Ohio Turns Back a Law Limiting Unions’ Rights

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
NYT

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A year after Republicans swept legislatures across the country, voters in Ohio delivered their verdict 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 Ohio’s governor, John R. Kasich, a prominent 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 at the polls. A similar bill also passed in Wisconsin.

The vote gave a new lease on life to public sector labor unions in Ohio, which had been under tremendous pressure to get the bill repealed. Failure would have brought not only the loss of most of their bargaining rights, including the right to strike, but would also have called into question what had long been their central strength — their ability to organize and deliver votes.

Labor leaders said their victory contained an important message for Republicans.

(More here.)