Issue 2 works

[Tpoppa]

I don't think I really need to explain.. I'm a firefighter that works for the State of Ohio... I'm getting hit hard

That sucks, but many people are already being hit hard by a rough economy and rising costs for healthcare. Why should state employees be any different? Especially when the tax dollars are coming from the people that are already getting hit hard

[ohiomike]

It's hard to keep the issue 2 debate clear because of the noise from pro and con groups. They are both trying to make opinion into fact. However, when those opposed to issue 2 put a school teacher on tv saying how their bargaining ability for better education will be removed? I ask, "How has that bargaining ability worked so far in schools?" The desired effect vs effect that has happened seems very different. How are public services improving under the current system? I see no benefit to the status quote.

I agree parts and pieces of this bill are for the good of the state. Parts are bs.

I am not one to go along with passage of a bill that could have been corrected before being passed. Much like the HC bill.

Both sides are using propaganda to convince people 'their' side is right. Very typical. Teachers for instance do need a means of getting rid of non performers. But what to do if it effects those teachers remaining on the job by increasing class sizes, or inhibits resource availability.

How do civil union's handle employee problems? Progressive discipline? Are people actually 'termination proof' because of their union membership? In the IBEW it doesn't work that way. Slugs don't work plain and simple. At least where I am from.

I just think its better to screw this bill down and do it the right way instead of passing a halfaZZed attempt that just creates further problems which will need to be resolved. Kasich caught his 'oops' too late and his opponents were done talking and its going to the ballot, where it probably should have gone in the first place.

Its a step in the right direction just needs to be tweaked here and there.

[fireman_343]

Have there been cuts in pay or benefits made already? Or are they just telling you that if it passes there will be? I'm asking out of seriousness and not being s dick, I really want to know.

I've taken a huge hit. Ever since I was hired, I was hired in on a pay freeze (means no step increases, and longevity. Which in turn means it takes longer for me to get promoted), my pay was taken away for the past 2yrs.. Was told to take 80hrs off my pay per year for 2 years (called CSD's, any state employee knows what I'm talking about), my health Insurance has increased almost double what I was paying before, my personal leave was taken away for 2 years and I just started to get it back in the last few months, my vacation and numerous other things are in the works to be taken away! Believe me, it has affected me!!!!

Oh and also the Fire Chief and Captains have also taken the same hit

Edited October 19, 2011 by fireman_343

[Uncle Punk]

I've taken a huge hit. Ever since I was hired, I was hired in on a pay freeze (means no step increases, and longevity. Which in turn means it takes longer for me to get promoted), my pay was taken away for the past 2yrs.. Was told to take 80hrs off my pay per year for 2 years (called CSD's, any state employee knows what I'm talking about), my health Insurance has increased almost double what I was paying before, my personal leave was taken away for 2 years and I just started to get it back in the last few months, my vacation and numerous other things are in the works to be taken away! Believe me, it has affected me!!!!

Oh and also the Fire Chief and Captains have also taken the same hit

That sounds just like what is happening to everyone else who are expected to pay for the unions that are saving jobs. Now maybe you understand why they don't want to pay more and are for issue 2.

[buildit]

One thing has become unclear to me. The original bill was supposed to NOT effect police and fire. When did that change?

[Tpoppa]

There is little if any common ground here. Prolonging this thread certainly won't change that.

It'll be an interesting vote. I hope it passes, but suspect it won't

[buildit]

From the Columbus Dispatch, interesting points on both sides. Really shows how both sides have misrepresented the issues.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/10/18/issue-2-would-give-management-more-say.html

When Kirk Hamilton faced a major overcrowding problem as superintendent of South-Western schools in 1998, the district implemented split schedules, forcing some students to arrive as early as 7 a.m. or leave as late as 6:30 p.m.

Hamilton said it wasn’t the busing or the class schedules that were the most difficult to develop. It was bargaining the change with the teachers’ union.

The process was delayed as management and the South-Western Education Association fought over student schedules, staff assignments and, according to a union official at the time, “many areas of working and teaching conditions.” Eventually, the sides were forced to call in a federal mediator.

“You’re trying to do something in the best interest of kids, but we had to balance that against the desires of the adults in the system as well,” said Hamilton, now the executive director of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators.

“Sometimes, things don’t happen in the best interest of kids because of the need to negotiate what would be a reasonable decision for school-district administrators to make.”

The Republican group Building a Better Ohio has stuck largely to economic arguments in making the case for why Ohioans should vote “yes” on Issue 2 and preserve the anti-collective-bargaining law known as Senate Bill 5. But some say the extent of the law’s true impact will be felt not through mandatory health-insurance and pension contributions, but rather by tilting the balance of power definitively in the direction of management.

The law rewrites the definition of management rights and makes it tougher for elected officials to bargain them away. It also no longer requires that any current provision of a contract becomes a mandatory subject of future collective bargaining — pushing the reset button on a host of workplace issues that were bargained in the past.

Police and firefighters argue this puts them, and ultimately the public, at risk by eliminating prior agreements on staffing levels, equipment, vehicles, weapons and weapons training. The unions say the changes to management rights are vague and “so overreaching and fundamentally unfair that it could completely leave a bargaining unit with no rights, whatsoever.”

Even if unions wanted to fight, the law would leave them toothless by eliminating both binding arbitration for safety forces as a way to settle contract disputes and the right to strike for all other public unions. It also allows the governing body to ultimately pick and implement its own last contract offer.

“The biggest safety standard we have is staffing,” said Doug Stern, a Cincinnati firefighter and star of the first TV commercial by the anti-Senate Bill 5 group We Are Ohio. “It’s not the equipment. It’s making sure we have the right number of people to react before the fire spreads too far, too fast.”

----------------------------------------

In Newark, firefighters rejected a fact-finder’s report in July that recommended doing away with mandatory minimum staffing levels that ensure 19 firefighters are on duty at all times, with at least three assigned to a fire engine.

At the time, David McElfresh, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 109, said getting rid of staffing requirements would put the safety of firefighters in jeopardy and could result in closing a fire station. He said Newark firefighters would rather have four people per engine, which national studies show is more effective for fighting fires.

Stern said he doesn’t think city managers would cut daily staffing levels (which includes determining how many firefighters serve on a truck) with “malicious intent,” but public safety might be jeopardized “if they make the cuts with a lack of knowledge on what levels are appropriate to keep people safe.”

He added, “I’m not confident that people on City Council might always take the time to be informed.”

While Senate Bill 5 says that staffing levels are among the items that are not “appropriate” for bargaining, administrators still could consult voluntarily with unions to determine staffing levels. In smaller cities such as Findlay, in northwestern Ohio; Elyria, in northeastern Ohio; and Warren, near Youngstown, mandatory firefighter staffing levels are not a part of union contracts.

Because managers for the city of Findlay have final say on staffing levels and work shifts, Mayor Pete Sehnert, a Republican and former police officer, was able to switch police officers from four, 10-hour shifts to five, eight-hour shifts in 2009 and reduce overtime costs by $160,000.

Jim Barker, Sehnert’s safety director, said the firefighters’ contract Sehnert inherited allowed the department’s last retiree under that contract to receive an additional $106,000 in accrued holiday and vacation pay upon retirement.

“You have the Toledos and the Daytons and the Youngstowns, where unions have been able to nip at management rights over the years,” Barker said. “Some municipalities have bargained away their management rights, but we’ve never done that here.

“Senate Bill 5 would allow them to get those back, I guess.”

Administrators who want to see mandatory staffing levels disappear base their support on the costs of maintaining those levels. But there are myriad factors that can make mandatory staffing an expensive clause.

Toledo firefighters’ contract requires that 103 firefighters be on duty each day. If there is a flood of vacation or sick days used by those scheduled to work, the city is required to pay overtime to otherwise off-duty firefighters to maintain the 103-person staffing level.

Toledo, which had a budget shortfall of about $48 million in 2009 and is again facing cash concerns, spends more than $4 million per year on overtime for the fire department.

And in Mansfield, which narrowly avoided a government shutdown because of its financial woes earlier this year, state Auditor Dave Yost recommended in a July report that the city “negotiate to eliminate minimum manning requirements; reduce severance payouts, sick leave accrual rates” and other items with its fire union.

Mansfield, which was placed under “fiscal emergency” by the state last year, tried to address its financial woes by laying off police officers and firefighters, but it was found in violation of its contract with firefighters by falling below a mandatory daily staffing level. Under Senate Bill 5, Mansfield officials could act on Yost’s suggestions without the union’s consent.

“There’s no incentive to negotiate if you hold all the cards,” said Stephen Lazarus, a Cincinnati attorney who represents public-employee unions in contract negotiations. “Sure, you can ‘ bargain’ all you want, but what’s their incentive to bargain if at the end of the day they can do what they want?”

------------------------

When a fact-finder’s report that kept the status quo was implemented, Lazarus said: “Guess how many firefighters were laid off? Zero.

“Stuff does come out of the contracts, but whoever wants to take it out has to show justification for it.”

Van Keating, the Ohio School Boards Association’s top contract negotiator, said he has never bargained a new contract that was shorter than the previous one. Provisions are added — a little concession here, a new district policy there, creating a snowball effect over nearly 30 years of collective bargaining.

“The list of regrets in those contracts is long, and they vary,” Keating said.

A number of teacher contracts define a student’s day, he said, though “students aren’t covered by this collective-bargaining agreement. But once it’s put in there, the school is stuck with that as the student day.

“Then ... teachers bargain how their days are going to be. What their periods are going to be. How long they have to stay after the students leave. It gets to be a real big mess. Once it’s in a contract, you never get that out.”

Tom Ash, director of governmental development for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, said his group routinely hears from new superintendents who read through their teacher contracts for the first time. “They’re calling, saying: ‘Who in his right mind would have ever agreed to this?’ ”

But someone did agree, on both sides of the table. Ash said management shares responsibility for the erosion of their powers and rights over time.

[Sixgun]

My wife teaches in the Southwestern city schools...her vote will cancel out mine.

343-overtime is always cheaper then salaries and benefits for additional workers, always.

Love the ads saying how they if they cannot bargain for enough fire fighters, it could delay response time. Why? No one can drive the truck? Tell that to Chillichothe and Lancaster FF's and Police officers who got laid off and fire stations closed because the city could not pay all the wages and benefits and closed entire stations. Great if you have senority.

If we cannot afford to pay them, people will loose there jobs.

It sucks, but it's reality.

But my opinions only add up to one vote.

[Tpoppa]

343-overtime is always cheaper then salaries and benefits for additional workers, always.

You sure about that?

Police and FFs have been abusing lax OT rules for years. "You call in sick and I'll work for you, then you do the same for me, OK brother."

In Parma, Police were scamming the OT system to the tune of 1st and 2nd year officers taking home over $100k/year. When city officials tried to put a stop to that, Police went on a traffic ticket ban to cost the city revenue. The Police Chief lost his job over it.

Officers threatened to shoot or otherwise destroy timeclocks (several thousand $$ each) the city purchased that would eliminate abuse of the already existing OT rules. I happen to know a little bit about this.

Once city voters found out about the Police shenanigans, basically every Parma levy failed until this last vote.

Reasonalbe limits on Police and FFs OT is long overdue.

Edited October 19, 2011 by Tpoppa

[fireman_343]

343-overtime is always cheaper then salaries and benefits for additional workers, always.

Somewhat true, but in my case... They needed to hire the additional manpower to up our manning at each fire dept anyway, and they were already paying their salaries, so it was a win/win for everyone! If it wasn't for our union, those guys would be out a job and we would be forced to hire new personal, that would of cost even more money for training and whatnot.

By the way, we are funded federally not by the state so we saved the federal government money.

[Uncle Punk]

we are funded federally not by the state so we saved the federal government money.

Look honey I saved you money and didn't buy another pair of shoes.

[Sixgun]

There are typically 2/3'rds the cost beyond salary considerations with taxes, insurance, and other benefits that people don't usally consider part of their salary (Someone with a small business, or HR chime in). Minimum (or any) wage is not the only consideration.

OT can be managed...But once you add personal you own all the additional costs. If you lay them off your paying there un employement insurance even though they do nothing for you.

[Tpoppa]

There are typically 2/3'rds the cost beyond salary considerations with taxes, insurance, and other benefits that people don't usally consider part of their salary (Someone with a small business, or HR chime in)

I have a small business and work with many HR depts.

Typically it would be less than 2/3. I would say 1/2 to 1/3 & that number would go down with higher compensation.

[Sixgun]

I have a small business and work with many HR depts.

Typically it would be less than 2/3. I would say 1/2 to 1/3 & that number would go down with higher compensation.

Thanks, does this include 401K matches, medical insurance, etc? OT is still less expensive, your typically paying the wages (only) of half another employee.

How many people here get 80% of their wages if they take FMLA leave? My brother in law and sister both work for the state. One is a trooper, one works for DPS. Both take 12 weeks after the birth of each of their 4 kids. 96 weeks of 80% pay for someone else to do your job? Where do these extra people come from?...I know, don't hate the playa, hate the game!

I know there are some of you public service employees who don't get that going WTF? Most of you are just looking at this from your frame of reference. Which I understand.

[Tpoppa]

Thanks, does this include 401K matches, medical insurance, etc? OT is still less expensive, your typically paying the wages (only) of half another employee.

Yes, and payroll taxes (Medicare, Social Security) and employer contributions for all benefits. Typically referred to Total Compensation even though it's really employer's total costs for each employee.

btw, lots of FMLA is unpaid.

[Sixgun]

"btw, lots of FMLA is unpaid." Yep, that's what floored me when I asked how they could afford to do it? Mom first then Dad when she was done...Bonding time. Dad just worked really hard at his second job for six weeks. Mommy also got out of 6 weeks of child care...Which is very European of US...how's that working for them?

[John]

yeah, stupid firemen and teachers need to take pay cuts, so that kasich can pay for the massive raises that he gave to his closest staff and friends.

stricklands comm. directory made 89K. the same position under kasich now makes $120K.

press sec made 70K under strickland, makes 90K now.

oh yeah, then there's the made up position of "special assistant to the governor" that makes 145K... that he gave to one of his lehman brothers buddies.

shared sacrifice indeed.

[buildit]

You sound like you haven't heard about the debt our president has built up in four years. But lots not muddy the water with comparing all the evils of the world. We are talking about the upcoming issue 2 vote and how it either unfairly effects workers or actually levels a very old playing field between public employees and government employees when it comes to pay, benefits and on the job performance. Kasichs' inability to control his own house of cards will surely be revisited in another two years should his programs fail.

[deere11]

what i do not understand is why you would vote for an issue that will just hurt more people financially. is it so you can sleep better at night knowing that we will be so called equal now? would it make you feel better that more people will lose their homes and not be able to put food on the table for their families? this is what the world is coming to and its truly disgusting. i am a government employee and i have to pay for my insurance, maybe not as much as private sector but guess what , i chose that job! we dont make the 60k + a yr like everyone thinks we do we make enough to get by. everybody thinks we get free retirement, again we pay for that to. whoever said that snowplow drivers and mailmen shouldnt be in the same class as firefighters and police is also ignorant. 6 days a week that mailman delivers that mail to you in whatever that beautiful weather ohio brings us, you ever tried plowing snow for 16 hours straight so that you and your families can get to where you need to go safely? put yourselves in someone elses shoes for once and quit playing poor me! imagine if the bill passes and they lay off more firefighters ,police and teachers. what if its your house burning down and your families inside and you have to wait for police and fireman to get there because their understaffed or their station that was close to you gets shutdown because of cuts. what about that nurse that should be there to care for you or your child but isnt because shes trying to do double the work and cant quite get to you as quickly as she could, and that teacher that should be teaching your child but really doesnt give a shit because you clearly didnt care about her when it came to her livelihood. wake the hell up people, its not the working man causing the money problems its the wonderful politicians that YOU voted for. sorry about the long rant but just had to put my 2c

[buildit]

No it is to correct the imbalance created by politicians who sold an unsustainable bill of goods. We can continue with the status quote but that will mean lost pensions and possibly more lay offs of public employees. To me at least it's a fix it now or bitch about it later issue and we seem to be delaying the inevitable on too many issues recently.

To me it is also just the first step in a series of actions that our government needs to undergo.

[fireman_343]

Well put Deere11!!!!!! I couldn't of said it better!! Some people just don't "get the picture" !

NO on ISSUE 2!!!

[Tpoppa]

put yourselves in someone elses shoes for once and quit playing poor me!

From the opposing point of view, I would say the exact same thing back to you. It'll be an interesting vote.

[kawi kid]

From the opposing point of view, I would say the exact same thing back to you. It'll be an interesting vote.

Exactly what I was thinking lol!

[Uncle Punk]

What I do not understand is why you would vote for an issue that will just hurt more people financially. Is it so you can sleep better at night knowing that we will be so called equal now? Would it make you feel better that more people will lose their homes and not be able to put food on the table for their families? This is what the world is coming to and it’s truly disgusting.

As pointed out above I am absolutely FOR this issue and this could have been my post for the issue. I can vote to put a burden on me or on you so I will vote in my best interest.

What about that nurse that should be there to care for you or your child but isn’t because she’s trying to do double the work and can’t quite get to you as quickly as she could.

This issue only affects a small percentage of nurses that work at public hospitals. The vast majority of nurse’s work in private hospitals and this issue will NOT affect them. This is one of the professions where people can transfer their skill sets between public and private.

Wake the hell up people, it’s not the working man causing the money problems it’s the wonderful politicians that YOU voted for.

I couldn’t agree more that the politicians caused this issue and it needed to be fixed. We also voted for politicians who had a plan in place to fix these issues but the whiney unions couldn’t take the result of that, they only wanted it to be a one way street when the politicians were complicit in giving our money in their direction. If this issue fails be aware that it is very likely that the union issues will be worse for them than they expect if it passes. Unintended consequences are a bitch.

It sounds like some folks find their jobs to be very important to others and not just themselves; in their area it may be true. I have spent a considerable amount of time living in townships that use a sheriff’s department and a volunteer fire department and have used those services exactly zero times. If I can make the rest of my taxes cheaper or at least not go up I am going to take that route.

[deere11]

Well i guess you can't fix stupid, your gonna vote the way you want because you seen a commercial on tv and believe everything the government tells you. Your just sheep like everyone else, all I can say is really look at an issue before you open your mouth about it and act like you know what your talking about. All will be well when were finally "equal" and millions more people lose their homes and can't feed their kids because of pure ignorance and greed thanks and god bless