I still don't understand what the purpose of Issue 3 is.  It seems purely symbolic in its best light.

 

What's "unbalanced" about the 1983 law?

 

I'm voting against Issue 3 simply because there is a lot of other crap that was slipped in that has nothing to do with "Obamacare."

Issue 2 fails

By Joe Vardon and Jim Siegel

The Columbus Dispatch

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - 9:48 PM

 

Senate Bill 5 is dead.

 

The Republican-backed limits on collective bargaining for 360,000 public employees in Ohio were squashed by voters through a resounding defeat of Issue 2.

 

With more than 1.2 million votes counted, Ohioans were turning down Issue 2 - 62 percent to 38 percent.  The Associated Press called the election in favor of the opponents of the issue at 9:16 p.m.

 

MORE: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/11/08/1-issue-2-election.html

"When asked about the people’s message, Mr. Kasich said, “They might have said it was too much too soon.”

Ya Think???

 

November 8, 2011

Ohio Turns Back a Law Limiting Unions’ Rights

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A year after Republicans swept legislatures across the country, voters in Ohio delivered their verdict Tuesday on a centerpiece of the conservative legislative agenda, striking down a law that restricted public workers’ rights to bargain collectively.

 

The landslide vote to repeal the bill — 62 percent to 38 percent, according to preliminary results from Ohio’s secretary of state — was a slap to Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican who had championed the law as a tool for cities to cut costs. The bill passed in March on a wave of enthusiasm among Republicans fresh from victories. A similar bill also passed in Wisconsin.

 

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/politics/ohio-turns-back-a-law-limiting-unions-rights.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

If the cops and firemen hadn't been included, Issue 2 would not have even made the ballot.

Issue 2 gets rejected by 60% of the voters and it appears a little over half the school levies around the state failed also.

 

Westerville now faces cuts to eliminate all sports and extracurricular activities, bussing will be cut to state minimums, and 175 teaching jobs will be cut.  Rejection of the Hilliard levy could mean cuts of 93 teaching jobs and even higher fees on top of what parents already pay for sports and activities.  Dublin's failed levy could mean cuts of over 100 jobs. 

 

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/11/09/westerville-to-cut-sports-after-levy-fails.html

 

In Cincinnati, 6 of the 11 area levies failed.  "Next for Cincinnati Schools: Layoffs" 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111108/NEWS0108/111090347

 

 

 

 

If the cops and firemen hadn't been included, Issue 2 would not have even made the ballot.

There's lots of things in SB5 that, had they not been included, might have made a difference. I agree that adding cops and firemen was one of the biggest nails in the coffin.

Issue 2 gets rejected by 60% of the voters and it appears a little over half the school levies around the state failed also.

 

Westerville now faces cuts to eliminate all sports and extracurricular activities, bussing will be cut to state minimums, and 175 teaching jobs will be cut. ...snip... 

According to Cleveland's Largest Newspaper ^TM, Ohio spends $500 million/year on charter schools.  That is a wasteful duplication of facilities, personnel, and other overhead.  The money would be better spent if dispersed to local public schools.

Issue 2 gets rejected by 60% of the voters and it appears a little over half the school levies around the state failed also.

 

Westerville now faces cuts to eliminate all sports and extracurricular activities, bussing will be cut to state minimums, and 175 teaching jobs will be cut.  Rejection of the Hilliard levy could mean cuts of 93 teaching jobs and even higher fees on top of what parents already pay for sports and activities.  Dublin's failed levy could mean cuts of over 100 jobs. 

 

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/11/09/westerville-to-cut-sports-after-levy-fails.html

 

In Cincinnati, 6 of the 11 area levies failed.  "Next for Cincinnati Schools: Layoffs" 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111108/NEWS0108/111090347

 

I don't see the connection.  Are you suggesting that if SB5 had passed then these cuts would not have to be made despite the levies failing?  How so?  Or is it just more mindless propaganda?

 

This post seems more appropriate for the Kasich thread to discuss the massive cuts he made to local budgets which are causing these layoffs short of a decision by the locals to raise their taxes.

 

And for those who haven't noticed, Local 93 (Cleveland Firefighters union) and CARE (Cleveland EMS union) have been diligently working with the City of Cleveland on merging the Divisions of Fire and EMS, which will save the City a boat load of money on providing those services.  The merger would technically violate both contracts, but the unions aren't as unreasonable as some would have you believe and they recognize that cuts must be made.  They will ensure that the merger is done with the input of line duty officers and not solely through some accounting office in City Hall, which will help to ensure that the adequacy of services and protection of our emergency responders remains.

Oh yeah, to the folks who rightfully fought to repeal this travesty...

 

 

 

And to the union busting dreamers... 

 

 

 

I'm not suggesting anything except many of the same majority who voted to repeal Issue 2 also voted down tax levies.  draw your own conclusions on anything else

I still don't get your point.  The people who voted down SB5 voted for the status quo.  The people who voted down tax levies voted for the status quo.  Under the status quo, layoffs are allowed to deal with budget shortfalls created by Kasich's cuts to local government funds.  So are cuts in administrative costs, btw.

I guess we want to see mass layoffs instead of shared pain, since it looks like that is the direction we are going. Hopefully, we can pass something similar to SB5 with the carve outs for emergency responders.

^^^I think that in order to determine who voted for the levies vs who voted against SB5 you'd have to get much deeper into the vote totals. I think you'd find the areas where the levies failed had a much closer margin on Issue 2 than areas where the levies passed.

^^Wrong.  Ohioans recognize that there has to be some shared pain.  They recognized that before SB5 was even a glimmer in Kasich's eyes.  That's why public employee unions were agreeing to give-backs, wage re-openers, and concession agreements before he was even elected and before he ravaged local government budgets in order to make the false claim that he balanced the state budget without raising taxes.  That is why arbitrators have been favoring the positions of local governments in any matters with cost implications for the past 3 years.  That is the way the system was designed to work, no matter what the Blaze tells you.

 

The doomsday crap people buy into never ceases to amaze me.

 

Oh wait.... it just dawned on me that you might have been directing your comment at the people who refused to give that extra little bit to their school district to maintain the services regardless of what happened with SB5.  I  can agree with that ;)

I still don't understand why school funding hasn't been reformed.  It doesn't seem all that complicated to me - pass a mandatory tax that isn't voted on by anyone that goes into a state education fund and distribute accordingly.  If you're going to mandate public education by law, you should similarly mandate the funding for it.  I think that would at least help resolve some of the tension around levies, budgets, etc.

I still don't understand why school funding hasn't been reformed.  It doesn't seem all that complicated to me - pass a mandatory tax that isn't voted on by anyone that goes into a state education fund and distribute accordingly.  If you're going to mandate public education by law, you should similarly mandate the funding for it.  I think that would at least help resolve some of the tension around levies, budgets, etc.

 

I don't understand why the state consitution hasn't been amended to butt the courts out of it, then it's strictly a legislative issue.

Butt the courts out of what?

Here's why I would say it was an electoral "perfect storm" of sorts, which the unions likely saw coming...hence their obstinate disinterest in any form of compromise legislation.

 

First of all, big mistake in including the normally pro-GOP and GOP-leaning firemen.

 

Second of all, off year elections benefit highly motivated groups.  This also worked in 1997 when the unions overturned much needed worker's compensation reform.

 

Third of all,  local government officials that might benefit from this legislation would be less likely to speak out in favor of it during their own election campaigns. 

 

 

Butt the courts out of what?

 

DeRolph v. Ohio inserted the courts into Ohio's school funding system, based upon the Ohio Constitution.

I still don't understand why school funding hasn't been reformed.  It doesn't seem all that complicated to me - pass a mandatory tax that isn't voted on by anyone that goes into a state education fund and distribute accordingly.  If you're going to mandate public education by law, you should similarly mandate the funding for it.  I think that would at least help resolve some of the tension around levies, budgets, etc.

 

I'm surprised that you would advocate for such a plan.  I think districts like Solon would send more to the state than they receive back.

 

But anyways, for the reasons you cited, I would love it if Ohio moved in that direction for education funding.  These constant levies can be really divisive.

 

On a related, but still off-topic note, I was surprisingly pleased to see that not only did the CH-UH levy pass, but it did so by a somewhat significant margin.  I thought for sure that thing was going down in flames.

...hence their obstinate disinterest in any form of compromise legislation.

 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

Kasich and the Ohio GOP shut everyone who didn't agree with them out of the process.  The "compromise" offered in August was a political ploy that most people saw right through.

I still don't understand why school funding hasn't been reformed.  It doesn't seem all that complicated to me - pass a mandatory tax that isn't voted on by anyone that goes into a state education fund and distribute accordingly.  If you're going to mandate public education by law, you should similarly mandate the funding for it.  I think that would at least help resolve some of the tension around levies, budgets, etc.

 

I'm surprised that you would advocate for such a plan.  I think districts like Solon would send more to the state than they receive back.

 

But anyways, for the reasons you cited, I would love it if Ohio moved in that direction for education funding.  These constant levies can be really divisive.

 

On a related, but still off-topic note, I was surprisingly pleased to see that not only did the CH-UH levy pass, but it did so by a somewhat significant margin.  I thought for sure that thing was going down in flames.

 

I tend to think funding isn't the main issue with a school's performance.  There's a big role the community and parents play and something tells me the parents in other school districts aren't suddenly going to be better parents because their school suddenly has adequate funding.

...hence their obstinate disinterest in any form of compromise legislation.

 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

Kasich and the Ohio GOP shut everyone who didn't agree with them out of the process.  The "compromise" offered in August was a political ploy that most people saw right through.

 

I agree that it was done pretty stupidly, but did they?  Or did the unions just refuse to participate at all, with the idea of a referendum in mind?

 

Yes, I know about the games with Seitz and such, but that was later in the day.

Issue 2 gets rejected by 60% of the voters and it appears a little over half the school levies around the state failed also.

 

Westerville now faces cuts to eliminate all sports and extracurricular activities, bussing will be cut to state minimums, and 175 teaching jobs will be cut.  Rejection of the Hilliard levy could mean cuts of 93 teaching jobs and even higher fees on top of what parents already pay for sports and activities.  Dublin's failed levy could mean cuts of over 100 jobs. 

 

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/11/09/westerville-to-cut-sports-after-levy-fails.html

 

In Cincinnati, 6 of the 11 area levies failed.  "Next for Cincinnati Schools: Layoffs" 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111108/NEWS0108/111090347

 

Sigh.  My sister is a public school teacher and was a relatively ardent anti-SB5 campaigner.  She also teaches in the Westerville school district.  Since she has very little seniority, there's a strong chance that she's one of those 175 teachers that might be cut (though of course it's not a done deal yet, and she does teach in one of the "core" academic disciplines that are generally harder to cut than disciplines that are generally perceived as more peripheral to the traditional curriculum).

 

The union may also give concessions in order to preserve those teaching positions--as Hts noted earlier, unions have been willing to give some compromises.  We'll see.

AGAIN (since no one answered the first time)..... how would the passage of Issue 2 have staved off the need for layoffs within school systems that have seen their budgets massively slashed by Kasich?

...hence their obstinate disinterest in any form of compromise legislation.

 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

Kasich and the Ohio GOP shut everyone who didn't agree with them out of the process.  The "compromise" offered in August was a political ploy that most people saw right through.

 

I agree that it was done pretty stupidly, but did they?  Or did the unions just refuse to participate at all, with the idea of a referendum in mind?

 

Yes, I know about the games with Seitz and such, but that was later in the day.

 

The former.  Unions and democrats in the General Assembly were completely shut out of the process.  First, Sen. Jones and other Kasich cohorts just wrote the bill.  Then, when labor attorneys from the employers' side told them how impractical the bill was, they amended it overnight to address some of those concerns.

 

Only after 1.3 million signatures were collected and the polls clearly showed SB5 heading for defeat did Kasich and Batchletter offer a sit-down to negotiate some changes to SB5.  The unions offered to sit down if SB5 was tossed out and negotiations could begin from the proper starting point (i.e. the 1983 law and amendments thereto).  Kasich said no and that was that.

It certainly isn't the case for all districts as some have made every other cut they can think of.  However, I know my local district used a layoff number during the levy campaign that was calculated as if layoffs were the only way the board was going to bridge the gap when the board wouldn't have actually done so.  So maybe that can be of some hope for your sister as well Gramayre. 

AGAIN (since no one answered the first time)..... how would the passage of Issue 2 have staved off the need for layoffs within school systems that have seen their budgets massively slashed by Kasich?

 

[crickets]

AGAIN (since no one answered the first time)..... how would the passage of Issue 2 have staved off the need for layoffs within school systems that have seen their budgets massively slashed by Kasich?

 

You are the only person I have seen who has said that it would not enable school district employers to cut wages and benefits in order to spread pain and preserve jobs rather than concentrate pain by forcing layoffs on the few (generally the most junior) to preserve the current benefit packages of more senior union workers.  This spreading of pain is what happened in Wisconsin and has prevented layoffs there.  If you are right and this bill would not have given Ohio public employers the contract-reformation (and bargaining) power its analogue gave Wisconsin public employers, then that is a serious flaw in the bill, but I simply find that far too difficult to believe.

You think SB5 would have enabled the Westerville School District to cut your sister's contractually set wages and benefits?  How so?

 

Of course, when it came time to negotiate a new contract, the big ole nanny state would have joined the bargaining table and told the district it can negotiate whatever health care and pension contributions it wants..... up to what nanny state has deemed too much.  Uh-oh... I'm smelling one of those AM radio slippery slopes..... I mean, if the state could do that, then what is to stop it from telling my employer that I can earn no more than minimum wage.

I think it would have enabled them to shed rules that favor seniority and that prevent the sharing of pain when the few at the bottom can just be sacrificed entirely instead, which is what the current system essentially guarantees through a combination of seniority protections and resource constraints.

and Issue 2 would have capped sick & vacation hours stopping the practice which led to $3.7 million payout this year to union school employees in Cleveland alone...  Add this up for all the districts across the state and you're quickly in the tens of millions, I think they could retain or rehire a few teachers for that much. 

 

Add up similar figures for police, fire & other public employee unions and you quickly see how badly these reforms were needed in the state.  Instead voters were lied to that Issue 2 would hurt schools and make cities less safe...

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/05/retiring_cleveland_schools_wor.html

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110213/NEWS0108/102130403/City-pay-out-93M-retirees

 

 

City workers and union leaders, however, emphasize that employees who build up huge leave balances are simply abiding by rules agreed to by the city in contract negotiations.

 

"There are two sides in any negotiation, so the city at some point obviously saw these things as being in its interest, too," said Diana Frey, president of the Cincinnati Organized and Dedicated Employees, a union with some of the most modest leave policies in city government.

 

Why exactly would a city with a $55 million budget defecit not take steps to shortcut these types practices?  Because they can't or because they chose not to?  Probably both

If SB5 were going to set a precedent/standard moving forward that police, firefighters, and teachers would be working for peanuts, then it was never worth it.  Let the state and local governments make other cuts and move money around in other ways to appropriate the funds necessary to ensure that classrooms and police and fire stations are not only staffed as necessary but the employees are fairly compensated for the work being done.

^so you're ok with the practice of letting unused sick & vacation hours accumulate for years or even decades, then be cashed in at a rate which is much much more than what the original rate was? 

 

Better yet, what other cuts should the state & local governments make?  Or how should they "move money around"?  I think you meant to say "keep kicking the can down the road..."

^so you're ok with the practice of letting unused sick & vacation hours accumulate for years or even decades, then be cashed in at a rate which is much much more than what the original rate was? 

 

Better yet, what other cuts should the state & local governments make?  Or how should they "move money around"?  I think you meant to say "keep kicking the can down the road..."

 

I don't know where the money is, but I'm sure it's there and these services should absolutely be priority right behind road maintenance.  But one thing I'm certain they should have done is waiting to repeal the estate tax (or, here's a novel idea, not repealed it at all).  Now if you told me with certainty that in the long run repealing the estate tax would produce MORE in revenues for local governments (because more wealthy seniors would keep Ohio as their state of residence) then I'd be all for it.  But in this economy and with Ohio's reputation, I simply do not believe it. 

 

As for your point about sick/vacation day cash-ins, you're right, that's not fair, but little things like that don't need sweeping, punitive legislation to correct.

On a broader level... some interesting thoughts on the aftermath of Tuesday's voting....

 

Back to Common Sense at the Polls

New York Times

Published: November 9, 2011

 

 

It might have been “too much too soon,” a chastened Gov. John Kasich of Ohio admitted on Tuesday night, after his state’s voters overwhelmingly rejected his attempt to break public employee unions. He certainly was right about “too much,” an analysis that also applies to other examples of Republican overreach around the country that were kicked into the gutter: an anti-abortion amendment in Mississippi, a voting restriction in Maine, the radical anti-immigrant agenda of a politician in Arizona.

 

These policies, and similar ones in other states, were passed in an arrogant frenzy by a Tea Party-tide of Republicans elected in 2010. Many of them decided that they had a mandate to dismantle some of the basic protections and restrictions of government. They went too far, and weary voters had to drag them back toward the center.

 

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/opinion/back-to-common-sense-at-the-polls.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

Not all public employees have buy-back provisions for sick time and vacation hours.  Some have a use it or lose it policy each calendar year.  Others have a use it or lose it policy before separation.  The ones who do have buy-back provisions, were given those in exchange for other concessions in past negotiations the public employer desired, such as lower wages or deferring compensation or increasing the OT threshold above national standards.  Consider this for example, Cleveland Firefighters make significantly less in base salary than many of their suburban counterparts, despite the fact that the suburbs have only a fraction of the structural fires Cleveland does each year.  Their job is much more dangerous, yet they make less.  Why?.... because they have traded those higher wages for increased benefits and staffing.  Now, the state wants to nullify all those years of bargaining?  The firefighters don't get to take back their concessions.  That's not right.  That's not fair.  However, nothing is stopping the city from negotiating for further concessions.  In fact, they already have.

If the cops and firemen hadn't been included, Issue 2 would not have even made the ballot.

If cops and firemen hadn't been included it would have exposed SB5 for what it really was: A political effort to attack organized labor. If cops and firemen hadn't been included, some of the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse (good benefits & retirement, people retiring at 50, after 30 years, with full benefits) would keep their bargaining rights -- clearly demonstrating that this was never about saving money.

^Right on point.

And it WAS a political attack on organized labor no matter how the Republicans tried to spin it or market it as saving taxpayers money.  In fact, why would one even question this...this is what Republicans do and have done for decades in various ways...I certainly don't think they are embarrassed about it...it is their ideology...they just know they have to be sneaky about it to get their agenda passed.

If the cops and firemen hadn't been included, Issue 2 would not have even made the ballot.

If cops and firemen hadn't been included it would have exposed SB5 for what it really was: A political effort to attack organized labor.

 

Maybe so.  But Celeste - Branstool was a political attack in favor of organized labor, and blatantly so.  Geese and ganders come to mind.

Can you expand upon that E Rocc?  How exactly was the 1983 a political attack in favor of organized labor?  Simply because the Republicans opposed it?  The law granted collective bargaining "rights" to public employees.  Before then, they had no "right" to collectively bargain.  And it established a system to manage the resulting negotiations.  I keep reading your insinuations about how the current law is tilted towards organized labor, but yet you have not given any specifics on why that is so.  Please explain. 

Not sure if this was already posted, but here are some nifty precinct-level maps of Cuyahoga County from Cleveland.com showing the voting for Issue 2 and Issue 3.  The Issue 3 results were the most interesting, IMHO: check out the Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights votes against Issue 3.

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2011/11/issue_2_and_3_voting_trends_in.html

That's not surprising.  Interesting, but not surprising.  Not to take this too far off-topic, but I had to read Issue 3 a few times to make sure I wouldn't burn Granny's christmas cookies by voting no.

^Also don't want to take this off topic, but the first time I read the ballot language for Issue 3 was when I stepped in the voting booth...I almost started laughing out loud right then and there...who ever was responsible for that language is a genius and deserves a big raise from his boss.

I guess that's what I found interesting.  Could be that SH and CH voters were more likely to have the combination of being pro-Obamacare AND being well-informed enough to know that's what Issue 3 was about.  And some of those SH/CH precincts were more against Issue 3 than they were against Issue 2.

But it wasn't really about ObamaCare at all.  In the minds of its supporters it was, but that is a detachment from reality.  The only effect it could potentially have is to prevent the OHIO legislature from passing something akin to RomneyCare.  Symbolic at best.

Cleveland's Largest Newspaper:

 

"Part of that doubtless was Issue 3's innocuous ballot language that purported to guarantee "freedom" to make health care choices. Everyone loves freedom. But the fine print on Issue 3 actually ties the hands of Ohioans to craft state-level reforms. Even worse, it guarantees uncertainty and litigation because its language appears to limit the state's ability to act on almost any issue that involves health care or insurance."

 

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/ballotboard/2011/3-language.pdf

 

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/11/the_time_bomb_that_is_issue_3.html

Expect a "right to work" amendment to be included on the 2012 ballot.  The RNC is going to shat themselves if that happens.  No Republican candidate has ever won a presidential election without winning Ohio.

Expect a "right to work" amendment to be included on the 2012 ballot.  The RNC is going to shat themselves if that happens.  No Republican candidate has ever won a presidential election without winning Ohio.

 

The state GOP is already trying to shut that down.  What I am trying to figure out is how they need so few signatures on the ballot.

 

Sometimes I wonder if some of these people are shills for the Dems.  Obama's thrown private sector (especially manufacturing and manufacturing related) labor under the bus.  No action at all on "card check" for the two years he had Congress, and he's been pushing forward on Mexican trucks despite the Teamsters and west coast longshoremen quite rightly having kittens over *that*.  He'd have serious primary opposition if we didn't insist on giving them a common enemy.