Ohio Senate Bill 5

One day I hope to be a teacher.  Therefore I obviously have some questions about Ohio Senate Bill 5 and what it means to my future field.  From what I've gathered SB5 limits a number of things for the some 40,000 unionized state employees of Ohio.  To not just reiterate that they are losing their collective bargaining abilities, I will at least attempt to explain what this means in practice.

First, I'll start by reading the Wikipedia page, as I normally do.  Here is the first line:

Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements which regulate working conditions.Collective agreements usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.

So from what I understand, it is the right of trade groups to negotiate with employers or representatives of employers in an industry for worker's rights.  Essentially this means that the individual's rights are protected, normally by a union or trade group.  Instead of one individual worker going to court with his employer over some violation of rights, the group the individual belongs to fights, or bargains, for them.

So now that we have a pretty decent idea of the concept of collective bargaining, I'll get back in to SB5 specifically.  According to the Akron Law Cafe Blog, the two specific institutions affected are state agencies and higher education.  That was on February 18th, since then the Ohio Senate has revised the bill to allow to allow collective bargaining for wages by unionized state employees.  As far as I can tell they have not yet allowed state employees collective bargaining rights for healthcare under the bill.  This is a problem because the bill also caps the state's payment of employee health insurance premiums at 80%, which is down from 85%, the previous cap.

My thoughts on all this, I tend to agree with U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich, his statement included this:

“The right to collective bargaining, to be able to negotiate wages, benefits and working conditions, is a fundamental right in a democratic society. The attempt to restrict those rights is anti-democratic and un-American. The attempt to pit workers against taxpayers belies the fact that the workers serve the taxpayers. The workers are taxpayers. Public workers dedicate their lives to teaching our children, to protecting our streets and homes, to caring for the elderly and the sick. Public workers are our friends and neighbors. They, like all workers, are struggling to make ends meet, trying to save their jobs, have decent wages and benefits, hoping to have health care and retirement security."

 Collective bargaining should not be restricted to state employees.  The original law in Ohio dates to the mid-80s and there is no reason to revoke it.  It has nothing to do with our $80 billion in fiscal shortcomings next year.  However some other pieces of SB5 may have something to do with it.  Below I have listed the links I used for my research, so refer to the Ohio Verticals page if you want to know what I'm talking about.

This is obviously dripping with sarcasm.
For those of you living under a rock, or
from another state, that's governer John
Kasich in the middle.

One facet of the bill that has been largely overlooked is the new, crazy idea of merit pay.  Basically this means state employees will be payed for what they actually do instead of just how long they have been working in the same office.  Currently state employees are salaried with available increases available as a reward for longevity.  This does nothing but increase sloth and corruption in state institutions.  I like the idea of merit pay for state workers.  Everyone should be held to at least some kind of standard that if they fail to meet, will result in punishment in form of pay reduction.  It may sound like I'm suggesting state institutions should be privatized, and why shouldn't they?  Creating another committee to keep state workers honest will only result in more waste and corruption.

I don't know what you call someone who is for privatizing everything, but it's probably idiot, because it's not possible.  You can't privatize the school systems if you want to ensure any kind of affordability to the average Ohioan.  If you turn even most public schools into private schools then you're asking for the already wide education gap to grow even wider.

So privatization is out, how do you apply merit pay?  I'm looking for the answer.  If we can find a way to implement it well, it should apply to all public servants.  The senators voting on the bill should also be held to a standard of efficiency and be docked pay for not meeting it.  I'm definitely not alone in this sentiment, while I was riding the bus to my internship this afternoon I saw a man protesting outside the statehouse with a sign on his body that said "merit pay for senators", he may not have any idea what that meant, but he was right.

Dennis Kucinich
SB5 allows wage bargaining
Wikipedia collective bargaining

Ohio Senate Bill 5 abolishing state collective bargaining rights