Stop the Anti-Collective Bargaining Job Killing Bill in Ohio
Targeting: The Governor of OH and The OH State Senate
Started by: Mark Miller
The Ohio Senate is currently considering a bill(SB #5) that would significantly change the ability of Ohio's state and local public employees from negotiating terms of employment through collective bargaining. This would significantly affect public employees at the state and local levels, including: teachers, law enforcement, and other state and local public employees.
Time is of the essence here: The Ohio Senate is holding hearings on this bill this week! Sign now!
According to ProgressOhio, the following would happen to working families across Ohio:
STATE WORKERS
• Eliminates collective bargaining for state workers, including higher-education employees, and calls for the development of a merit-based system.
LOCAL WORKERS
• Removes the requirement that deadlocked negotiations with safety forces go to binding arbitration, instead extending the prior union contract for one year.
• Allows employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike.
• Removes health insurance from collective bargaining. Management would pick a uniform insurance policy that would apply both to themselves and workers, and employees must cover at least 20 percent.
• Prohibits public employers from picking up extra employee pension contributions.
• Removes from state law automatic pay increases for experience and education.
• Eliminates from state law leave policies and automatic 15 sick days for teachers.
• Requires mediators to consider wages of employees who are not members of the union and does not allow them to consider future tax increases as part of an entity's ability to pay.
• No longer requires that once a subject is included in a contract that it becomes a mandatory part of future bargaining.
• Defines an "impasse" as a lack of agreement after 90 days. After that point, it requires each side to make public its last, best offer.
• Prohibits school districts from bargaining away certain management powers, such as the ability to deploy teachers to certain buildings.
• No longer makes length of service the key factor when deciding on layoffs.
• Requires a public employer to publish on its website any changes in the union contract that impact compensation of workers.
• Requires the employer and the State Employment Relations Board to publish the parties' offers on their websites before and after fact-finding is complete.
• Allows schools or local governments in fiscal emergency to terminate or modify a collective-bargaining agreement.
For the full link to this on ProgressOhio, go to:
http://www.progressohio.org/blog/2011/02/join-with-ohios-working-families-to-oppose-sb-5-revisions-to-ohios-collective-bargaining-law.htmlhttp://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-anti-collective-bargaining-job-killing-bill-in-ohioIt's time to stand up for Ohio's working families and demand that the Ohio Senate & Governor Kasich focus on creating jobs, not destroying them!