Ohio Chamber to back union law in ballot fight

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press Writer

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Cham­ber of Com­merce pledged Wednes­day to put money and the polit­i­cal clout of its 6,000 busi­ness mem­bers behind the state’s new col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law.

Vot­ers in Novem­ber will con­sider a bal­lot ques­tion seek­ing a repeal of the law, which would let pub­lic worker unions nego­ti­ate on wages but not health care, sick time or pen­sion ben­e­fits. The board mem­bers of the state’s largest busi­ness advo­cacy group voted in a Wednes­day meet­ing to defend the law and to also back an effort to keep Ohioans from being required to buy health insurance.

The board did not decide how much to money it planned to spend in defense of the con­tentious col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing leg­is­la­tion, said Ohio Cham­ber spokes­woman Julie Wag­ner Feasel. The board mem­bers also did not com­mit any dol­lars in back­ing a pro­posed amend­ment to Ohio’s con­sti­tu­tion that would pro­hibit any fed­eral, state or local law from forc­ing Ohioans to par­tic­i­pate in a health care system.

On both bal­lot issues though, the Ohio Cham­ber plans lever­age sup­port from its mem­bers through newslet­ters and e-mails, Feasel said. The group also wants to work with other local cham­bers to edu­cate voters.

Andrew E. Doehrel, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Ohio Cham­ber, said that in its deci­sion to defend the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law, the board “rec­og­nized the fun­da­men­tal imbal­ance” between the cost of gov­ern­ment and Ohio’s eco­nomic reality.

“By com­mit­ting the Chamber’s resources, finan­cial and oth­er­wise, to this impor­tant endeavor, Ohio’s job cre­ators are reit­er­at­ing the mes­sage that Ohio must be open for busi­ness,” Doehrel said in a writ­ten statement.

The chamber’s sup­port should give the back­ers of the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law and the so-called Health­care Free­dom Amend­ment a wel­comed boost from busi­nesses going into what’s expected to be a bit­ter fall cam­paign against labor unions.

The most recent cam­paign fil­ing reports show that the group oppos­ing the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law has raised about $7 million.

The state’s labor groups rep­re­sent­ing teach­ers, police offi­cers and fire­fight­ers have also turned to their mem­bers to help pay for the repeal cam­paign. For instance, mem­bers of the Ohio Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion have already agreed to a one-time, $54 dues increase. The move was expected to yield $5.5 mil­lion for the bal­lot effort.

The law signed by Gov. John Kasich in late March bans pub­lic employee strikes and restricts col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights for more than 350,000 teach­ers, police offi­cers, state employ­ees and oth­ers. Aside from restrict­ing bar­gain­ing, it bans strikes and gets rid of auto­matic pay increases, replac­ing them with merit raises or per­for­mance pay.

Other busi­ness groups have also recently thrown their sup­port behind uphold­ing the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing restric­tions. They include the Greater Cleve­land Part­ner­ship, one of the largest met­ro­pol­i­tan cham­bers of com­merce in the coun­try, and cham­bers of com­merce in Cincin­nati and Dayton.

Oppo­nents con­tend the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing restric­tions are an unfair attack on pub­lic employee unions that had worked coop­er­a­tively with their gov­ern­ment employ­ers for decades. They accuse law­mak­ers of exploit­ing a state bud­get cri­sis to pass a mea­sure unpop­u­lar with a major­ity of Ohioans.

How­ever, Kasich, a first-term gov­er­nor, and his GOP col­leagues argue the leg­is­la­tion will help city offi­cials, school super­in­ten­dents and oth­ers con­trol their costs at a time when they, too, are feel­ing bud­get woes. Kasich has said he wants to play a vis­i­ble role defend­ing the law.

The gov­er­nor has enjoyed strong ties with the cham­ber since his cam­paign for office. Last Sep­tem­ber, the chamber’s polit­i­cal arm broke a 117-year tra­di­tion of not wad­ing into the guber­na­to­r­ial elec­tion by endors­ing Kasich over then-Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.

This fall’s bal­lot issues are not the first that the Ohio Cham­ber has supported.

While the group tends to stay out of bal­lot ques­tions on social issues such as gay mar­riage, its board mem­bers have weighed in on mat­ters they see could impact busi­nesses. For instance, the cham­ber worked to suc­cess­fully get vot­ers to extend the high-tech Third Fron­tier grant pro­gram, which began in 2002 and pro­vides startup money for com­pa­nies in indus­tries such as alter­na­tive energy and bio­med­ical research.

Also Wednes­day, the state Bal­lot Board approved the word­ing Ohioans will see Nov. 8 when they vote on the health care amend­ment. The panel was also to decide the bal­lot lan­guage for the fate of the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law.

Posted by AP News on Aug 3 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.