Ohio Referendum on Collective Bargaining Could Give Boost to Obama in 2012
EmailThe collective bargaining rights that sent public employees to the Wisconsin statehouse in droves last spring will now send Ohio voters to the polls this fall.
Whereas unhappy Wisconsinites could only challenge their state’s law through protests, recall elections and the courts, the Ohio constitution allows Buckeye State voters to hold a referendum on any law, given enough signatures are collected opposing it.
“This is the clearest test of attempts to change collective bargaining rights,” said John Green, the director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. “In other states, this was done through administrative procedures or changes were made legislatively. There wasn’t this kind of straight-shot for voters to weigh in on collective bargaining directly.”
At issue is a multi-faceted law, known as Senate Bill 5, that eliminates public employees’ right to collectively bargain or strike and replaces the current system of seniority with a merit-based system when laying-off teachers or deciding pay increases.
It also requires public workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health insurance premiums and at least 10 percent of their salary to their pensions. If the ‘no’ votes prevail on the ballot initiative, known as Issue 2, Senate Bill 5 will be overturned and public employees will maintain their negotiating rights.
The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows 57 percent of Ohio voters support repealing the law, which would not go into effect until after a Nov. 8 “yes” vote. But while the majority of Ohioans say they oppose the law, many support specific pieces of it.
For example, 49 percent of respondents said they support replacing seniority-based pay increases with merit-pay compared to 40 percent who oppose it. Significant majorities also support requiring public employees to pay a larger share of their pensions and health care benefits.
Connie Wehrkamp, a spokeswoman for the Building a Better Ohio group that supports the senate bill, pointed out that private employees in Ohio pay, on average, 31 percent of their health insurance premiums and many do not have guaranteed pensions, unlike their public employee counterparts.
“In general, there are a lot of states like Ohio dealing with unsustainable costs at the state and local level that can be attributed to union contracts,” Wehrkamp said. “We’re either going to continue moving forward or we’ll take a step backward.”
But the success of labor unions to regain their right to negotiate for benefits, salaries and staffing levels on behalf of Ohio’s public employees is shaping up to have implications far beyond this battleground state.
“Organized labor has been revived in Ohio,” Green said. “Unions don’t like this piece of legislation, but politically it’s really helped them. They’ve mobilized members and some of that organization and enthusiasm may carry on in 2012 into the presidential election.”
While a labor union win this year could give President Obama a boost in a key battleground state next year, the ballot initiative has proved less of a boon for GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
The Republican front-runner stumbled this week over his support for the collective bargaining limits, saying Tuesday at a campaign stop in Ohio that he was “not speaking about the particular ballot issues, those are up to the people of Ohio.”
On Wednesday Romney clarified that he was “110 percent” supportive of Gov. John Kasich’s attempt to cut budget deficits by scaling back collective bargaining rights.
Romney did not offer the same support for another Ohio ballot initiative that outlaws the individual mandate of Obama’s health care law. Instead, he said the issue “should be up to individual states.”
“I, of course, took my state in one direction,” Romney said, referencing the individual mandate he signed into law in Massachusetts. “They may want to go in a different direction. I don’t want to tell them what to do. That’s up to them.”
Compared to the collective bargaining issue, the individual mandate issue has gotten relatively little publicity.
“On the face of it, issue 3 might be unconstitutional,” Green said. “States don’t get to opt out of federal laws. We had a bloody civil war to solve that issue, and the people promoting issue 3 know that, but they want the heath care law to go to court.”
Issue 3 was put on the ballot before the Supreme Court decided to consider Obama’s health care law. If it passes, it will have little effect on actual policy, but will send a strong message, Green said.
“People who don’t like the national health care law will be very excited if it passes, because you will have a major battleground state voting against the health care bill,” he said.
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No mention of Gov Brown a democrat Govenor in California bypassing the union complteley and going to make teachers and state workers to work until 67, contribute 50% into their retirement accounts and pay more for their healthcare? Seems like Ohio workers have the better deal but more importantly shows that if a state can not afford to pay these bloated pensions what are they to do? It seems like unions have created the problem for years and now when changes are needed to survive ABC is irresponsible to show both sides of the story and only support the unions.
Posted by: J Herrera | October 28, 2011, 7:02 am 7:02 am
Sounds like wishful thinking to me, similar to the Wisconsin Democrats failed recall fantasy. Seems as though America is finally waking up to the disatrous policies, not only from the Obama Administration, but also from the abuses of the public sector unions. The tide is shifting. This economy recovers the day after it becomes obvious that Obama will no longer be in control. Reining in public unions must occur to relieve the budget stress at the state and local level. Both happening within the next year or so will reinvigorate the economy. If neither occurs, we’re in for a long, long economic malaise for which there may be no recovery.
Posted by: BubblerDad | October 28, 2011, 7:03 am 7:03 am
I’ve got no problem if my guys want to go union. The problem comes in when the going union wage for carpenters is about $38 plus bennies, which figures out to be close to $70 an hour, per guy. How many remodel bids would I get charging almost $100 per man hour?
What I’m saying is that I’d have no problem paying them that much, but I’d have to charge accordingly, so it would have a direct effect on my bids. People want cheap (read inexpensive) and my guys would be unemployed so fast it’d make their heads spin.
The problem isn’t with me, it is with the people I work for. Now the shocker, many of those have been teachers as of lately. And they are some of the stingiest clients I’ve ever had. Incredibly picky, wanting extras for nothing, and do as much bartering as they can to get the project price dropped as much as possible. More than any other client. I’ve noticed a pattern.
Posted by: Mike | October 28, 2011, 7:19 am 7:19 am
Why should public employees have the right to strike, therefore shutting down government?
They should have the “right to quit” if they do not like the job and the pay scale, but they should not have the right to strike, and Employees should have the right to opt out of the union if they want to.
Posted by: Rick | October 28, 2011, 7:29 am 7:29 am
Hopefully Ohio will do the right thing and make the unions pay into their retirement and healthcare just like the rest of us. If not, America will soon be like Greece and others. If union bosses would take the dues and help members instead of paying off corrupt politicians and giving themselves big salaries it would really help all Americans.
Posted by: Freedom | October 28, 2011, 9:16 am 9:16 am
If your not a public employee then you tend to attack them for their benefits without realizing that most public employees make way less then the private sector and the benefits help to balance things out. We don’t pay as much in health (we do pay) insurance because we don’t make as much money. This bill hurts all public employees and we are not all in unions. Over the years many people could have gotten a state job at some capacity but wouldn’t because of the low starting pay. I took less money then I was making in the private sector just for the benefits but do you think if the benefits and pensions are cut are pay will go up to match the private sector? No, you will just be hurting hard working people that are already barely able to survive. We have a pension because we don’t have social security or 401k.
Posted by: chris | October 28, 2011, 9:34 am 9:34 am
Funny Mike , you start with $38 and by the next sentence you’re up to $100 . You just are a cheapskate , probably a republican / conservative . They’re all the biggest cheapskates in the history of the planet . I am a builder and have been one for 35 years . Pay / treat your hired help right and they won’t go looking to join unions Mike .
Posted by: jimg | October 28, 2011, 9:40 am 9:40 am
Funny Mike , you start with $38 and by the next sentence you’re up to $100 . You just are a cheapskate , probably a republican / conservative . They’re all the biggest cheapskates in the history of the planet . I am a builder and have been one for 35 years . Pay / treat your hired help right and they won’t go looking to join unions Mike .
Posted by: jimgt | October 28, 2011, 9:44 am 9:44 am
How would you like to be an OHIO resident – non-union – private sector – working or maybe unemployed and either have no health care or paying all or protion of it and then be forced to pay for the public sector? Wake up OHIO!! Want more of your tax dollars being levied in uion dues to the DEMS?
Posted by: jamescbuilder | October 28, 2011, 9:50 am 9:50 am
The middle class is shrinking by devouring itself. I don’t blame the corporations and big business for this. They do what they get paid to do and protect their bottom line and they’re smart about it. They sell their agenda to the American people like they sell soap and potato chips.
I do blame those Americans who have bought into to the corporate propaganda that discredit the labor unions. The corporations have neutralized labors power for a basic reason; so they can out-source to a cheap labor market with no consequences.
The labor unions gave America the highest standard of living in the world and built the middle class. Many of these union bashers enjoy the benefits those guys on the picket lines earned for them. The middle class will continue to shrink until these misinformed people get some common sense and see the real motive behind all the anti-union propaganda.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 9:50 am 9:50 am
We already know, the Dems have big labor in their back pocket. That’s a known factor, and it has always been that way.
Talk about corruption in America……that’s the epitome of American corruption.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | October 28, 2011, 9:55 am 9:55 am
RICK MCDANIEL
The only voice working people have in our society are the labor unions. It’s certainly not government politians who are small change in corporate pockets. The right of workers to collectively bargain with employers is fundamental to having that voice. We need to quit just giving away more power to the multi-nationals and big business. Do you think all this out-sourcing could have happened if the unions were still strong? I don’t think so.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 10:07 am 10:07 am
One term. I can’t wait to hear the angst from the Left.
Posted by: newcountryman | October 28, 2011, 10:17 am 10:17 am
Well, Obama has certainly tried.
Posted by: newcountryman | October 28, 2011, 10:38 am 10:38 am
Jim
Do you have any idea how much a business has to charge their customers if that business pays their employees $38/hour, plus all the bennies like health insurance, dental insurance, retirement, paid vacations and sick pay?
Do you know anything about overhead? Worker’s comp insurance premiums are wages based. I pay the other half of their Social Security @ 7.5%, so that is another overhead.
Now in the event my guys went union, they’d demand company trucks and to be paid from the time they leave the shop, to the time they returned to the shop. Guess what that means, more overhead and expenses.
I’m in business to make a profit. Kind of the thing businesses do. Guess where that profit comes from. If you guessed the hourly rate at what I charge the customer, you are correct.
Is any of this sinking in yet?
That $100/ hour is about what I’d have to charge the customer. That is how I go from paying my guys a union wage of $38/hour + bennies to having to charge $100/hour to the customer.
How many homeowners looking to remodel their bathrooms or kitchens are going to pay that? And you call me the cheapskate.
Oh, and Jim. Union carpenters don’t pick up, that is what laborers are for. So now guess what I have to do? Hire laborers. Union carpenters don’t hang or tape drywall. Guess what I have to either hire or sub out? Union carpenters don’t pour concrete. Union carpenters don’t shingle.
Do you see where this is going? I’d have to have 15 guys to do one simple remodel. Again, do you really think the customer is wiling to pay 4 to 5 times more for a project than the next guy all because my guys are union? I have a bridge for sale if you say anything other than no.
Posted by: Mike | October 28, 2011, 10:38 am 10:38 am
POSTED BY: TMFERRETTI | OCTOBER 28, 2011, 10:07 AM 10:07 AM. Unions don’t care about workers, where on earth did you ever get that idea, they care about how many people pay dues so UNION BOSSES can afford to live in the style they are accustomed too.
Posted by: Lizzie | October 28, 2011, 10:41 am 10:41 am
Anyone that pays union dues is the very definition of a sucker.
Posted by: newcountryman | October 28, 2011, 10:56 am 10:56 am
LIZZIE
As I said, many Americans have fallen for the corporate propaganda. The middle class has no power because of this; we are eating our own young. There is no such thing as UNION BOSSES (a nice corporate catch phrase); the union leaders are elected by the rank and file. That union member who votes to strike has much more power than we do when we vote for the bought and paid for politicians. If the middle class is shrinking, it’s because of us.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 11:01 am 11:01 am
Unions don’t care about workers, where on earth did you ever get that idea, they care about how many people pay dues so UNION BOSSES can afford to live in the style they are accustomed too. Posted by: Lizzie | October 28, 2011, 10:41 am.
LOL! Wow, where on earth did YOU ever get THAT idea? Of course, I would LOVE to see your proof of this wild allegation. And “Union Bosses” sounds so 1930′s, you really should get into the 21st century………..
Posted by: Searambler | October 28, 2011, 11:11 am 11:11 am
MIKE
Do you think we’re all stupid? If your guys unionized, your books would be open during bargaining. The union lawyers would be just as smart as your lawyers and would not cut their own throats by bankrupting you. You have no idea until you ask ,what your employees would demand, try asking them, you might find out they’re as smart as you.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 11:18 am 11:18 am
NEWCOUNTRYMAN
The definition of a sucker is a person who buys into all this anti-union BS. They’re just giving away any power they might have to improve their own standard of living. Any benefits you have on the job is because a union fought for them. Again, the middle class is going to become extinct because they refuse to fight for their own status.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 11:37 am 11:37 am
tmferretti
That’s the thing, I do know. Before I went out on my own, I workded for a huge commercial construction company, and guess what the labor force there was? Unionized.
I know first hand what the demands were, as I was in the middle of it all.
The demands I listed only scratched the surface as to what the unions wanted. It was always about “sticking it to the man”. (why is it always that with them?)
Do you own a home? Would you be willing to pay 5 times more for a union construction company to do a project than a non union company? Both are reputible, both licensed, both insured, both do high quality work. Just one is unionized and has to charge more because of it.
No way you would. Don’t even pretend to kid me. You want to stretch your dollars just as far as the next guy. Everyone does.
Don’t kid even yourself that my operating costs wouldn’t increase if my guys went union, even with your “open book meetings”. I’d be raising my rates, and that would be a fact.
Though, even you fail to see my point. I’m all for it. The question is, would I win enough work to support it? Would the customer be willig to pay 5 times more becasue of it? Based on how cut-throat it is now, I’d have to say no.
Posted by: Mike | October 28, 2011, 11:48 am 11:48 am
TM
Again. I’d love to give my guys 6 weeks paid vacations a year. I’d love to give them a great health insurance plan with a great dental plan. I’d love to pay them sick pay. I’d love to give them the going union wage of a carpenter $38/hour. I’d love to give them a great pension and retirement plan.
I’d love to.
The question still remains. How long would I stay in business? Would homeowner John & Jane be willing to pay what I’d have to charge versus hiring the next guy who will do it at a mere fraction of my costs?
We all know the answer.
Posted by: Mike | October 28, 2011, 11:54 am 11:54 am
MIKE
I believe you. Your guys probably don’t even need a union. I bet none of those guys would demand that from you if they thought you’d lose customers. When you business does well they have jobs. They’re not stupid enough to cut their own throats. Despite what a lot of people believe a union can’t stop people from being fired or laid off. That is still your decision, a union knows this.
I suspect you’re a small business man. You’re still part of the middle class. I’m talking about all the conglomerates that can afford PR hucksters and ad men whose only function is to discredit the working man’s unions.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 12:13 pm 12:13 pm
Mike, I’m confused by your statments. If paying your workers $38 an hour would force you to charge 5 times more, are you paying your carpenters less than $8 an hour now?
Posted by: Librarian53 | October 28, 2011, 12:27 pm 12:27 pm
TMFERRETTI, SEARABLER. Here are just two., AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka and Teamsters boss James P. Hoffa. Do you really think they care about workers, thats laughable. They are in for power and money.
Posted by: Lizzie | October 28, 2011, 12:46 pm 12:46 pm
LIZZIE
You’re watching too many movies and TV shows (produced and funded by large corporations) where all union reps are corrupt and mobsters. . It’s just fantasy, Richard Trumka and Teamsters “president” James P. Hoffa are elected by the rank and file and can and will be thrown out if they don’t represent the aspirations of their members. Ask, any Teamster, they were much better off when Jimmy SR ran the union and it had some power.
As I said, the middle class have become a bunch of wimps who would rather defend the interests of the corporations rather than their own interests. Those kids in the parks at least have some guts and don’t buy into the corporate PR campaign. If the middle class goes away don’t blame the unions.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 1:16 pm 1:16 pm
We have not even voted yet and you are claiming a victory for Obama? Haven’t the unions done enough in dumbing down whole generations of Americans?
Posted by: sodacrackers2 | October 28, 2011, 1:19 pm 1:19 pm
SODACRACKERS2
The only dumb Americans are those that put the interests of the corporations ahead of their own interests and the ones who are willing to lower corporate taxes but put the burden on their own backs.
Posted by: tmferretti | October 28, 2011, 1:42 pm 1:42 pm
POSTED BY: TMFERRETTI | OCTOBER 28, 2011, 1:16 PM 1:16 PM. Union bosses have not changed they are still the same as always, as for them being voted out, your living in a dream world. Once a boss always a boss. If the middle class goes away then we wont have to worry about anything because then were all equally poor, where will that leave you, will you have to actually find work or will you go to your daddy for help.
Posted by: Lizzie | October 28, 2011, 6:24 pm 6:24 pm