SCRTW Bills Receive First Hearings

Yesterday, the Ohio House of Representatives’  Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee held hearings on House Bill 151 and House Joint Resolution 5.  HB 151 would enact a so-called “right-to-work” (SCRTW) law for the private sector, while HJR 5 would place the issue on the statewide ballot for voters to decide.  HJR 5 would impact the private and public sectors.  The committee meeting was so packed with those opposed to SCRTW that Statehouse officials had to open up several overflow rooms to accommodate the crowd.  After the hearing, Committee Chairman Kirk Schuring (R-Canton) told media outlets, “I’ve surveyed the committee and for a wide variety of reasons, the committee has determined that it would not be appropriate to have additional hearings on the legislation.”  While the committee may not hold additional hearings on these bills at this time, it is widely believed that first hearings were held so that the bills could be fast-tracked later in the legislative session – most likely during the 2014 “lame duck session” (the period after the election and before the end of the year).  We will remain vigilant, working closely with We Are Ohio, in monitoring these bills and preparing for what seems like another inevitable ballot battle.  Thank you to our members who contacted Chairman Schuring.  We learned later on Monday that he had received so many e-mails that his server was shut down! 

Action Alert: 
Contact Members of the Ohio House Higher Education Subcommittee about Workload Provision in Budget Bill

As we have reported previously, Ohio House Bill 59, the state budget bill, contains a provision that would allow colleges and universities to modify or create a workload policy; but if they do either of those, they must increase the teaching load of full-time faculty by one additional class from what the faculty taught in the previous academic year.

This language is being billed as something to save money and increase faculty productivity. Legislators must hear from us that this provision is ill-conceived and short-sighted.

Please contact members of the Ohio House Higher Education Subcommittee to tell them you oppose the faculty workload provision.

Click on the links below to be taken to the contact forms for each representative. Beneath the links is a sample letter to use.

Chairman Cliff Rosenberger

Ranking Member Dan Ramos

Rep. Mike Dovilla

Rep. Mike Duffey

Rep. Kathleen Clyde

[We apologize that we do not have an easier way for our members to contact legislators, but hope to invest in a system in the future.]Sample Letter:  Subject: Remove Faculty Workload Provision from Budget Bill  Body: Dear Representative,  My name is [insert name] and I am a full-time faculty member at [insert name of your institution]. I am writing to you to ask respectfully that you amend HB 59, the state budget bill, to exclude the provision that would allow colleges and universities to increase the teaching load for full-time faculty by one additional class from the previous academic year.  While this provision is being touted as a cost-savings measure that will increase faculty productivity, it will actually do more harm than good.

Faculty have a myriad of responsibilities outside of the classroom, including: advising and mentoring students; participating in university committees; serving on hiring committees and mentoring junior faculty; designing and improving curriculum; and much more.

Allowing universities to implement this one-size-fits-all policy will impair the ability of faculty to carry out our distinctive missions and make it difficult to retain our most productive faculty and attract high-quality faculty to come to Ohio.

In addition, faculty at our state institutions of higher education bring in millions of research dollars into the Ohio economy every year through grants. In fact, as state support for higher education has dramatically decreased over the past two decades, faculty research money has helped to replace the lost revenue.

However, placing this kind of arbitrary mandate on our workloads will jeopardize that revenue source and distract from our research and innovation.Thank you for your consideration on this matter.  Sincerely,  [insert name]

So-Called “Right-to-Work” Bills to 
Receive First Hearing This Week

As we reported to you in May, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called “right-to-work” bills.  Roegner’s bill (House Bill 151) deals with the private sector, while Maag’s bill (House Bill 152) deals with the public sector. 

There was also a third bill introduced jointly by Roegner and Maag (House Joint Resolution 5) that would put the issue on the state ballot for Ohio voters to decide.

While GOP leaders largely have been dismissive of the bills, saying that so-called “right-to-work” is not part of their agenda, Rep. Roegner has pushed for her legislation to receive its statutorily mandated first hearing in the Ohio House.   HB 151 and HJR 5 will receive their first hearings in the Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee on Tuesday, June 4 at 1:30pm.  While the committee may not push these bills beyond the obligatory first hearing at this time, it is important that the committee chairman, Rep. Kirk Schuring (R-Canton), hears that Ohio workers do not want these bills to move forward.  

E-mail Rep. Schuring by clicking here.

Below is a sample letter you can send to Rep. Schuring:

Dear Rep. Schuring,

I hope that it is not your intention, as Chairman of the Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee, to move HB 151 and HJR 5 beyond their statutorily required first hearings. 

These so-called “right-to-work” bills are highly politically charged and motivated, and the last thing Ohio needs right now is another divisive fight.

I hope that the Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee will focus on legislation that actually will help improve Ohio’s economic outlook.

Sincerely,

[Your Name] 

Cleveland State University Law Faculty  Vote in Favor of Unionization  On May 20, the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) held the final vote tally on the Cleveland State University (CSU) law faculty’s unionization effort.  The vote revealed that 55 percent of the faculty voted in favor of forming an AAUP union.  Congratulations to the CSU law faculty; and thank you to our existing CSU-AAUP chapter for their support of the law faculty throughout this process!

State Budget Update  House Bill 59, the state budget bill, is currently in the Ohio Senate Finance Committee.  Last week, the Senate Finance Committee released an amended version of the bill.  Notably, the faculty workload provision remained out of the bill.   Additionally, the provision that would have required universities to charge in-state tuition to out-of-state students who they provide voting identification to was removed.  The full Senate is expected to vote on the budget this week.  Once the Senate passes the bill, it will go to Conference Committee for the House and Senate to resolve their differences.

GOP Leaders Don’t Want 
“Right-to-Work” Right Now

As we reported to you on May 1, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called “right-to-work” bills.  Roegner’s bill (House Bill 151) deals with the private sector, while Maag’s bill (House Bill 152) deals with the public sector. 

There was also a third bill introduced (House Joint Resolution 5) that would put the issue on the state ballot for Ohio voters to decide.

However, after meeting with House Speaker Bill Batchelder (R-Medina) and Gov. Kasich, Ohio Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) issued the following statement:  “We have an ambitious agenda focused on job creation and economic recovery, and Right to Work legislation is not on that list. After discussions with other leaders and my caucus, I don’t believe there is current support for this issue in the General Assembly.”As the Cleveland Plain Dealer appropriately pointed out in their May 3 editorial:  “Such legislation is…a grotesque distraction from Ohio’s real problems. Ostensibly, right-to-work laws forbid requiring someone to join a union as a condition of his or her employment. In fact, they are aimed at undercutting the political power of organized labor, while leaving in place the political power of organized business.”  While we can breathe a brief sigh of relief that these bills will not be ramrodded through like Senate Bill 5 was, we must also keep in mind that GOP leaders in Indiana and Michigan made similar remarks before eventually passing “right-to-work” laws.  Additionally, there is still a Tea Party coalition that continues to gather signatures to put the issue on the ballot themselves.  One of the leaders of that group recently reported that they have around 100,000 signatures to date.  They need approximately 386,000 valid signatures to achieve ballot placement.  There are two things that Ohio AAUP members can do to help fight back against “right-to-work:”  1) Contact your State Representative to tell them you oppose HB 151, HB 152, and HJR 5 (find your legislators here); and  2) Spread the word to your colleagues, friends, family, and neighbors that so-called “right-to-work” is wrong for Ohio.  For more information about so-called “right-to-work” and its harmful effects on the middle class, visit the toolkit on our website.

The Crafty Way to Disenfranchise Thousands of Ohio College Students  By: Martin Kich, President, Wright State University-AAUP Right before the Ohio House of Representatives passed House Bill 59, the state budget bill, they slipped in a little-noticed provision that could have the effect of disenfranchising thousands of college students.   Currently in Ohio, college students can provide a letter from their school to establish that they have residency and are eligible to vote, and schools have readily provided such letters in an effort to encourage voter participation among their students.  But this late amendment to the budget bill stipulates that if a school now provides an out-of-state student with such a letter, the school must then charge that student the in-state tuition rate. The in-state tuition rate is currently $15,500 less than the out-of-state rate at Ohio State.  In other words, universities will no longer provide such identification to their students if it means losing out on the extra tuition dollars, which will result in disenfranchising those students from voting in Ohio.  Out-of-state students will have to provide other proof of residence (many of the options are less readily available to dorm students, who do not individually pay utility bills or may not have Ohio drivers licenses) or vote by absentee ballots in their home states. GOP lawmakers have protested that these are simply “common sense” tweaks to existing laws. But this “tweak” is hypocritical.  As state support for the public colleges and universities has dropped to about 20 percent of the cost to educate in-state students, those institutions have increasingly engaged in very aggressive recruiting of out-of-state students. Not only are those students paying higher tuitions that have allowed the lower in-state tuitions to be sustained, but they are also contributing significantly to the state’s overall economy.  For the 2012-2013 academic year, there are more than 32,000 out-of-state students at Ohio’s public universities the great majority of whom are concentrated in the state’s largest cities, which are the most Democratic parts of the state. And if 32,000 votes seems insignificant in a state with a population of more than 11,000,000, bear in mind that President Obama carried Ohio by just 166,272 votes; and the affected college students represent about 20 percent of that margin. Finally, if this sort of political calculation seems beneath any serious policymaker, just take a close look at the gerrymandered districts that resulted from the 2010 redistricting.  Those districts were cut in ways that sometimes split not just neighborhoods but, in some instances, city blocks.  If you are interested in how many out-of-state students attend each of Ohio’s public universities, visit: http://academeblog.org/2013/04/28/suppress-the-vote-2013-2014-versions-on-campus/#more-2888.

The Bad News: So-Called “Right-to-Work” Legislation Has Been Introduced in the Ohio House

They are at it again.  Despite the fact that 62 percent of Ohioans rejected the Senate Bill 5 attack on public workers nearly a year and a half ago, the extreme right-wing politicians in Columbus want to pursue similar attacks.  Earlier today, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called “right-to-work” bills.  Roegner’s bill deals with the private sector, while Maag’s bill deals with the public sector. There was also a third bill introduced that would put the issue on the state ballot for Ohio voters to decide.  The bills are being called “Ohio Workplace Freedom” legislation, but the name could not be more misleading.  This is yet another attempt by corporate interests – many of the same ones who backed Senate Bill 5 – to end unions as we know them so that they can tip the balance in their favor at the expense of the middle class.  The corporate interests want to fool us by calling it “workplace freedom,” because what it really means is less freedom for workers.   These types of laws have already proven to have harmful effects on all citizens in the states where they have been implemented: lower wages, fewer benefits, higher poverty rates, and more workplace fatalities.  We do not yet know if House Republican leadership intends on moving these bills forward.  House Speaker Bill Batchelder (R-Medina) has been evasive on the subject.  However, it is widely believed that Gov. Kasich did not want to pursue such legislation ahead of his re-election campaign. As always, we will continue to update our members as new information becomes available.  For more information about so-called “right-to-work,” visit the toolkit on our website   The Good News: AAUP Continues to Build Strength in Ohio There are two success stories to report out of northwest Ohio: BGSU-FAOn April 12, the Bowling Green State University Faculty Association (BGSU-FA), a chapter of the AAUP, announced that 97 percent of its membership ratified their first contract. This is no small accomplishment, as the first organizing card was signed over four years ago, and the chapter spent about two and a half years in contract negotiations – largely the result of the administration stalling during the Senate Bill 5 battle.  It is expected that the BGSU Board of Trustees will ratify the contract at their May 3 meeting. Congratulations, BGSU-FA!   UT Nursing Faculty On April 23, the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) held a vote tally, which revealed that 70 percent of the nursing faculty at the University of Toledo voted in favor of collective bargaining. This vote means that about 34 nursing faculty will be joining the existing UT-AAUP chapter.  Our congratulations to the nursing faculty and our UT chapter for their hard work in accomplishing this goal!

Sincerely, Ohio Conference AAUP Communications Committee