4/5/11 OLC Analyzing Impact of Collective Bargaining Bill
Gov. Kasich has signed Senate Bill 5, the hotly contested collective bargaining reform measure that would apply to more than 350,000 state and local government workers. Several provisions in this legislation (e.g., the percentage of employee-paid health insurance benefits, replacement of step increases with merit pay adjustments, etc.) may impact all public employees, regardless of their collective bargaining status. Questions remain as to whether non-union public library employees will be affected. OLC's counsel at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease is currently reviewing the new law to determine its impact on all public library employees.
Approximately 30% of Ohio's public library employees are represented by collective bargaining units and will most-likely be impacted by this legislation. Libraries whose employees are represented by collective bargaining units should seek counsel from their labor attorneys to determine how they will be affected.
The final version of the bill included more than a dozen substantive changes to the Senate version approved last month. The original version of the bill allowed public employees to bargain over wages and certain work conditions but not over topics such as health care, sick time, or pension benefits; required employees to pay at least 15% of health insurance costs; replaced automatic pay raises with future wage increases based on merit; abolished the right to strike for all public employees; and replaced existing law on work stoppages and binding arbitration with a progressive "dispute settlement" process that would resolve terms of employment through a mediator, a fact-finder, and finally a hearing panel composed of the legislative authority (e.g., a city council or a school board), if needed to resolve an impasse.
The final version of the bill keeps much of the previous version intact but made the following key changes:
- removes proposed jail time and/or fines as a possible contempt-of-court penalty for workers who unlawfully participate in strikes;
- restores the ability of police officers, firefighters, and other public safety workers to bargain over safety equipment;
- prohibits union contracts from requiring non-union employees affected by contracts to pay a "fair share" fee to union organizations;
- bans automatic deductions from employee paychecks that would support the unions' political action committees, except as allowed in Campaign Finance Law;
- removes provisions defining employee picketing and "direct dealings" by employees with certain public officials during labor negotiations as unfair labor practices;
- removes provision requiring the State Employment Relations Board to hold hearings for all unfair labor practice charges;
- reduces vote required for rejecting fact-finder recommendations from two-thirds to a simple majority;
- designates employer's last-best-offer as default agreement in certain dispute cases;
- establishes a process for placing last-best-offers of certain public employers on the local ballot for a vote;
- prohibits using the number or type of traffic tickets or other citations issued as a basis for determining merit or performance pay for police officers or state troopers;
- assigns State Board of Education to establish a statewide performance framework or guidelines for determining teacher merit or performance pay; and
- creates a state commission to foster healthy employer-labor relations and promote best practices.
Opponents of the legislation have vowed to put SB 5 before voters on a statewide referendum. A referendum first requires 1,000 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters be submitted to the Secretary of State and Attorney General. The state has 10 business days to validate the signatures and approve the petition. Once validated, referendum leaders will have until June 30 (90 days from the day the bill was signed and filed with the Secretary of State) to collect 231,149 signatures from registered voters, equal to 6% of the total of voters in the 2010 gubernatorial election. Additionally, signatures equal to 3% of total voters in last year's governor's race must come from at least 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. If the Secretary of State determines enough signatures were collected, the law will be put on hold until the ballot issue is decided in the November 8 election.
