R i g h t a r d i a: WIN: Ohio Passes Bill Stripping Public Worker Collective Bargaining Rights

Thursday, March 31, 2011

WIN: Ohio Passes Bill Stripping Public Worker Collective Bargaining Rights

3/30/2011

Ohio became the most recent state to watch as decades old collective bargaining rights were stripped from hundreds of thousands of public sector workers. And the death of Ohio labor leader Bill Sams as he fought against this legislation makes the loss all the more poignant. Jesse Russell reports:

What’s next for Ohio workers now that the battle over SB5 moves to the Governor? Plenty. Democratic District 8 Rep. Armond Budish, during a speech against the union right’s stripping legislation on Wednesday, laid out what’s on the horizon for both public and private sector workers.

[Budish]: If you work in the Building Trades you’re next. There already hard at work to eliminate prevailing wages. And folks who work for a living but are not union members, don’t think you escape. You don’t escape the Republican attack on working families either. They’re coming after you. Just look at House Bill 61, for example, which would effectively limit or eliminate time and a half pay for people who work overtime –private employees.

After SB5 was passed ending 30 years of collective bargaining rights Democratic Rep. Debbie Phillips rose for a point of personal privilege. She paid tribute to Bill Sams, the President of the Southeastern Ohio AFL-CIO, who died of a heart attack on his way to fight the bill Wednesday:

[Phillips]: Bill Sams was an individual who lived what he believed everyday and he worked everyday for working families in Southeastern Ohio.

Ohio became the most recent state to watch as decades old collective bargaining rights were stripped from hundreds of thousands of public sector workers.

And the death of Ohio labor leader Bill Sams as he fought against this legislation makes the loss all the more poignant. Jesse Russell reports:

What’s next for Ohio workers now that the battle over SB5 moves to the Governor? Plenty. Democratic District 8 Rep.

Armond Budish, during a speech against the union right’s stripping legislation on Wednesday, laid out what’s on the horizon for both public and private sector workers.

Budish: If you work in the Building Trades you’re next. There already hard at work to eliminate prevailing wages. And folks who work for a living but are not union members, don’t think you escape. You don’t escape the Republican attack on working families either.

They’re coming after you. Just look at House Bill 61, for example, which would effectively limit or eliminate time and a half pay for people who work overtime –private employees.

Part of the problem is that federal wage and hour law is weak. You do have the right to be paid and to receive overtime, but that's about it. There is nothing in the law about paid holiday or vacation time.

Republicans hve been chipping away at overtime law, and also in Maine the governor there wants to relax the law on child labor.