Don't Forget What SB 5 Really Wants To Do

With all the deceptive ads that will fly from now to November, Buster wishes to remind one and all what SB 5/Issue 2 is really all about:

It will impact virtually all of Ohio's public sector workers. That means, approximately . . .

180,000 public school teachers, including our state universities
123,000 school staff and miscellaneous workers
30,000 police, fire, and other public safety workers
57,000 state government workers
300,000 other general government workers in our various cities, towns, counties, townships, and so forth.

These are the roughly half-million people who deal with our emergencies, wipe our children's butts, pick up our garbage, plow our streets, and generally maintain just about all our untidy shit here in the beautiful Buckeye state.

And in return, here's some -- just some -- of what SB 5 proposes to do for/do to all these people:

It eliminates binding arbitration.
Public employees cannot strike or take other job actions.
They cannot bargain for employee benefits. (Originally, it banned bargaining for wages, hours, and terms of employment.)
Public schools are prohibited from collectively bargaining class size limits.
Mandates merit pay for teachers based on student performance, without regard to class size.
Removes seniority as a consideration in staffing levels.
Eliminates step-pay increases for teachers.
Abolishes continuing contracts for teachers.
Cuts sick-leave payments.
Reduces amounts of other leave time, such as vacation, personal days, etc.
Requires employees to pay 15% of health insurance premiums, and 10% of pension contributions.
Prohibits public employee unions from sending any member dues to any union PACS.
Bans "fair share" fees on non-union members. (Why pay dues if you can get union benefits without them? But those benefits will go away quickly if the unions are fiscally starved.)

Virtually all of SB 5 could have been addressed through collective bargaining agreements, as it has been for many decades. Nationally, unions have never had less power and influence. Today's union leaders have shown a willingness to make reasonable concessions when asked/when a good case is made.

But Kasich and others like him don't want to bother with all that. They just want to codify union-busting into law so they never have to discuss it again. Their insistence that SB 5 is all about reducing costs for the benefit of state and local governments is utter bullshit. It's just about killing unions, ruining them financially, and thereby further harming any Democrats who receive union support.

VOTE NO on Issue 2, repeal SB 5.

**UPDATE 10/4/11 -- A faithful reader points out that Buster omitted the real icing on the SB 5 cake: Ohio's Republican-dominated state legislature exempted themselves and the governor from any part of SB 5 by declaring that they are not government employees.

Ain't that some shit!!