Ohio Wages Fierce Fight on Collective Bargaining

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
NYT

COLUMBUS, Ohio — “Hi, Teresa,” said Phil Hayes, a high school social studies teacher. “I’m voting no on Senate Bill 5 because it can make my class size larger and can make it harder for me to be a teacher.”

That was how Mr. Hayes plunged into yet another call as he and a dozen other union members at a labor phone bank made hundreds of calls to urge Ohioans to repeal one of Gov. John R. Kasich’s signal achievements: the enactment of Senate Bill 5, a law that weakens public employees’ bargaining rights.

The push to repeal the law, enacted by the Republican-led legislature in March, will be one of the biggest battles in the country this Election Day, with the law’s supporters and opponents expected to spend in total more than $20 million in the fight.

Supporters say the law is vital to curb labor’s power and to hold down state and local compensation costs during an era of increasing budget deficits. But opponents — who collected 1.3 million signatures to place the repeal vote on the Nov. 8 ballot — say the law unfairly scapegoats public employees, and weakens unions, a powerful ally of the Democrats.

(More here.)