Ohio voters reject law limiting collective bargaining

Voters in Ohio rejected the Republican-backed law Tuesday that would have limited union's collective bargaining rights.

Catherine LyonsNovember 8, 2011 22:22

Ohio voters rejected the state's new collective bargaining law at the polls on Tuesday, handing a win to the unions and public workers including firefighters and teachers, reported the Boston Herald.

Preliminary results from Ohio's secretary of state were 63 to 37 in favor of repealing the law, according to the New York Times. A similar law was passed in Wisconsin earlier this year.

The law, which passed in March, limited the collective bargaining abilities of more than 350,000 unionized public workers across the state, reported the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Tuesday's rejection of the law marks a defeat for Republican Governor John Kasich, who strongly supported the party-backed bill.

The measure on this election's ballot was a referedum on Senate Bill 5, which passed the state's legislature in March, according to CNN. The law prohibited strikes and promotions based only on seniority, and required employees to contribute 10 percent to their pensions and 15 percent to their healthcare costs.

Politico reported that SEIU District 1199 President Becky Williams said in Columbus that the election result was a "victory for the nation" and allegedly called Gov. Kasich a "radical thug."

Photographer: Mark Lyons
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Sheri Dever, with the Service Employees International Union, protests on the street while House Speaker John Boehner visits West Chester, Ohio on Sept. 2, 2011. Ohio voters rejected the law passed earlier this year that limited collective bargaining rights for more than 350,000 unionized public workers.

Blow to GOP governor; victory for unions

It's been a rough day.  I tend to think the best about people and almost always I'm rewarded with good karma. I really wanted to have a meeting of the minds with admin today, but alas, it doesn't look like that will happen. They are going to take our proposal to the Board of Ed tomorrow. Why? I don't know. Either to get permission to settle or to go to "impasse". Impasse is when the union and mangement can't settle, so management "imposses" it's last and best offer. I'm disappointed to say that management's last and best offer would strip our part-time local of some rights we hold near and dear. We have talked and talked and talked for 18 months and management is not interested in protecting the few rights we have. We have listened to admin many times and have made a real attempt to meet them half-way. We have made many, many proposals which would protect our rights, and at the same time, try to take care of admin's needs too. Alas, admin has rejected every idea we've put forth. It's pretty damn disappointing.  Because of Ohio's victory, I can regroup, sleep, awake and fight for our local twice as hard tomorrow. I am more and more convinced that if admin will not respect the rights we do have, then we will happily fight the good fight, just like they have in Ohio. Go Unions!

7 hours in...and nothing

7 hours in...and management still expects us to give up our rights and take a defacto pay cut. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of hope at this point of getting a settlement.

The College wants absolute control over class assignments without the "hindrance" of honoring seniority.

They want to be able to do informal evaluations and make decisions about YOUR job without any input from your Association, and they don't think any of us are qualified to be full-time faculty. They believe we are hired AND fired every term.

Is this how it should be? It's time to make yourself heard. Start with Joanne Truesdaell. Send her an email...either she doesn't know what's going on or she agrees with it. If we stay silent now, management has no reason to think they should change their attitude toward us.

In solidarity,
Rosemary

Waiting....

We're waiting...at 12:30 we'll meet again with the mediator and maybe do a "sidebar" with management.

Leslie & Jennifer are working on language

revisions.

Below, Jen is typing and Brett is proof-reading.

And, at the top, you can see we came ready to

be here a while.

Your erstwhile Bargaining Team.

Can you believe it??? 17 months-no contract!

We're in another mediation session today. We came prepared to be here a while. The mediator just told us that management is running out of patience with us and they feel frustrated.

Really?

They expect us to give up hard-won rights AND take a defacto pay cut, and for some reason THEY are frustrated???

Really??

We have sent them proposal after proposal in an attempt to reach a settlement. They have rejected proposal after proposal, and countered with language which 1) guts seniority, 2) allows "drive-by" informal evaluations which they can use to fire us, 3) denies our right to be interviewed for full-time faculty positions, and 4) insists they can sub-contract our work whenever they want.

So...what's next? When the mediator returns, we will giver her yet another iteration of Article 16. The mediator just returned. More soon...