Current Legislation Alert
House Action on SB5
A quick update on SB5 after House action.
65,414 Ohioans signed petitions opposing SB 5, and those petitions were delivered to the House Commerce and Labor Committee Tuesday morning. The Republicans ordered them removed. Just another sign they don’t want to be bothered with what the people of Ohio are thinking on the issue of fairness in the workplace.
As far as can be surmised from a 5-minute summation from the Legislative Service Commission (LSC), the following applies to SB5:
This morning — Rather than introduce a host of amendments, Republicans on the House Commerce and Labor Committee have introduced a 435-page substitute bill. Unfortunately, they gave it to members of the media, but not to any of the Democrats on the committee. Then they called for a vote.
When the Democrats said they had not even seen the bill, they were given copies at about 9:30 this morning. The committee is in recess until after session today – probably until about 1 p.m. The sub bill is expected to pass out of committee this afternoon. It will probably go before the full House tomorrow, when it is expected to pass. Because of the substantial changes (highlighted below), the bill will have to go back to the Senate. The governor should have it to sign in the next few days.
The bottom line is that the bill is even worse than the amended version of SB5 that passed by one vote in the Senate.
The substitute bill eliminates fair share – which means those non-members who work next to you and enjoy all the wages and benefits you help bargain will no longer have to pay their “fair share” but will continue to reap the rewards of having a union.
The substitute bill says that in a dispute with the employer, the parties will accept the last best offer of the employer. Why bother bargaining?
The substitute bill addresses “performance-based pay” and says the state school board, controlled by Republicans and Kasich appointees, will write the language that school boards use to determine performance reviews.
All this in addition to what the Senate did in SB5:
• SB5 says we cannot strike.
• SB5 says no restrictions can be placed on an employer’s ability to privatize or subcontract non-teaching services – making it much easier to privatize or subcontract out our jobs.
• SB5 removes health insurance from collective bargaining and mandates that we pay at least 15 percent of any health care premium.
• SB5 dramatically restricts the topics which can be bargained with employers and says we absolutely cannot bargain over health care plans and privatization and subcontracting language. The employer is prohibited from paying any of the employee share of pension costs.
• SB5 says the employer no longer has to use seniority only when laying off employees, and we can no longer bargain over how RIFs are implemented.
Click here to see the current legislation. http://laborers860.com/pdfs/SB5.pdf