Columbus Dispatch...
Local officials key to SB 5 savings
By  Jim Siegel  and  Joe Vardon  
October 20, 2011 

Gov. John Kasich and GOP legislative leaders are trying to lead thousands of local-government officials to water. 

But they can’t make them drink — or, more aptly, can’t make them bring the hammer down on unionized public workers in a fashion that saves the kind of money ($4 billion) that Issue 2 supporters say can be saved to reduce the cost of government. 

Virtually all of the union benefits that supporters of Senate Bill 5 and Issue 2 are trying to curtail were agreed to by elected school-board members, municipal councils, township trustees and county commissioners during nearly 30 years of collective bargaining. 

If voters approve Issue 2 on Nov. 8, it would give those same leaders the ability to make tremendous course adjustments on items such as benefits packages, staffing levels and pay raises, in addition to the mandated increases in employee payments for health insurance and pension contributions and reductions in sick and vacation time. 

There would be no more legal strikes. No more binding arbitration. Elected leaders would get the final say. And if they approve contracts that taxpayers cannot afford, or that appear to unfairly punish safety forces, teachers or other workers, those leaders couldn’t point fingers anymore. 

Kasich has spoken out against local-government officials’ spending and keeps saying he wants to give them the “tools” to reduce costs. But would they actually do it?

Hard decisions 

Gary Baker, a Columbus City Schools board member, said he wouldn’t. “But I’m only one board member, and I won’t be on the board forever,” he said. Still, much of the school board shares his opposition to Issue 2 because of a track record of productive bargaining with labor, Baker said this week. 

“In three or four years, the board could be totally different, so there’s a very short window.” 

In Newark, a police contract approved in May calls for the city to stop paying 10 percent of the officers’ retirement contributions; Senate Bill 5 outlaws such local pension “pickups.” 

But that move didn’t save any money for Newark. In exchange for the concession, Newark officials agreed to give police an 8.1 percent pay increase. At the time, Councilman David Rhodes said it was a wash for the city, resulting in neither savings nor extra expenses. 

After the deal was struck, union members indicated they were happy with the contract, especially given that Senate Bill 5 could become law. 

While they have spoken in support of certain parts of the law, not a single statewide association representing local governments or school officials has officially endorsed Issue 2. The list of mayors of big and midsize cities endorsing the issue also is very short. 

Another factor not to be underestimated: Political pressure from unions could sway elected officials from pursuing all of the bill’s cost-saving measures. 

“The (current) process works ... because it allows reasonable people to come to reasonable solutions,” said Mark Sanders, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Fire Fighters. 

“Moving forward without that process, I think it’s inevitable that our members ... who may not be politically active (but) who you’ve seen turn politically active ... I think the easiest recourse would be political activity.”

Union pressure 

While that sounds like a political power play, Issue 2 opponents say the bill’s supporters have their own version of partisan politics built into Senate Bill 5 that targets unions, not cost savings. 

If the controversial measure takes effect, nonunion members no longer would be required to pay what is known as “fair share” — the portion of dues used to negotiate contracts and obtain worker rights. 

Government employers no longer would be allowed to make paycheck deductions earmarked for a political-action committee unless the employee agrees to it in writing. And the petition requirement for a public-union decertification vote would be reduced from 50 percent to 30 percent. It also would allow the employer to file the decertification petition. 

Traditionally, public-employee unions’ political donations flow to Democrats. Ohio Democrats and organizations backing them got nearly $14 million from public-employee unions since 2005, compared with about $570,000 for Republicans, a Dispatch analysis found. 

“No other private-sector union has the ability to pick their bosses,” said Jeff Berding, a former Cincinnati city councilman and conservative Democrat who voted for Ted Strickland over Kasich last year but is serving as a mouthpiece for Issue 2 supporters. “For most politicians, their first rule of business is self-preservation.” 

But Doug Stern, a Cincinnati firefighter and pitchman for the union coalition leading the fight against Issue 2, said: “They wanted to curb unions, bust unions — give political payback, essentially.”

Contract concessions 

With the mere threat of Senate Bill 5 in the air, 2011 has been a huge year of concessions for public employees. 

For example, teachers and school support-staff members have accepted wage freezes in 90 percent of contracts bargained this year. 

Bexley teachers and the school board agreed in March to a new contract in a single day. Under the new contract, teachers will forgo raises to their base salaries for two years and receive a 1.5 percent increase in 2013 and a 1 percent raise the year after that. 

Supporters of Issue 2 say Senate Bill 5 was the hammer that forced those and other bargaining units to the table. Labor says it’s been in concessionary mode for years, and it points to a report commissioned by Ohio’s police and fire unions released yesterday that says public employees have given back about $1.1 billion in concessions since 2008... 

Read rest of this, plus other articles, at the Columbus Dispatch