The Ohio Legislature passed the most recent state budget in June 2015, and it was not pretty for working people.
The budget that passed and was signed into law by Gov. John Kasich is a funding blueprint for the next two years, but it also contained a lot of policy changes.
There were some ugly themes and one of them was an ongoing attack on hardworking Ohioans instead of strengthening the middle class to grow our economy and our local communities. Some lawmakers didn’t get the message from Senate Bill 5.
Lawmakers piecemealed together parts of Senate Bill 5 and continued their attack on working people.
The budget should be a plan for the future, not a chance to revive partisan, divisive attacks of the past. We should be strengthening the economy for everyone and ensuring that Ohio workers earn an honest pay for an honest day’s work.
Here are some Senate Bill 5-like attacks on workers in the budget, written by anti-worker lawmakers and signed by Gov. Kasich:
- Stripped home healthcare works and in-home childcare providers of the right to collectively bargain. These workers are already paid a pittance for their time and loving care. Now they can’t collectively bargain.
- Excluded workers in district community-based correctional facilities from having collective bargaining rights.
- Gave county Job and Family Service offices the power to privatize certain jobs related to adult protective services.
- Gave political subdivisions the power to enter into lease-back agreements, and that means pay cuts or layoffs for public sector custodians and maintenance workers.
But, because we worked together, we won some too.
- We pushed back on attempts to limit Project Labor Agreements that are pro-worker and pro-family.
- They tried to let charter school operators deny state pension membership to their employees, but we stopped that anti-worker effort.
- They wanted to deny collective bargaining rights to university professors, and privatize county and city jail operations, but we were successful in beating down those bad ideas.
The budget is written and signed into law, but we still continue to stand together for the rights of workers, women, voters, minorities and anyone who is under attack.
