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Responding to Faber’s
Explanation
By Bob Rhoades
On Sunday, in County News Online, Sen. Keith Faber gave his explanation
of why SB 5 was a good thing. I’m not sure that he’s right so
we’ll see if there is a counter point.
In the first paragraph he says that many of us contacted his office to
express our opinions and our opinions were noted and he welcomed the
many constructive suggestions. S B 5 is needed for the several
political subdivisions to be able to deal with the realities of the
2011 economic situation.
What this really means is that anything sent to his office as a
criticism wasn’t looked at very closely. He said in his speech
that SB 5 is sorely needed, but never gave us hard fast reasons why it
was needed. Saying its needed doesn’t make it so Keith, what particular
reason prompted this legislation? Bottom line is an empty Corning
plant on Martin St, a Fram plant with less than half the employment,
Excello plant gone, empty manufacturing buildings in Union City,
Ansonia and the rest of the county. Those are some of the reasons
that we have an economic problem here in Darke County, not negotiation
with public employees. But we’ll give you that one that paying
government workers a fair wage is the problem.
SB 5 is about empowering government entities to better manage their
workforces and control costs to live within taxpayer’s means. See
the above paragraph. You and others let the manufacturing jobs go
bye-bye but expect the same level of services with half the paychecks
to cover them. That’s the problem, not paying government
paychecks.
As for paying 15% of healthcare, that is a negotiated thing that local
government subdivisions have negotiated. You’re saying that it
needs to be capped. OK we’ll give you that, why didn’t you say
that. We can work with that. You think that all
employees should pay their share of their own pension. Well we
did for years and then some rocket scientist came up with the idea that
the employer could pay both sides. No one held a gun to their
head; it just meant they gave us a raise without giving us a
raise. Both of these tactics put more take home money in our
pockets without giving use a raise, my friend. That way the next
time the typical 3% raise was offered it was offered on a gross
paycheck from three years ago and not what it should have been.
We’ll take that too. Continue to give a 1, 2 or 3% raise each
year. What you don’t understand is that the total amount of money
being paid by each political subdivision will be the same no matter
what. If it comes out of my pocket, it was in your pocket
first. But we’ll give you that one too.
The next paragraph says that 400,000 Ohioans have lost jobs and have
wages and benefits cut because of economic woes. You almost
stumbled onto the problem. NO JOBS! Is it the employee’s
job to keep their employer hear or yours? The problem of economic
woes is NO JOBS. Does Mexico have this problem?
Unfortunately the empty buildings on our streets still have to be
protected, those laid off workers kids still have to be educated and
the problems associated with no jobs and hot tempers during these times
still have to be dealt with by law enforcement. Do we pay these
folks less money because the state made it so hard for companies to do
business here that they left? Not our fault. But you can
put the blame on us if you want. We don’t want you guys to have
to take responsibility for any of this.
And now to the myths:
Myth: SB 5 will hurt the middle class.
You say that SB 5 will empower the middle class by restoring the
ability of local governments to control their budgets. What
rock have you been living under? They’ve always had that ability,
unless they gave it away. Making it sound like teachers,
firefighters and police officers stand over the negotiating table with
a 50 caliber machine gun sort of makes me mad. You’re trying to
tell me that you can legislate intelligence into a mayor, city manager,
or school board office. If that happens this will truly be a
landmark piece of legislation. You say that this will give the
public sector some of the same tools the private sector
enjoys. That’s good, except that it will still be the
public sector and you can do things in the private sector that you
can’t do in the public sector.
Myth: This is a politically motivated
reform that would “strip away collective bargaining.”
What kind of an answer is that? Have you ever sat in
negotiations? I have and they certainly weren’t one sided.
Preserving managements rights, indeed, as a matter of fact almost any
union contract I’ve ever read or helped right has the first section
defining management’s rights. If they didn’t have them they
weren’t bright enough to keep them because they had them in the
beginning. But, we’ll give you that one. There probably
were some unscrupulous school teachers out there who, with the aid of
that 50 caliber machine gun, took those rights away from a school
board. In my town, the city pays an outside negotiator to make
sure that doesn’t happen. It costs them over $100,000 per
negotiation. If they lost some of their rights, I think we can
see whose fault it is. (Let’s see $100,000 divided by 100
employees = $1000 raise for everyone). But, we’ll give you that
one. Those folks got to make a living too don’t they?
Myth: This bill was “rammed through”
and the unions and Democrats could not participate.
Since when is this a Democrat/Republican thing? I’m a registered
Republican and I sure don’t feel like I had a say so in it.
Because even though you were very forth coming in attending the town
hall meetings, you didn’t listen to us because Kasich said he wanted it
and you guys were going to deliver. You missed the boat Keith, it
wasn’t supposed to be a D/R thing it was supposed to be for all Ohioans
but we’ll surely give you that one. You finally called it what it
was. I watched the debate on PBS and two very articulate
gentlemen got up right before you and you didn’t listen to a thing that
they said. Oh, that’s right they were Democrats. This
wasn’t their bill anyway was it? Like I said, you got one
right. We’ll give you that one.
Myth: The Senate has exempted
themselves and their staff from the provisions of this bill.
No brainer, why wouldn’t you. Do as I say and not as I do.
Both of my sons were pages in the house and senate. I couldn’t
have given them a better education. Nuff said! You need to
understand something; I worked for a school system, a municipality and
the State of Ohio and paid my full share of my retirement and my
hospitalization for over 35 years. Why don’t you make a list and
publish it of all of these people who are getting this good deal.
I’ll bet it’s a long one. Didn’t happen here in Greenville, doubt
if it did in Celina either, probably on the Eastern side of the
state. You know, Mark Dann, Traficant, that bunch.
We’ll look for that list.
Myth: Senate Bill 5 will cut
teachers’ salaries in half or lower teachers’ salaries to $17,300.
Was this myth something you dreamed up or did it actually have an
author? First of all, what person would be a school teacher for
that money? Second, the public already has the right to know
where their money is going. It’s public money. Salaries are
public record or did you not know that? Don’t tell people that they are
getting something that they already have. Having intelligent
negotiators to deal with multimillion dollar companies is the only
thing that will allow us to have an edge in getting jobs back
here. That and a legislature willing to pass laws that are
industry friendly.
So here’s the deal. I’m going to keep this list real close and in
four years we’ll see if it worked. Too short, OK we’ll wait 8
years. I don’t want to press you because I know how it works at
Broad and High. The greatest take away I got from all of this is
that I now know that you don’t understand negotiation. There was
certainly none at the town hall meeting because nothing was changed
when we left. But, we’ll give you that one too. No sense
clouding the issue.
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