On Wednesday the big union-backed We Are Ohio released its second TV ad entitled “Loopholes”. The claim they make is that the Governor and legislators found some way to prevent the collective bargaining reforms of Senate Bill 5 from applying to them. This “loophole” applied one set of standards to them, and another to everyone else is their assertion.
What they won’t tell the people of Ohio is what they’re actually referring to. The so-called loophole is actually the original law permitting collective bargaining. The language in question, found on page 32 of SB5 that exempts elected officials and a host of other government employees maintains the same classifications of bargaining/non-bargaining units found in the 1983 legislation that Democrats wrote and that unions are fighting to maintain today.
While I have no doubt many on the left would love to unionize the thousands of government employees who aren’t in bargaining units, the fact is that this so-called loophole is just common sense. Applying modifications to collective bargaining to people who aren’t in bargaining units makes as much sense as applying banking regulations to restaurants: banks and restaurants are both part of the private sector but no one would argue they should be regulated in the same way.
We Are Ohio wants you to believe that applying the law properly constitutes a loophole, but the truth is that the reasonable reforms of Issue 2 apply to the same people the original collective bargaining law covered 28 years ago: no more, no less. We Are Ohio and the unions behind it would rather continue their campaign of deception and distraction rather than address the truth of Issue 2.
