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Columbus Dispatch...
SB 5 debate prompts both sides to talk of fairness
By Jim Siegel
MASON, Ohio — State Rep. Connie Pillich said there would be no real
collective bargaining if Issue 2 is passed, creating a “patently
unfair” system for workers. State Sen. Shannon Jones said public unions
“hold all the cards” so there isn’t fair bargaining now, and taxpayers
are paying for it.
The position voters agree with in November will determine whether
Senate Bill 5, a sweeping 300-page law that would weaken the
collective-bargaining power for about 360,000 public workers and impact
the cost of benefits for thousands of others, will take effect. A “no”
vote would repeal the law.
Pillich, D-Montgomery, and Jones, a Springboro Republican and sponsor
of Senate Bill 5, met for a debate yesterday sponsored by the Northeast
Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. They often framed their arguments
around the issue of fairness, whether it’s worker pay and benefits,
taxpayer burden or even whether the pay rates of the staffs of state
lawmakers and the governor show a fair sacrifice.
Calling it a “simple but difficult-to-discuss math problem,” Jones said
schools and local governments must be given the ability to get their
costs under control. She said as much as 80 percent of their budgets
are consumed by “unsustainable labor costs” that, if continued, will
lead to mass layoffs.
“Over the past three decades, contracts have been created for
government workers that include an expensive array of benefits
taxpayers simply can no longer afford,” Jones said, citing automatic
pay increases, “generous” retirement packages and “excessive”
paid-leave policies.
Issue 2 would ban strikes by public workers and eliminate binding
arbitration to settle disputes involving safety forces, and instead
allow a governing body to implement its own last offer. It would
require workers to pay at least 15 percent of health-insurance costs,
no longer allow employers to pick up a portion of an employee’s pension
contribution, institute merit pay and eliminate seniority as the sole
factor for determining the order of layoffs.
Pillich, D-Montgomery, highlighted the history of major labor strife
before the collective-bargaining law took effect in 1984, including
strikes by police in Cincinnati and firefighters in Toledo. In recent
years, strikes among public-employee unions have been rare.
“There is no incentive to bargain in good faith because the city has
zero risk,” she said. “The city is the decider, and there is no appeal.
This is not fair.”
Pillich added later: “It’s like going into divorce court and finding out your spouse is the judge.”
Pillich said 90 percent of contracts negotiated this year included a
wage freeze. But Jones credited the passage of Senate Bill 5 with
providing leverage in those talks.
“When every time you go to the table the last contract that was
negotiated becomes the floor, it’s not a fair negotiation at all,” she
said.
Jones stressed repeatedly that the public is fair and will not allow school boards or city councils to treat workers badly.
Pillich said she found it “increasingly offensive” that Jones says
“there is any good-faith negotiating going on here. That is a lie. That
is not what happens in this bill.” Pillich said Gov. John Kasich’s
budget cuts are to blame for the current budgetary problems of local
governments and schools, not workers.
But Jones argued that the budget problems are not new, and she
criticized Democrats for not standing behind alternative solutions.
“Good grief, are we going to just ignore the fact that we have cities
in this state that can’t make payroll? That’s outrageous to me.”
We Are Ohio, a coalition of Democrats, unions and their supporters,
collected a record 915,000 valid signatures to place Issue 2 on the
ballot in an attempt to overturn the anti-collective-bargaining law.
There appeared to be very few undecided voters in the crowd of more
than 100 on hand for the debate at the Cedar Village Retirement
Community,
“We’ve had many concessions, and we continue to make concessions. The
process works pretty well,” Lenny French, president of the Springdale
firefighters union, said after the debate.
Sharon Poe of Mason, the secretary of the Warren County Tea Party, said
she heard that Senate Bill 5 “is a reasonable answer to a broken
system.”
“It’s a way to ask workers to give a little bit because taxpayers are
broke,” she said, adding that the alternative is massive layoffs.
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
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