For those of you keeping an eye on worker rights in the aftermath of the six recalls in Wisconsin last week, Ohio is gearing up for the repeal of SB5 - the anti-collective bargaining law for public workers - this fall.
Just Saturday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer printed a very interesting editorial calling for a last minute compromise before the August 30 deadline for the balloting of the referendum.
The setup:
We have said from the beginning of this acrimonious discussion that Ohio's collective bargaining laws for public employees -- pushed through a Democrat-run legislature and signed by a very pro-labor Gov. Richard F. Celeste in 1983 -- should be changed to reflect new economic realities and to give state and local officials greater management flexibility.
The regret:
Instead, they piled on provisions to cripple or even kill public employee unions by cutting their income, making it easier to launch decertification elections and outlawing strikes -- even though the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission's analysis of SB 5 noted that there have been only three public employee strikes in Ohio since mid-2008.
The horror:
That overreach was what so inflamed union members, brought thousands of protesters to the Statehouse last winter and prompted labor and its Democratic allies to begin laying the groundwork for a referendum on SB 5 even before it passed the legislature and was signed into law by Kasich.
The reckoning:
It's also because labor has collected a record 915,456 valid signatures to put Issue 2 on this November's ballot. Early public polls give SB 5's foes a substantial lead -- although they also show that elements of the new law are quite popular. Outside groups are preparing to spend tens of millions of dollars in Ohio, just as they have on recall elections in Wisconsin.
The Bold Face Equivocation for "Compromise" now that FAIL is writ large:
Kasich was elected not to settle scores, but to shake up a stodgy state -- and he has worked overtime at that. Now he needs to realize that an SB 5 ballot fight is like steering the Titanic toward the iceberg: Everyone loses if they collide.
There is still time for Kasich, who has not been directly involved in recent back-channel talks, to extend an olive branch to his political opponents. If a deal can be reached by the Aug. 30 deadline to withdraw Issue 2 from the ballot, Kasich can alter this state's image for the better. And if the governor asks, his adversaries will owe the voters whose support they seek a good-faith effort at compromise. So will his Republican allies in the General Assembly, who could render November's referendum moot anytime they wanted by passing a less incendiary substitute for SB 5.
Maybe the peace negotiations we envision won't succeed, but Ohio should not go to war over SB 5 just because neither side was willing to try for something better.
How's it go?
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you..." (not necessarily from Mahatma Gandhi as I've read on wikiquote). And then they scurry and call all parties wrong and for compromise now that they look like they're going down:
Yet, in truth, neither side will win from a bitter campaign whose outcome will prove unsatisfactory to millions of Ohioans who like neither the status quo nor the toxins in SB 5.