This mainly pertains to the Ohio members here, but everyone can chime in. I haven't heard too much about this bill until now, since with my new job I work directly with (and sometimes actually in) a couple local high schools.

Senate Bill 5: All I can say is call your congressman to repeal it. Here's the scoop:

Proposals in the bill:

State workers:

*Eliminates collective bargaining for state workers, including higher education employees.

*Requires the Department of Administrative Services to develop a merit-based system of pay.

Local workers:

*Removes the requirement that deadlocked safety forces go to binding arbitration, instead extending the prior union contract for one year.

*Requires mediators to consider wages of employees who are not members of the union and does not allow them to consider future tax increases as part o an entity's ability to pay.

*Allows employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike.
*Removes health insurance from collective bargaining. Management will pick insurance policies, and employees must cover at least 20 percent of the cost.

*No longer requires that once a subject is included in a contract that it becomes a mandatory subject of future bargaining.

*Defines an "impasse" as a lack of agreement after 90 days. After that point, it requires each side to make public its last, best offer.

*Prohibits public employers from picking up extra employee pension contributions.

*Eliminates from state law automatic pay increases for experience and education.

*Eliminates from state law leave policies and automatic 15 sick days for teachers.

*Prohibits school districts from bargaining away certain management powers, such as the ability to deploy teachers to certain buildings.

*No longer makes longevity a deciding factor when management is deciding to make layoffs.

*Requires a public employer to publish on its website any changes in the union contract that impacts compensation of workers, including wages, length of service payments, and insurance coverage.

*Requires the employer and the State Employment Relations Board to publish the parties' offers on their websites before and after fact-finding is complete.

*Allows schools or local governments in fiscal emergency to terminate or modify a collective bargaining agreement.


Of course, since I'm not hired by the school system, this doesn't affect me, but everyone from teachers to bus drivers, (even local police and fire departments in some cases) but this mostly applies to schools and education will be affected by this bill. What I think is really unfair about this bill is the school that I work with at my company, they have 6 principals; 5 assistant principles (1 for each grade and the Athletic Director that doubles as an assistant principal) and a head principal. They're all on contracts -- they're not in a union, so they aren't affected at all by this bill. Now this bill is trying to destroy the unions that protect teachers. Basically if this bill passes an administrator can fire a teacher simply because they don't like them. That's it. If you want to fire an administrator the situation is no different even if this bill passes - you have to buy out their contract - teachers it's just too bad, so sad.

So I encourage all Ohioans to contact their local representative and voice your disagreement with this bill.



-- SIDE NOTE: PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD FRIENDLY! I know Politics is a touchy subject, but everyone here is an adult and should be able to communicate opinions in that manner, without turning hostile.

- Mike

 

Hi `Mike, the majority of the US States are out of money, and are having difficult times. Like us, they have to find a way to cutback so that they can survive...

Our country is paying it's bills with borrowed money, but it's going to catch `up with all of us `if we don't stop spending money we don't have...It's a very sad state of affairs 4-Sure.

I believe we have to take care of our own home first, before we go to so many neighbor's around our world and attempt to help them solve their problems..."We must lead by example, and not by force" (unless someone messes with `us, and then we will use our POWER) WOW ie. POWER COST BIG TIME 4-$URE

"We the People, must do all that we can by getting involved in the selecting of the ones that represent us...

Wish you & all in the Buckeye State GOOD LUCK...

 

Sounds like a lot of this could affect UPS.

It also sounds like since unions can consider non-union employees, my job could be affected by this. The ONLY way that could benefit me is keeping upper management from using me as their scape goat. But it sounds like a negative side could be considered. That being they could terminate me and not have to consider my years of service. Versus someone who's been there a fraction of the time I have. Right now they can not replace me with someone with less service or experience. It's discrimination.

 

I think this is ALSO the movement a lot of other states are taking to really harm pensions of civil servants.

If so, what the proposal are to affect our Fire/EMS/Police service is WRONG! The pension issue brought up is that a Fire/EMS/Police worker does not "earn" pension the same way someone in "big business" or working for a corporation gets a pension. They signed on to the job knowing based on years of service, they get a certain percentage of they pay based on the average of the top 30 months worked in the last 5 years of service. They signed on KNOWING that table of percentage to years of service stayed the same. Now, the local governments want to change those tables for ALL employees (regardless of your start date). If it goes through, it could adversely affect people planning to retire this year. This is WRONG, if you are going to change that table, it should be for people who's start dates are AFTER the motion passes, not people who have been working and yet to retire.

I understand our government is "tight" on money, but you still have to honor certain agreements with your staff.

 

Maybe the goverment should spend less money on war and more on education.

Education needs to be goverment funded and all teachers should be federal employees.

 

Just my humble opinion if I may...

I agree that government should spend less on war and more on education and such. In a perfect situation, that would be the case. In a perfect world there wouldn't be war. But that's beside the point.

For easier discussion, I'll call the U.S. "we". I know I'm in Canada. But for the sake of this conversation, I'll say "we" referring to the U.S.

Unfortunately we're in a war situation with no easy solution. If we pull out, it makes us look weak and like we gave up. This would result in the other side saying they beat us and they won. This would also tell terrorist groups (and other countries), that they don't have to beat us. All they have to do is hold out longer than us.

On the other hand, if we stay, we continue to fight an un-winnable ground war and continue to lose more of our brave men and women.

It's a horrible spot to be in. And it doesn't matter anymore WHY we're in it. The fact is, we are. That's all that matters now.

Canada is in the same dilemma. A lot of Canadian politicians are demanding the Canadian military pull out of Afghanistan. But there's been a commitment made in Canada's case. Not only would it make Canada look bad. But it would also make it look like Canada was abandoning the United State's efforts in the middle east.

That's just my humble opinion. I don't know what I would do if I was in charge. Either way, I support all the troops out there putting their life on the line so we can live a better life.


Education is arguably the most important thing in a person's life. Next to health. And seeing the condition Detroit Public Schools are in, education needs all the funding it can get!

 

This is a very sensitive subject. As a union member I am not pro union. They do serve a very important place in protecting worker rights, but I feel they have become to powerful. I can only speak to Oregon law as that is what I have studied. In Oregon we are an at will state, any employee can be terminated with out cause or notification. The union does protect employes from unfair accusations or attack from superiors. In Oregon it is easier to fire a principal then a teacher and neither has complete protection. I feel we need to put an emphasis on education as our country is falling behind. In other countries being a teacher is a great honor, not so in the United States. In my district the union is currently doing everything it can to keep and protect the most senior workers, even though some of them can not do the job without daily help. Education in Oregon is in dire straits and something needs to be done, unfortunately my unions, are not apart of the solution and I wish they would restructure. You find in Education, in my experience, the Union's are more concerned about the dollar then the kids. They would rather maintain wages and lose teachers then lower wages and keep a better product as it weakens their bargaining power. I have some ideas on how to solve some of these issues, but it will not be easy. I am very passionate about this subject, so I will stop now. I don't want to offend anyone and I think an open dialogue about education is the key to reform.

 

Around here, the teachers and principals are in the same union. But the principals can't go on strike. However, when the teachers get a new contract, they're also bargaining for the principals. If that makes any sense to you.

I think the education system is messed up in a lot of places. Some parts of a district will get brand new, state of the art, multi-million dollar schools that seem to rival the Taj Mahal. While other parts are stuck in old, broken down schools that should be condemned.

 

If the U.S. were to pull out of the middle east, this would not be the first war we "left" (Vietnam, if I recall my history, we did not finish what we set out to do).
I do support the troops, I want them to do the best job they can, but in my personal opinion, I feel our country is currently in the middle east for the wrong reasons. We started on a hunt to "stop terrorism" and to "find weapons of mass destruction". The Bush administration got us all hot and heavy in the middle east after 9-11 (and I understand why, I think any administration would be foolish to sit back after 9-11)... But I feel we lost our purpose and it just feels like the U.S. is there with no real pupose or objective anymore. I sincerely feel our government needs to work on ways to back our troops (or most our troops) out and do what is needed to protect the safety of the U.S. and not be in the middle of another culture's civil war at this point.

Sorry, I'll get off that soap box.

As for government money and spending, about 10+ years ago, my city's school system came out to the people and said "Hey we woke up today and found we are 12 MILLION in debt! We need MORE MONEY, we need you to vote on our levy". I feel that was wrong, as the people (such as the treasure) has an obligation to project budgets and when we'll be running out of funds needing an increase (none of which were done and we were magically grossly behind). I voted against the levy as the people that got us in this debt were still in their same positions, if you mis-managed my money once, the answer is not for me to give you MORE to mis-manage, first, I need new people in those positions to begin PROPERLY managing money, then we'll talk about more money to fix this problem. Just a little over 50% of voters did vote the levy in and after that, our school board then said "Hey, good news, we're still in debt, but the number is SMALLER then 12 Million". Uhm, so, what I just heard is "we mis-managed money and we don't know how to accurately tell you how much in debt we are, just give us more money".

In a down economy, it's hard for people to want to give up more money for taxes. Government bodies need to make sure they manage what they get properly and present it properly to the tax payer.

OK, I'll get off my second soap box. :-)

 

You have a point about the mis use of funds. Every entity including individuals spends money on stuff that ends up not working or was frivolous. The key is to have stable funding and stay with in those means. The hard thing in Oregon is school district never no for sure how much they will get. They have to guess and budget to a moving number. It would be lik your boss telling you to plan on getting 3,000 a month and then having to plan for it coming in any where from 1500 some months to 10,000 others. Like a salesmen only on commission. This instability makes it hard to plan and create reforms that are needed. In Oregon the legislature has an independent group look at education and present to it each year, what is needed to fund education at the current level and what is needed to fund education at a high level. For next year the high level funding would be 8.3 billion and the curent service level funding would be 6.7 billion. Schools will get 5.6 billion. This means that they have to do less with more. At some point we as teachers started becoming responsible for not only teaching kids science, math, writing, and social studies, but also we are slowing taking over the social role parents used to play in raising children. Of course there are still great parents out there, but more and more we not only teach we have to instill moral values, and social skills. Things the "good kids" get at home. We spend a fortune on behavior teacher because in the United States all kids have a right to an education even if they bully and start fights every day. Until we as a society define the role of education and redefine the role of parents, we will continue to see a failing project. I have had 2nd and 3rd graders whose parents did not bring them to conferences, but there probation officer did as mom and dad were to busy.