Senate Bill 5 Targets Collective Bargaining for Elimination!

• ernest_t_bass

  

  Senate Bill 5, introduced by Senator Shannon Jones (R-Springboro), proposes to end collective bargaining for state and higher education employees and drastically curtail bargaining rights for K-12 educators. Ohio’s educators and working families are aggressively opposing this bill.
  
  What’s at stake?: Collective bargaining allows educators a voice in improving working and learning conditions and opportunities for Ohio's students. This bill would take Ohio backwards and harm students, working families and local economies throughout the state. In today's difficult economic times, we all need to be focused on the essentials. Nothing is more essential than giving our students and children a quality education that prepares them for good jobs.
  
  Senate Bill 5 does the following:
  • Eliminates collective bargaining for state employees and employees of state higher education institutions. Existing CBAs expire according to terms.
  • Does not allow K-12 school employees to collectively bargain on salaries or healthcare.
  • Eliminates public employee salary schedules and step increases and replaces them with an undefined “merit” pay system.
  • Permits school boards to govern healthcare benefit plans for employees and requires public employees to pay at least 20% of their healthcare costs
  • Eliminates continuing contracts for teachers after the bill’s effective date • Eliminates teacher leave policies in statute and requires local school boards to
  determine leave time
  • Eliminates experience as a sole criterion for Reductions In Force (RIFs) • Allows public employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike • Prohibits school districts from picking up any portion of the employee’s contribution
  to the pension system
  • Allows a public employer in “fiscal emergency” to serve notice to terminate, modify
  or negotiate a CBA
  • Abolishes the School Employee Healthcare Board
  
  What can you do to help support students, working families and local communities?:
  The elected officials that represent you need to hear that you oppose Senate Bill 5 and the effort to eliminate collective bargaining. We need to highlight that collective bargaining benefits students.
  
  To TAKE ACTION go to http://aces.ohea.org and sign a commitment to protect public education and communicate with your legislators. Also, please recruit your colleagues to help fight this extremely harmful legislation.
  
  Important Messages on Senate Bill 5:
  
  Talking Points:
  • Children need their teachers to focus on them and their classrooms. Allowing the union to represent teachers frees teachers to do what they do best: teach.
  • Taking away the union’s role in support of teachers will mean teacher salaries would be dictated by state politicians and education bureaucrats.
  • Senate Bill 5 will hurt our local schools and kids because taking the unions out of the picture will make it easier for politicians to lay off teachers and cut funding for schools across Ohio.
  • Collective bargaining allows educators a voice in improving opportunities for Ohio’s students, better classroom resources and improved teaching and learning conditions.
  • Teachers know best what’s needed to improve student learning, and collective bargaining gives allows them to focus on teaching rather than time-consuming employment issues.
  • Educators, like all public employees, are an integral part of the fabric of Ohio’s communities. Senate Bill 5 weakens Ohio. Rather than creating jobs, this legislation will hurt local communities, reversing Ohio’s positive economic outlook.
  • Ohio’s collective bargaining law has created a framework for problem-solving that has made strikes rare. Local teachers associations negotiate effectively to avoid disruption for student learning.
  • In a tough economy, with Ohio facing a major budget deficit, we must focus on the essentials. Nothing is more essential than giving our children a quality education that prepares them for good jobs.
  
  Studies and facts about collective bargaining:
  • The public does not support attacks on working families: A January 2011 Quinnipiac poll showed that Ohio voters oppose limits on collective bargaining by public employees by 51% to 34%, a 17 % margin.
  • Ohio’s public employees make less than the private sector: A Rutgers University study for the Economic Policy Institute released in February 2011 finds that similarly educated public employees make less than their private sector peers. Looking at total compensation (wages and nonwage benefits), Ohio public employees annually earn 6% less than comparable private sector employees and 3.5% less on an hourly basis than comparable private sector employees.
  • Collective bargaining did not cause Ohio’s budget deficit: Policy Matters Ohio recently released a study showing that states without public employee collective bargaining are facing the same large budget deficits as state with collective bargaining.
  • Collective bargaining supports high quality education: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2008) suggests that students in states with CB perform better than those in states without CB: reading and math (4th & 8th grades;
  average freshman graduation rate). Collective bargaining is a staple in the nations that are said to outperform the U.S.; namely, Western Europe & Canada.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  Regardless of how you feel about collective bargaining for public employees, it's a scary time to be one.
• redstreak one

  

  Especially if you have anywhere from 10 to 25 years in. I am too old to go back to school and find better employment for the amount of education I have. Too young to retire!~ I am not against change, but change for the sake of change makes no sense? Also, will this eventually trickle down to all public employees? Why start with teachers?
• ernest_t_bass

  

  redstreak one;678122 wrote:Especially if you have anywhere from 10 to 25 years in. I am too old to go back to school and find better employment for the amount of education I have. Too young to retire!~ I am not against change, but change for the sake of change makes no sense? Also, will this eventually trickle down to all public employees? Why start with teachers?

  
  It's ALL public employees, not just teachers. This is just a "teacher's" side of it. It's ALL public employees. Cops, Firefighters, higher ed... you name it.
• redstreak one

  

  Gotcha. What are they expecting to save off of these changes?
• ernest_t_bass

  

  redstreak one;678250 wrote:Gotcha. What are they expecting to save off of these changes?

  
  Who knows. Ripple effect WILL take place, though. Less money in worker's pockets (whether they are public or private sector employees) means less money to spend in the local private sector, less money paid in taxes, etc.
  
  This could all go into effect AS SOON AS MARCH 15.
  
  I understand that there is a distaste for teacher benefits and salary, but does the public feel comfortable of a morale decline in our PD and FD departments? When morale is low, we all know what that leads to.
• Sonofanump

  ernest_t_bass;678105 wrote:• Eliminates public employee salary schedules and step increases and replaces them with an undefined “merit” pay system.

  That sounds like a great idea. Let's have a school board give the raises to the friends and family. Also if is it based on merit or performance, no urban or special needs teacher will ever get a raise again. Unless they decide to teacher only subject matter that will be on the "performance" test (wonder what the economist Steven D. Levitt would have to say about this). That will help improve society. Brillant forward thinking.
• FatHobbit

  

  I'm curious. Are there other states that don't have collective bargaining? How do they compare to Ohio? (In teacher salaries and student performance.)
• sleeper

  

  Anything to get rid of Unions.
• O-Trap

  

  Perhaps I need more clarity.
  
  What is collective bargaining, literally? As in, give me an understandable, but dictionary-style definition.
• wkfan

  sleeper;678341 wrote:Anything to get rid of Unions.

  If you want to get rid of the unions who have done the most harm....get rid of these long before the Public Employee unions.
  
  http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/14/autos/gm_record_hourly_worker_bonus/index.htm
• OneBuckeye

  

  Tell me why teachers need this when most private sector jobs and even many government jobs do not have this?
• O-Trap

  

  What is it?
• OneBuckeye

  

  O-Trap;678361 wrote:What is it?

  
  It looks like it castrates the teachers union to me. Not sure though.
• O-Trap

  

  I mean what is "collective bargaining?"
• OneBuckeye

  

  Collective bargaining is a process of voluntary negotiations between employers and trade unions 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.[1]
  
  The union may negotiate with a single employer (who is typically representing a company's shareholders) or may negotiate with a federation of businesses, depending on the country, to reach an industry wide agreement. A collective agreement functions as a labor contract between an employer and one or more unions. Collective bargaining consists of the process of negotiation between representatives of a union and employers (generally represented by management, in some countries[which?] by an employers' organization) in respect of the terms and conditions of employment of employees, such as wages, hours of work, working conditions and grievance-procedures, and about the rights and responsibilities of trade unions. The parties often refer to the result of the negotiation as a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) or as a collective employment agreement (CEA).
  

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargaining
• O-Trap

  

  I don't understand why individuals negotiating independently is so much worse. To be fair, I've never been anywhere but the private sector.
• jc10380

  Here is a good article from the Springfield News Sun on the topic. I am a proud member of the IAFF and am strongly against SB5.
  
  http://m.springfieldnewssun.com/snewssun/db_/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=FF368F50198337FD11D9F84A141F24A1?contentguid=SQ3FUGYf&full=true#display
• CenterBHSFan

  

  I'm just curious why public union people feel like they NEED somebody else to do the talking and negotiating for themselves?
  
  Can somebody answer that question for me, please?
• CenterBHSFan

  

  jc10380;678497 wrote:Here is a good article from the Springfield News Sun on the topic. I am a proud member of the IAFF and am strongly against SB5.
  
  http://m.springfieldnewssun.com/snewssun/db_/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=FF368F50198337FD11D9F84A141F24A1?contentguid=SQ3FUGYf&full=true#display

  Look, I've got nothing against firefighters, cops, vfd, etc. But that article is nothing but "gimme I want/need".
• jc10380

  We do our own negotiating as a Union. If there is a a disagreement, it goes to fact finding, then to arbitration. We have a Union Board that does our negotiating after speaking with the members as a whole.
• jc10380

  What do you mean? What points in that article are you taking that way?
  
  We do not pay into Social Security, and therefore will not collect Social Security. What is the difference between myself and my employer paying into the Pension system instead of a 401k?
• ernest_t_bass

  

  ccrunner609;678584 wrote:We negotiate as a union. I dont understand how our bargaining within our district affects anyone else.

  
  If you eliminate it, it will affect everyone.
• Apple

  

  I'm not a fan of unions in today's society. Decades ago when there were no laws protecting workers, unions were needed. Now they seem to be nothing more than a cash collecting machine that has historically financed political support of policies that have gotten the USA into the huge debt crisis we now all face. I'm not saying the unions are the only reason for our financial crisis, just saying they have been a major player in history due to their support of policies that have gotten us here.
  
  I chuckle when I read things like "Children need their teachers to focus on them and their classrooms. Allowing the union to represent teachers frees teachers to do what they do best: teach." If that is the case, how is it that the school I went to had a near 100% graduation rate (98%?) and was able to secure something like $14 million in college scholarships last year for the 90%+ students who went on to college, all with non-union teachers in the classroom? This tells me that unions are not the answer.
  
  Inner city schools might indeed suffer if there are performance standards for teachers. This is something that must be dealt with on the local level where parents are included and held responsible as much as the teachers.
• iclfan2

  

  ernest_t_bass;678105 wrote: Senate Bill 5 does the following:
  • Eliminates collective bargaining for state employees and employees of state higher education institutions. Existing CBAs expire according to terms.
  • Does not allow K-12 school employees to collectively bargain on salaries or healthcare.
  • Eliminates public employee salary schedules and step increases and replaces them with an undefined “merit” pay system.
  • Permits school boards to govern healthcare benefit plans for employees and requires public employees to pay at least 20% of their healthcare costs
  • Eliminates teacher leave policies in statute and requires local school boards to determine leave time
  • Eliminates experience as a sole criterion for Reductions In Force (RIFs)
  • Allows public employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike
  • Allows a public employer in “fiscal emergency” to serve notice to terminate, modify
  or negotiate a CBA
  • Abolishes the School Employee Healthcare Board

  
  None of these sound that bad.