CLEVELAND — Gov. John Kasich on Thursday signed into law a limit on the collective-bargaining rights of 350,000 public workers, defying Democrats and other opponents of the measure who have promised to push for repeal.
His signature came a day after the measure was approved by the state House and Senate, which are led by his fellow Republicans.
The measure prompted weeks of pro-labor protests by thousands of people amid a national debate over union rights, keyed by a similar bill passed in Wisconsin and signed by the governor there.
The Ohio bill allows unions to negotiate wages but prevents them from negotiating health care, sick time or pension benefits. It also eliminates automatic pay increases and bans strikes. It applies to teachers, nurses and many other government workers, including police and firefighters, who were exempt in the Wisconsin measure.
Kasich, a first-term governor, has said his $55.5 billion state budget counts on unspecified savings from lifting union protections to fill an $8 billion hole. Many Democrats, along with other opponents, have vowed to lead a ballot repeal effort.
Meanwhile, a Wisconsin judge Thursday did what thousands of pro-union protesters and boycotting Democratic lawmakers couldn’t, forcing Republican Gov. Scott Walker to halt plans to implement a law that would strip most public workers of their collective-bargaining rights and cut their pay.
Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi, who had issued an order intended to block implementation of the law while she considered a challenge to its legitimacy and warned of sanctions for noncompliance, amended her order Thursday to clarify that the law had not taken effect, as Republican leaders argued it had.
The governor’s top aide, Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, later issued a statement saying Walker would comply with Sumi’s order and halt preparations that were underway to begin deducting money from most public workers’ paychecks.
Huebsch said, however, that the governor’s administration still believes the law took effect after a state office unexpectedly published it online last week.
Several lawsuits challenging the law are pending, including the one in Sumi’s court filed by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. His suit contends Republican legislative leaders violated the state’s open-meetings law in the run-up to a vote on the plan.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, The Associated Press
reported that the Ohio restrictions on
collective bargaining for public workers prevents negotiations on wages
but not on health care, sick time or pension benefits. It allows
wages to be negotiated but not health care, sick time or pension
benefits.
