Public employers currently pay union members while they engage in lobbying and political activities, and one Republican lawmaker wants to stop it.
Ohio Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, recently introduced Senate Bill 8, which was referred to the Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee.
The legislation would ban public entities (school districts, fire departments, and local governments) from giving paid leave or other compensation for certain union activities.
“If you’re a police officer or a teacher, you should be doing your work,” Huffman said. “If they’re doing union work, they should be paid by the union.”
In particular, the bill specifies:
No public employer shall provide, or agree to a provision in a collective bargaining agreement that provides, paid leave or any other form of compensation for a public employee to engage in either of the following activities:
· Political activities involve advocating for any political candidate's election or defeat.
· Lobbying activities that involve attempting to influence the passage or defeat of federal or state legislation, local ordinances, or any ballot measure."
GOP leaders say legislation like Senate Bills 1 and 8 protect taxpayer dollars and prevent unions from using public money to further their agenda, particularly pushing woke and DEI ideology on college campuses.
Last week, the Ohio House passed Senate Bill 1, which would bring sweeping reforms to higher education. The bill would prohibit professors from striking and limit the topics that can be negotiated in collective bargaining agreements, among other provisions.
Unions, including non-education unions such as the AFL-CIO and Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, oppose the bills. According to a Cleveland.com report, they argue that paid release time for union work benefits the public by improving relationships between workers and management.
They are concerned SB 1 is the first legislative attempt to limit the power of unions, which one legislative leader has described as “death by 1,000 paper cuts.”
For example, Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, works for the union full-time, which means he doesn’t teach. OEA reimburses the Worthington City School District in suburban Columbus for his salary.
The OEA represents about 120,000 teachers and staff at Ohio’s schools, colleges and universities.
“From our perspective what this appears to be is a thinly veiled effort to silence the voices of public employees,” DiMauro said in the Cleveland.com article. “All of that is bargained at the local level.”
In 2020, a report from the conservative Goldwater Institute said public employers in Columbus paid $1.1 million for 40,000 hours of release time during a one-year period. Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections paid nearly $600,000.
According to the report, many public employers “admitted they do not track the hours and cost of release time, or said it would take extensive research to determine if the data exists.”
Huffman would like to hold hearings soon and possibly put SB 8 into Ohio’s upcoming operating budget, a two-year spending bill lawmakers often load up with policy. The budget must pass by June 30.
The higher education bill, Senate Bill 1, passed, 58 to 34, largely along party lines, despite hundreds of opponents testifying against it in the House, Cleveland.com reports.
Conservatives say the bill will end liberal “indoctrination” at colleges and support intellectual diversity in the classroom, especially around controversial and political issues.
SB 1 now heads back to the Senate, which needs to review changes to the bill made in the House. If lawmakers agree to the changes, the bill will move to Gov. Mike DeWine.
