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Unions stand in opposition to HB 675 to protect collective bargaining rights

dec. 4, 2002 - The entire state house press corps showed up today at a 1 p.m. media conference called by OCSEA. In solidarity, the heads of all public sector labor unions and the Ohio AFL-CIO President Bill Berga voiced their opposition to provisions in HB 675 which would change Ohio's collective bargaining law.

OCSEA Executive Director Irwin Scharfeld told the packed room that the language inserted into HB 675 is the worst of back door politics. "This is a major affront to labor—making an 11th hour behind closed doors change to the 20-year-old collective bargaining law with no involvement with the unions it effects."

The construction spending bill cleared the floor late Tuesday evening, and was anticipated to come for a vote before today's end.

Representatives from the following unions stood together today against HB 675:

• 1199
• OSTA
• OEA
• OAPSE
• AFSCME Council 8
• FOP
• Ohio AFL-CIO

DAS Director of Administrative and Support Services said, "It is good to know that OCSEA has so many good friends in labor. Many of these leaders were in the middle of important meetings and yet they put their agendas aside to join us in the press conference. Let's remember this whenever they need our help on a picket line or other place."

According to the Cleveland Plaindealer, State Budget Director Tom Johnson told Grendell and other members of a late-night House Finance Committee meeting that the 541-page bill's provisions all were proper. "They are not unlike past capital bills, and we believe they follow not only the letter of the law but the intent of the law," Johnson said.

OCSEA has a different view, OCSEA Communications Director Peter Wray told the Plaindealer: "It shows they have no real confidence in these proposals if a lack of public discussion is the only way to get them passed."

"A capital spending bill should be a capital spending bill and not be packed full of people's pet side projects," Wray said. "These are the kind of back-room, insider deals that have turned people away from politics."

Speaker of the House Larry Householder said he had made a commitment to the Gov. Bob Taft to pass HB 675 without amendments, and conceded that he didn't know about this collective bargaining issue. Householder said he would take a look at it.

The bill provides money for prisons, colleges and state hospitals, plus coveted dollars for technology initiatives and hometown bricks-and-mortar projects around the state. But when the final package was unwrapped yesterday, it also included tweaks to existing law that had little to do with money for construction projects.

Among its other nonmonetary provisions, the bill:

• Allows fact-finder reports in state collective bargaining disputes to be resolved by the seven-member State Controlling Board, rather than by a vote of the entire legislature.
  
• Extends public health care benefits to members of appointed state boards and commissions - venues where many term-limited state lawmakers might end up after their tenures expire.
  
• Increases fees for amusement ride inspections.
  
• The bill includes an influx in funding to Gov. Bob Taft's Third Frontier technology initiative, allotting $50 million to high-tech research projects or high-wage job creation through a new Third Frontier Commission.
  
• It also establishes an Innovation Ohio Loan Program to push forward that effort. Other big-ticket items, Johnson said, include $314.2 million for construction and renovation of primary and secondary school buildings, and up to $9 million per year for vocational school facilities. The state's colleges and universities would receive almost $400 million for campus-specific projects and basic renovations, and $22 million more in incentives and grants for research, development and scholarship.

Bill Analysis as reported by House Finance & Appropriations Committee