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Ohio Lawmakers Approve Bill to Limit Collective-Bargaining Rights

March 30, 2011, 11:49 pm

The Ohio House of Representatives has approved a bill that, in addition to limiting the collective-bargaining rights of all state employees, would make most public-college professors ineligible to engage in collective bargaining at all by reclassifying them as managers. The Senate added the measure on faculty union rights, which was backed by the state’s public-university association, to the broader legislation before passing the bill on March 2. The Senate was expected to approve several House changes in the bill, SB 5, and send it on the governor, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

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  • tptrekker

    Let me get this straight. We’re committing our lives and treasure to the removal of tyranny and construction of civil society in Libya while we simultaneously take away a key element of civil society– freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively– at home? Something’s wrong with this picture.

  • jffoster

    FDR and George Meany, among others, would have suggested that what wrong with this picture is, is the idea of collective bargaining with government.

  • softshellcrab

    I agree with jffoster. Unions and collective bargaining are not a right, they are a legislatively approved privilege. My understanding is that Ohio, for example, has only allowed public employee unions since the mid-80′s or so. Unions are actually nothing but a monopoly. Really. I don’t mean that as name calling, I am saying they truly are monopolies and in fact they ran afoul of the orginal Sherman Antitrust act, and it took new laws to exempt them from anti-trust legislation. In that sense, as an allowed monopoly they are an abberation in a free market economy.

    That aside, I don’t see any place for public employee unions at all. There is no “evil employer”, preying on the lowly worker, here. What do the unions protect public employees from? State and local goverments? Mom and Pop local citizens who might vote to pay them less or to scale back their generous pensions? State and local governments have been pretty darn generous in spending our money, I don’t see any need for these unions to protect their workers. There is no one to fight back against public employee unions. In fact it gets worse. Repeated evidence has shown the presence of a nefarious alliance, between unions and their pet pro-union politicians. The public employee unions contribute generously to pro-union lawmakers who then vote to give them big money and benefits… with our money. Essentially, these politicians are using our tax dollars to “kick back” money to the unions to reward them for supporting them. It is really a conspiracy against the public. You need look no further than Wisconsin and Ohio to see this at work.

  • leilaswalker

    Actually, according to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, collective bargaining *is* a right, not a privilege:

    http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a23

  • arthist030

    well, if the UN says so, that will certainly carry a lot of weight with the American public and their elected representatives!

  • jffoster

    The United Nations Organization is not a government. And do you really think most Americans give a damn about the United damnNations Organization’s “Declaration of Rights”.? The UN has no jurisdiction to force sovereign governments in the United States, either Federal or State, to engage in collective bargaining with their employees. T

    The article 23 your URL refers us to asserts the “right to join trade unions”. It does not use the words “collective bargaining” at all and certainly does not assert it as a “right”. Government employees are perfectly free to join unions, even in Ohio. But they are not free to compel the State to enter into collective bargaining with them. They can have a union to their hearts’ content, but the State doesn’t have to recognize said union for collective bargaining purposes.

  • raza_khan

    Such news makes me so thankful that I am not in Ohio. Of course, I love the people of Ohio… loved driving through Cleveland and Columbus…. it is just your state laws that I have issues with…. seriously…do they know how much faculty members make… try restricting the salaries of CEO / CFO of companies based in Ohio to bring some equity….

  • afterhours

    It sounds to me like he’s using ‘I’ a lot in order to make it clear that he’s taking personal responsibility for what he did, and to stress that his subsequent explanation isn’t meant to be an excuse. The explanation is, however, plausible and human and I see no reason not to take it as an honest attempt to do justice to himself as well as to those he may have inadvertently harmed. I don’t think you have any basis for your amateur diagnosis of a serious personality disorder.

  • mitchp

    Right – was it War of the Worlds on the radio which cause a minor panic? Should we have called Orson Welles a narcissist when he apologized for that little mishap in 1938? Come on world – is 1984 here with such unreal vengeance that we all need to hide and be afraid?
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0617_050617_warworlds.html

    Orson was allowed to apologize and he panicked a million New Yorkers…this guy simply published fiction to bring attention to a real life problem! If the “real” GLBTs are terrified in Syria then this is a real problem and good for him for bringing it to everyone’s attention!

  • interface

    MacMaster’s actions suggest to me that he’s a very disturbed individual. He actually thinks his ongoing long-term deceit was a positive thing.  I’m glad the University’s investigating him.  I shudder to think of this guy teaching.

  • interface

    Because he presented it as fact, not fiction, and was perfectly aware that a considerable number of people believed it to be fact yet took no steps to correct that perception until forced into disclosure.That’s fraud, not fiction, and if the University has a policy about misrepresenting identity, it’s certainly justified in pursuing an investigation.

  • interface

    I agree.  This was all about him.  And in perpetrating the fraud, he delivered a weapon into the hands of
    those he purports to stand against; he undermined the real people
    involved in the struggle for justice; and he diverted the energies of
    individuals and agencies.  If he actually cared, there were a great many
    actions he could have taken other than creating an enormous hoax.

  • austinbarry

    So let’s see.. Everything published on a blog has to be true, and the author cannot pretend to be a fictional character because some people believe everything they read on the Internet and must be protected from their stupidity. I’d expect a little more common sense, especially from the state dept.

  • interface

    Shift responsibility from the perp to the affected much?  I’d expect a little more common sense in discerning the difference between pretending to be Bridget Jones, and pretending to be a real person in a volatile, dangerous situation; and when that’s not enough thrill for ya, perpetrating a hoax about her life being in danger when you’re perfectly aware that thousands of people with good cause to believe that such atrocities happen will think that it’s real.

  • muquddus

    From all we know this is a brutal conflict…killing of innocents including children, torture and imprisonment by a tyrannical government.  The society and the people involved in the revolt have shown exceeding courage.  This hoax is not only a distraction from the struggle, but may have resulted in real harm to people on the ground and their cause.
    I suggest Mr. MacMaster should now devote his energies to doing some real good for this cause.

  • katisumas

    There’s a lot more to  this story.  Read the full report in the Guardian.

    The guy is gross!  And impersonating someone is very different from writing fiction.

  • interface

    And he “simply” didn’t identify it as fiction.  For a long time.  Even when confronted directly.

    There might be a parallel if Welles had broadcast his play during the usual time slot for news instead of during an ongoing radio drama time slot, and if he had continued doing so for months; and if MacMaster, at the first hint that anyone believed his character was a real person, had come clean.  Otherwise, no. 

    From the Guardian:

    “Informed that Syria’s official news agency, Sana, has leapt on the
    controversy, claiming the fictional blog had perpetuated “continuous
    fabrications and lies against Syria in term of kidnapping bloggers and
    activists”, MacMaster said: “Yep. I regret that.”

    “But why had he exchanged many hundreds of emails with a woman in Canada, Sandra Bagaria, who believed herself to be having a romantic relationship with the blogger?
    “I
    feel really guilty about that … I got caught up in the moment and it
    seemed … fun. And I feel a little like shit about that.” He denied
    having been sexually excited by the interaction: “I don’t want to go
    into that aspect particularly of it.”

    “[MacMaster] denied having ever met Jelena Lecic, a London woman whose
    photographs he appropriated from the internet and passed off as images
    of Amina.”I found her photo on Facebook a while back and … when
    I saw her photo, I was like, that is Amina … So I just nabbed her
    photos and was using her.”

    WTF would anyone defend this guy?

  • coco_rico

    I think this guy is AWESOME! We should be giving him a medal for bold fiction instead of whining about what he did. Twain lives.

  • coco_rico

    Oh get a sense of humor.

  • aindrias_hiort

    OK, so the guy’s an idiot. He’s still entitled to free speech. You may hate that, but it should make us all more careful in what we believe as it comes in from the net.

    Having said that, I know from personal experience that the behaviour of some people in the administration of the University of Edinburgh are, if not racist, then brutally culturally bigoted. I was denied access to information at an archive and lied to, point-blank, by an archivist because of my ethnicity (I’m a “white” male from the U.S.). She told me this to my face. She lied to me because I wasn’t born in Scotland and my Gaelic is not fluent. I had to accuse them of racism (which is actually a crime there) to get audio files (6), and still, I was not allowed access to transcriptions made of those files (right, so there’re books lining the sides of the archive with transcriptions that I wasn’t allowed to use-even if I referenced them). So, to me, this self-righteousness by the administration is more than what meets the eye. Everyone knows that they’re bigoted; people warned me about it before I went there. They’re just using this to show that they are sensitive to minorities. There are layers within layers within layers here. Be careful before you jump to a conclusion.

  • msrobinson

    This news broadcast from BBC radio 4 includes an interview with MacMaster (who incidentally does mention his own vanity), plus a comment from a gay activist in Syria describing the added attention the GLBT community has been getting because of the blog. the section is about 7 minutes and starts at about minute 43: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011x4c1/PM_13_06_2011/

  • msrobinson

    and here is an article from Syria detailing the scepticism some had about the blog, some of the realities for GLTB people in Syria, and some of the damage MacMaster has done. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/15/gay-girl-damascus-syrian-lesbians?CMP=twt_gu

  • superdude

    Too funny!  The loudest complainers about him are those who are embarrassed they fell for it.

  • dmadis

    It seems to me that there is less likely to be a need for unions to protect workers rights while there is a union in place; it’s when there is no union and full-time faculty are on yearly contracts subject to constant review that we find all sorts of issues cropping up. For instance, a Chairperson may have a MA at a 2-yr institution, and having a one-year contract results in having less inclination to hire someone with a Ph.D, since the reduced load and stipend for chairing a program could then be offered to the higher credentialed faculty member. Additionally, like Indiana’s community college system, we find that 80% of the courses in SLAS are taught by adjunct faculty on semester contracts. Where, on one campus, 26 full time faculty represent the whole of Liberal Arts while over 100 adjuncts are enlisted to teach at a fraction of the full-time salary. In fact, adjunct faculty not only do not receive benefits (like sick days, scheduled time off, pay between semesters, health care, etc) but also they are paid at an hourly rate–contact hours. Paying teachers by predetermined contact hours actually encourages them to avoid assigning lengthy homework; I mean, who sets out to decrease their hourly wage by increasing the number of hours they have to commit to a given class?

    This is a “college” who removed a full time faculty member for hosting an event to raise money for an adjunct faculty member who could not afford cancer treatments. This is an “institute of higher education” that will simply pull a faculty member’s status as chair of a math program because he voices disagreement with curricular decisions made by administrators seeking to streamline remedial courses to make it easier to market programs. In fact, this is a college that will pull an adjunct from a classroom simply because a student voices a complaint… a college that will pay one faculty fellow with an MA less than another with a PhD when they are performing the same duties and comparable work loads.

    No, let me tell you about not needing unions in higher education because this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want a faculty of adjuncts who make more per hour if they assign less work, are never reviewed because there’s too many of them to review regularly, and are generally over worked, under paid and unable to do anything about it because each contract is no indication that any future contract will be rewarded (and administrators approve contracts), then remove collective bargaining rights. Make every state like Indiana, go ahead, but don’t say you haven’t been warned, and consider researching Indiana’s state-wide standardized online information delivery system before you do so, too. Removing unions from public colleges is simply asking for the quality of education in this country to be beaten down even more; it’s bad enough curriculum at research institutions is steered by corporations with investment interests, but now you want the public colleges and community colleges to become businesses that thrive off of sweatshop labor. I think it’s sad for a college to market the value of education to students when they have a faculty that is made up of MA and PhDs who are making $24,000 a year, gross, teaching 5/5 loads and summer contracts. It’s asinine. Meanwhile the marketing directors and assistant to the Vice Provost’s secretary is pulling in 35 gs a year and $80,000 conference tables are purchased for the Chancellors of 20 separate campuses to sit back in Armani suits and provide local TV interviews speaking about the ‘community service’ the college is ‘dedicated to’. Part-time America won’t work, I think was Kerry’s mantra so many years ago, yet that’s all the college teaching jobs you’ll find if we don’t fight back against this trend now.

    Thank you for reading; the problem of lobbyists in our political system is an issue that should be addressed separately from that of education and educator’s ability to collectively bargain.

     

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