Ohio repeals law limiting unions’ collective bargaining
Ohio voters repealed a law limiting collective bargaining for public employees enacted by first-term Gov. John Kasich and Republican lawmakers, buoying Democrats heading into the 2012 national elections.
The measure, which affected about 360,000 teachers, police officers, firefighters and other government workers, was losing 63 percent to 37 percent, with 19 percent of the precincts reporting, according to unofficial results tabulated by the Associated Press.
U.S. voters also decided $16.5 billion in bond issues in states including California, Texas, Arkansas and determined the fate of a Mississippi initiative that would make it the first state to ban abortion by declaring that life begins at conception. New Jersey Republicans also sought to gain legislative seats and voters in Kentucky and Mississippi elected governors.
The outcome of the Ohio vote has national implications, emboldening Democrats for President Barack Obama’s re-election bid in 2012 and discouraging Republicans in other states from trying to limit the scope of government, said John C. Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
“Key Democratic constituency groups, like labor unions, have very much gotten back into the political game,” Green said in a telephone interview before the vote.
Like Wisconsin
The measure restricted bargaining to wages, hours, working conditions, bars strikes and allows government entities to impose contracts in an impasse. It also required workers to cover at least 15 percent of their health-care insurance premiums and contribute 10 percent of their pay to a pension fund.
A similar bill pushed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, also a Republican, triggered weeks of protests at the Capitol in Madison and spurred recall elections in nine Senate districts.
Unlike the Wisconsin law, which exempted police and firefighters, the Ohio bill included them. We Are Ohio featured safety forces in their ads.
Kasich, 59, has said the law was needed to help local governments control costs.
“We’ll see what the people have to say,” Kasich said at a Nov. 4 rally in support of the law in Mansfield. “We’ll reflect on it, we’ll think of what they say. But I know this: The problem isn’t going to go away for local communities.”
Bringing It Back
Portions of the law struck down today may be re-introduced next year, House Speaker William G. Batchelder told reporters Nov. 3. Even so, Republican lawmakers, many of whom will be up for re-election then, must be careful not to thwart the will of the voters, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
“Politicians that vote for that, whether it’s in a big hunk or in little pieces, are going to pay a price,” Trumka said in a telephone interview before the vote.
The repeal may weaken Kasich, said William C. Binning, chairman emeritus of the political-science department at Youngstown State University and a former Mahoning County Republican Party chairman. He cautioned, though, against reading too much into the vote.
“Had ‘Yes’ prevailed, I think Ohio would have been out of the picture for Obama, and now it’s in,” Binning said in a telephone interview. “That’s not to say he’s going to win; I just think he’s going to be competitive.”