BGSU FA
Bowling Green State University Faculty Association
Post Office Box 425 · Bowling Green OH 43402
BGSUFacultyassociation@gmail.com · (419) 353-2940
15 March 2011
Dear Colleagues,
The Ohio Senate has passed an amended version of Senate Bill 5, the Public Employee
Collective Bargaining Law, and the Ohio House of Representatives is currently debating it. This bill has far-reaching consequences for our students, our families, and communities across the state. The BGSU-FA has compiled the information included here to help answer questions you may have about the bill, its ramifications for higher education in Ohio, and what you can do to fight it.
Senate Bill 5 would severely limit public employees’ collective bargaining rights. It would prohibit bargaining over health insurance benefits and mandate that employees pay a minimum of 20% of their health insurance premiums. Binding arbitration would be replaced with a provision allowing the governing body of the public employer to decide grievances unilaterally and to impose its own “last best offer” in negotiations. If passed, Senate Bill 5 will drastically increase public employers’ power to terminate employees, cut staffing, increase class sizes, and eliminate services without discussion with or due process for the employees and citizens affected by these decisions.
All of this is bad enough. But the Senate added an amendment aimed at completely eliminating the collective bargaining rights of university professors. At the behest of the Inter-University
Council (IUC), an organization comprising top administrators from the state’s 14 public universities, the following language was added:
"[A]ny faculty who, individually or through a faculty senate, or like organization, participate in the governance of the institution, are involved in personnel decisions, selection or review of administrators, planning and use of physical resources, budget preparation, and determination of educational policies related to admissions, curriculum, subject matter, and methods of instruction and research, are management level employees."
The intentions of this language are clear: define faculty as management so that administrations do not have to negotiate with their unions, since managerial employees are not protected under
Ohio collective bargaining law. It is a stunning betrayal of faculty by their university presidents.

Unable to prevail in free and fair democratic elections on questions of collective bargaining, university presidents make backroom deals with state politicians to get what they want. And what they want, according to Bruce Johnson, the CEO of the IUC, is “flexibility,” a code for decimating the shared governance, due process, and academic freedom that legally binding contracts protect.
The BGSU-FA, along with our allies across the state, fought Senate Bill 5 in the Senate. We are fighting it in the House (please contact your Representative now!). We will fight it with a referendum if it becomes law. But we need your help. Read the enclosed information, and share it with your colleagues and friends. But please do something . Write a letter to the editor.
Contact your State Representative. Attend a rally. Sign the referendum petition if it comes to that. Stand up for your rights and our collective future before it’s too late.
Sincerely,
David J. Jackson
BGSU-FA President

In 1980, in the case, National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University , the US Supreme
Court ruled 5 to 4 that faculty at private institutions are managerial, and thus do not have the rights and protections afforded to other employee groups under the National Labor Relations
Act, the federal law that governs collective bargaining in the private sector.
The ruling, which required the NLRB to decertify the well-established faculty union at Yeshiva
University, applies to full-time faculty members who have a measure of control over hiring, tenure, promotion, curriculum, classro om policy, and other “managerial” duties. In other words, the Court ruled that faculty who participate in shared governance at a private institution are not legally protected by the NLRA.
Contrary to popular belief, the well-known ruling does not prohibit private-institution faculty from organizing and collective bargaining.
It does not make such efforts illegal. In fact, about 60 private institutions have NLRB-certified faculty unions. But the Yeshiva decision allows administrations at these institutions to petition the NLRB to decertify the union, and the broad definition of managerial functions in the decision essentially would force the NLRB to do so, since most faculty do participate in hiring, curriculum planning, etc.
Where private-institution faculty unions exist, it is invariably because the strength and unity of the faculty organization make it politically expedient for the administration to voluntarily recognize the union and work with it. Although possible in theory and practice, obtaining voluntary recognition is exceedingly difficult, in effect putting collective bargaining out of reach for most private-institution faculty.
A last-minute amendment to the version of SB 5 passed in the Ohio state senate added
Yeshiva -like language that would bar from collective bargaining rights and protections any faculty members who participate in university governance, broadly defined. The amendment was crafted by the Inter-University Council (IUC), a consortium of university administrators from
Ohio’s public universities, including BGSU. Full-time faculty at ten of the IUC’s fourteen member institutions are unionized, making the amendment a direct attack by university administrators on their institutions’ faculty and on the democratic process by which we and our colleagues at other
Ohio campuses elected to bargain collectively.
Like the Yeshiva decision, the language in SB 5 would strip faculty with virtually any role in decision making of the legal protections of collective bargaining, as outlined for state employees in Ohio Revised Code 4117. And like our peers at private institutions, while we would not be legally prohibited from organizing, our administration would have no legal obligation to recognize our union. If we did convince the administration to agree to recognize our union and bargain with us, it could reverse that decision at any time. And if we negotiated a contract, the agreement’s enforcement would rest solely on the political will of the faculty.

(Source: Ohio Secretary of State: http://tinyurl.com/634vmxa
)
A veto referendum gives voters the opportunity to overturn a law before it takes effect. Once the governor signs a bill into law, any Ohio citizen may file an initial petition with the Secretary of
State and Attorney General to “refer” a new law to registered voters for rejection or approval.
Citizens then have 90 days to collect enough signatures for the petition to add a veto referendum to the ballot in the next statewide election that takes place at least 60 days after the petition is filed.
• Signatures from at least 6% of the total number of voters who voted for the office of governor in the last election are required (approximately 240,000).
• The signatures have to be from at least 44 of the 88 Ohio counties of the state. From each of the 44 counties there must be signatures equal to at least 3% of the number of voters in that county who voted for governor in the last election. See county totals here: http://tinyurl.com/6blbq7q
• Those who circulate the petitions must be Ohio residents. Those who sign must be voters registered in Ohio.
• The petition has to be filed with the Secretary of State within 90 days after the
Governor has filed the law in question with the Secretary of State.
• If the petition is deemed valid, the law will not take effect unless it is approved by a majority of the voters at the first regular or general election more than 60 days after the petition is filed.
If SB5 becomes law before April 6, the referendum would appear on the November 2011 ballot, with no elections for state or national office.
If SB5 becomes law after April 6, the vote would happen on the November 2012 ballot, coinciding with the presidential election.

Posted on 02/18/2011 by OU AAUP
On February 17 in Columbus, the Ohio AAUP’s Rudy Fichtenbaum testified eloquently before the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee against Senate Bill 5, which would eliminate collective bargaining for all Ohio state employees. His testimony demolished the argument that killing collective bargaining will benefit the state’s budget or economy. Here’s what Prof. Fichtenbaum said:
Good morning Chairman Bacon, Vice Chair Farber, Ranking Member Schiavoni and distinguished Committee members. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before your Committee on this important matter. The purpose of my testimony this morning is to speak in opposition to the passage of Senate Bill 5.
Before I offer my testimony, I want to share with you some information about my background. I hold the economics Ph.D. from the University of Missouri and am a Professor of Economics at
Wright State University. I am a labor economist and have published more than 35 articles in scholarly journals including several on the impact of unions on labor markets. Since 1998 I have been the chief negotiator for the Wright State Chapter of the American Association of University
Professors and I am also a Past-President and current member of the Board of Trustees of the
Ohio Conference of the AAUP.
For those of you unfamiliar with AAUP, our organization was founded in 1915 by Arthur Lovejoy
– a Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University – and John Dewey – our great
American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer. The incident that prompted
Lovejoy and Dewey to found AAUP was the firing of a labor economist at Stanford because a member of the Board of Trustees did not like his views on immigrant labor and railroad monopolies. Since that time AAUP has worked to protect academic freedom and to provide fair procedures for resolving grievances, to promote the economic well-being of faculty and other academic professionals, and to advance the interests of higher education.
In her sponsor’s testimony introducing SB 5, Senator Jones stated that she was not introducing this bill to punish public employees, acknowledging that most are dedicated to serving the citizens of Ohio. She also stated that the purpose was not to punish unions or to seek political retribution, and we taken Senator Jones at her word.

So the only possible reason for introducing SB 5 at this time is the belief that somehow it is collective bargaining in Ohio that has created our budget crisis, or that abolishing or curtailing collective bargaining rights for public employees will help solve Ohio’s future budget woes.
Perhaps this is based on the myth that public employees are overpaid relative to employees in the private sector – a myth stemming from simple comparisons of earnings between public and private sector employees. Such comparisons fail to take into account differences in education between public and private sector employees.
Several recent studies using data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics cover wage and compensation differences between public and private sector employees.
A recent study by John Schmitt “The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees” found that among employees in private sector, 20.9% had a college degree and 8.9% had an advanced degree. In comparison, among state employees, 27.5% had a college degree and 25.6% had advanced degrees. For local government employees, the figures are 27.4% and 22.3% respectively. After controlling only for education and age, he found that state and local workers actually earned 6.4% less than their private sector counterparts. After controlling for age, education, race, gender, and region, Schmitt still found that state and local government employees earned 3.7% less. [1]
In their study “Out of Balance: Comparing Public and Private Sector Compensation over 20
Years”, Keith Bender and John Heywood found that employees in the public sector were twice as likely to have a college or advanced degree than their private sector counterparts. After controlling for education and a number of other variables, state employees earned 11% less and local employees earned 11.6% less. In addition, they also concluded that even after taking benefits into account, state and local public sector workers still earned less. [2]
Finally, Jeffrey Keefe published “Are Ohio Public Employees Over-Compensated?” in which he controlled for education and several other variables. He found that full-time state and local public employees earn about 5.9% less than their private sector counterparts. When hours worked are factored in, they earn 3.3% less. Keefe also studied total compensation (wages plus benefits) and found state and local public employees have annual compensation about 6% less, and hourly compensation about 3.5% less. [3]
Is there any relationship between collective bargaining for public employees and the budget deficit? According to a study by Policy Matters, the nine states banning collective bargaining

among public employees have an average budget deficit of 16.5% compared to 16.2% for the fifteen states that allow collective bargaining. If we expand this to the 42 states and the District of Columbia that allow collective bargaining for some public employees, the deficit is 16.6%. [4]
However, there is a relationship between budget deficits and the unemployment rate, and this points to the fundamental reason for our budget deficit in Ohio. For decades, Ohio has underinvested in education. As a result, Ohio is 37th in the nation when it comes to the percentage of our population that has a college degree. [5]
Senator Jones is correct when she says the world has changed, and it is time for government to change. Today the good jobs are in the knowledge economy, and these jobs require highly skilled workers. Innovative technology and knowledge-based jobs are changing our labor market.
The changes in our labor market mean that our colleges and universities are increasingly important to Ohio’s economy. We train the workers and citizens of the future and we generate many discoveries that drive economic growth. In short, to create the high paying middle class jobs of the future, we need a world-class system of higher education, and this means attracting the best and brightest from around the world to come teach and undertake research at state universities in Ohio.
Unfortunately, there is a growing gap nationally between salaries for faculty between public and private universities. Moreover, faculty salaries at Ohio’s public universities have fallen behind those at public universities nationally, thus compounding our competitive disadvantage. Taking into account the number of faculty at each of our doctoral level public universities, our faculty earn an average of $4,800 a year less than faculty at other doctoral public universities in the
U.S. [6] Eliminating collective bargaining in higher education will only exacerbate this gap and make it more difficult for us to attract the faculty we need to build a world-class system of public colleges and universities.
Faculty alone cannot create a world-class system of colleges and universities. We also need students who are prepared for college, and this means having a world-class K-12 system – and we won’t have one without attracting the best and the brightest to become teachers. There is a positive correlation between teacher’s salaries and the percentage of a state’s citizens that have a college degree. Controlling for general economic conditions, I found that each $1,000 increase in teacher’s salaries raises the percentage of the population having a college degree in a state by nearly 0.5 percentage points. [7] So limiting the collective bargaining rights of teachers will not

help Ohio’s economy to become more competitive and create the knowledge workers of the future.
Other public employees are also important to creating a vibrant economy in Ohio, one that attracts others to come to Ohio and keeps Ohio’s best and brightest here. We need police and firefighters. These people put their lives on the line every day. There are no statues of Wall
Street bankers who have died keeping us safe or carrying children from burning buildings.
Without strong public safety forces, crime will increase and response times for emergencies will increase, raising insurance rates in Ohio and driving out those who have the knowledge economy credentials to successfully seek employment elsewhere.
Turnover costs are frequently overlooked and can be substantial. The American Management
Association reports that an employee departure costs 25% to 200% of the employee’s annual salary; and that for highly skilled employees, these costs tend to the higher end of this range. [8]
According to a study by Selden and Moynihan “A Model of Voluntary Turnover in State
Government,” collective bargaining reduces turnover among public employees. [9] Ohio has about 727,000 state and local employees. Suppose each turnover costs 100% of the departed employee’s salary – a reasonable number given the high skill level of public employees; and the average public employee earns $40,850 annually; then, a 1 percentage point reduction in turnover saves Ohio taxpayers $297 million every year. [10]
So the bottom line is that public employees in Ohio are not over-paid, and they are not responsible for the current budget crisis. Ohio’s public employees are not the problem. They are part of the solution! It is unfortunate that the issue of collective bargaining rights for public employees has even come up at this time when Ohio faces a budget crisis. The Bill’s sponsor,
Senator Jones, acknowledged in her testimony that eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employees would have little if any effect on Ohio’s immediate budget problems. I submit that curtailing collective bargaining rights for public employees will be outright harmful to Ohio in the longer term – by weakening our state’s competitive position in having a well educated citizenry, a safe environment in which to raise families, and workplace conditions that engender satisfied employees who will stay with their public employer rather than leaving at the first opportunity.
I would be happy to answer any questions.

Footnotes
1. John Schmitt, “The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees,” May 2010, Center for Economic and
Policy Research.
2. Keith Bender and John Heywood, “Out of Balance: Comparing Public and Private Sector Compensation over 20
Years,” April 2010, Center for State & Local Government Excellence and The National Institute on Retirement
Security.
3. Jeffrey Keefe “Are Ohio Public Employees Over-Compensated?” February 10, 2011 Economic Policy Institute
Briefing Paper #296.
4. Wendy Patton, “Press Briefing on Unions, Working Families, Public Employees and Public Budgets,” December 30,
2010 Policy Matters Ohio.
5. The 2011 Statistical Abstract of the United States, Table 229.
6. “The Annual Report On The Economic Status Of The Profession, 2009-10,” Academe March-April 2010, Survey
Report Table 4 and Appendix 1.
7. Estimate from a regression using percent of population in a state with a college education as the dependent variable and average faculty salaries from the National Education Association http://www.nea.org/home/29402.htm and state unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/.
8. William G. Bliss, “The Cost of Employee Turnover,” http://www.isquare.com/turnover.cfm and http://www.sashacorp.com/turnframe.html.
9. Sally Selden and Donald Moynihan “A Model of Voluntary Turnover in State Government,” Review of Public
Personnel Administration, April 2000 vol. 20 no. 2 63-74.
10. Data on the wages and salaries of state and local employees in Ohio from Regional Economic Information System,
Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Department of Commerce http://www.bea.gov/regional/docs/footnotes.cfm?tablename=SA07N and data on employment of state and local employees from http://www.bea.gov/regional/docs/footnotes.cfm?tablename=SA25N.

from the Ohio Conference of AAUP
In This Editon:
1. *Summary of SB 5 Changes*
2. *Next Steps*
3. *Action Items for AAUP Members*
1. Summary of SB 5 Changes
On Wednesday, the Ohio Senate passed an amended version of Substitute Senate Bill 5 by a vote of 17 to 16. This was preceded by the majority's replacement of Bill Seitz (R-
Cincinnati), a NO vote on SB 5, on the sponsoring committee. This allowed the bill to pass committee 7-5. The bill was altered via a 99-page omnibus amendment on Tuesday that contained significant changes, particularly in regards to university faculty.
The major changes to the bill are as follows (note that the final two bullets below trump any meaning the first few have):
 The right to bargain collectively is reinstated for some state employees.
 The legislative body of the jurisdiction in which bargaining is occurring has the final say in the contract. For higher education employees the legislative body would be the Ohio General Assembly. There is no neutral binding arbitration for negotiations that have reached impasse.
 Employees who strike are subject to being fined up to $1,000 and being imprisoned for up to 30 days. Thus, SB 5 not only takes away our right to strike, it criminalizes strikes and other work actions.
 While faculty are not specifically excluded from the right to bargain, the Senatepassed bill contains language that defines everyday faculty work, much of it only advisory, as managerial, thus making faculty ineligible for collective bargaining. This language was inspired by the Supreme Court's Yeshiva decision
< http://supreme.justia.com/us/444/672/ >, which defined private college and university faculty as managerial employees, thus denying them their right to bargain.
 From the specific language of the legislation below, the definition is sweeping and could arguably cover all faculty members:
*"any faculty who, individually or through a faculty senate, or like organization, participate in the governance of the institution, are involved in personnel decisions, selection or review of administrators, planning and use of physical resources, budget preparation, and determination of educational policies related to admissions,

curriculum, subject matter, and methods of instruction and research, are management level employees."*
2. Next Steps
Now that the bill has passed the Ohio Senate, it will move over to the Ohio House for consideration. It will go through another committee process via the House Commerce and
Labor
Committee< http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.php?option=com_displaycommittees&task
=2&type=Regular&committeeId=96 >.
The House Republican leadership has stated intentions to vote this bill out of the
House NEXT WEEK. Their intent is to get this bill passed before having to deal with the state budget bill.
The Ohio Conference AAUP has developed a document entitled Looking for Savings in All the
Wrong Places: Why Senate Bill 5 Saves No Dollars and Makes No Sense (see the title on the
Conference Web Site , and will be using the document as one tool to communicate to House members about why SB 5 is detrimental to our institutions, faculty, students, and the state
Ohio (a version of this document was given to Senators earlier this week). Feel free to circulate this document and use it as the basis for letters to legislators and letters to the editor. Continue checking the OCAAUP website's Defend Ohio's Collective Bargaining Tool
Kit and Facebook page
for updates.
3. Action Items for AAUP Members
If SB 5 passes the House, it may contain changes and thus will to return to the Senate for concurrence before it would reach the Governor's desk. It is important that we take the time to thank each Senator who voted against the bill, and tell each Senator who supported the bill that we are disappointed.
Below is a list of these Senators, which are linked to their Senate pages and contact information.
Additionally, it is important to begin communicating with our State Representatives. Click here to find your State Representative. And members should feel free to contact other state representatives as well.
Please share your views of SB 5 with the following State Senators:
*Senators Voting Against SB 5:*
Sen. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/bill-seitz.html
>
Sen. Tim Grendell (R-Chesterland)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/tim-grendell.html
>

Sen. Jim Hughes (R-Columbus) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/jim-hughes.html
>
Sen. Tom Patton (R-Strongsville)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/tom-patton.html
>
Sen. Scott Oelslager (R-North Canton)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/scott-oelslager.html
>
Sen. Gayle Manning (R-North Ridgeville)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/gayle-manning.html
>
Sen. Capri Cafaro (D-Hubbard)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/capri-s-cafaro.html
>
Sen. Shirley Smith (D-Cleveland)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/shirley-a-smith.html
>
Sen. Nina Turner (D-Cleveland) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/nina-turner.html
>
Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-Youngstown)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/joe-schiavoni.html
>
Sen. Tom Sawyer (D-Akron) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/tom-sawyer.html
>
Sen. Edna Brown (D-Toledo) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/edna-brown.html
>
Sen. Eric Kearney (D-Cincinnati)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/eric-kearney.html
>
Sen. Charleta Tavares (D-Columbus)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/charleta-b-tavares.html
>
Sen. Jason Wilson (D-Columbiana)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/jason-wilson.html
>
Sen. Michael Skindell (D-Lakewood)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/michael-j-skindell.html
>
*Senators Voting For SB 5:*
Sen. Kris Jordan (R-Powell) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/kris-jordan.html
>
Sen. Cliff Hite (R-Findlay) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/cliff-hite.html
>
Sen. Shannon Jones (R-Springboro)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/shannon-jones.html
>
Sen. Keith Faber (R-Celina) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/keith-faber.html
>
Sen. Larry Obhof (R-Montville Township)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/larry-obhof.html
>
Sen. Kevin Bacon (R-Columbus) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/kevin-bacon.html
>
Sen. Mark Wagoner (R-Toledo) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/mark-wagoner.html
>
Sen. Chris Widener (R-Springfield)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/chris-widener.html
>
Sen. Bill Beagle (R-Tipp City) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/bill-beagle.html
>
Sen. Tom Niehaus (R-New Richmond)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/thomas-e-niehaus.html
>
Sen. Karen Gillmor (R-Tiffin) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/karen-gillmor.html
>
Sen. Gary Cates (R-West Chester) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/gary-cates.html
>
Sen. David Daniels (R-Greenfield)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/david-t-daniels.html
>
Sen. Frank LaRose (R-Akron) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/frank-larose.html
>
Sen. Jimmy Stewart (R-Albany) < http://www.ohiosenate.gov/jimmy-stewart.html
>
Sen. Peggy Lehner (R-Kettering)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/peggy-lehner.html
>
Sen. Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster)< http://www.ohiosenate.gov/tim-schaffer.html
>
In Solidarity,
Sara Kaminski, Executive Director
Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors
137 East State Street, Columbus, OH 43215
O: 614-545-6349 614-545-6349, ext. 6349
F: 614-241-2169 www.ocaaup.org