents and opponents of Senate Bill 5 to reach a compromise
that would
require public employees to pay more for their health care and pensions
but
would strip away the bill’s provisions that aren’t related to
controlling
government costs.
Yesterday,
sources told Dispatch
reporters that informal discussions between two people affiliated with
the
defense of Senate Bill 5 and representatives from the Ohio Education
Association and the AFL-CIO took place about six weeks ago, but labor
backed
away.
The
OEA referred calls to We Are Ohio,
and AFL-CIO officials did not return a phone message late yesterday
afternoon.
“We
will sit down at any time and any
place to discuss the concerns of our opponents in this debate to see if
we can
reach a compromise,” said Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building a Better
Ohio, the
campaign formed to defend Senate Bill 5.
“We
are absolutely confident in our
ability to defend Issue 2, but we believe it’s fair to Ohioans to have
a
discussion about whether this contest is avoidable.”
Read
it at the Columbus Dispatch
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