Rich DeColibus column in the Plain Dealer: Senate Bill 5 - Return to Camelot

Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 2, 2011

By Richard A. DeColibus

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.
ssf/2011/1/taking_sides_on_issue_2_repeal.html

Senate Bill 5 - Return to Camelot

Camelot, in this case, is not the singing, cheerful Broadway play about handsome knights and beautiful ladies living in a mostly imaginary England around 1100 A.D. Real life, back then, was not so swell, especially if you were a peasant or serf. You belonged to the lord (you were his personal property) and lived on his manor, working to produce food and such other goods and services as the lord required. It was called feudalism. Not a bad life if you were the lord; not so much fun if you were the serf. Since the lord did all your thinking for you, your only terms and conditions of employment were to obey the lord at all times.

We have, in SB5, an attempt to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Personally, I never thought feudalism was a particularly attractive life style, but the Republicans who run Ohio seem to have found a new source of entertainment: reducing public employees to serfdom.
[Click images to enlarge; click the first one twice.]

SB5 has some decent clauses but it's mostly just arrogant and bad. To wit:
• Public employers (aka "lords") have no obligation whatsoever to talk to public employee unions (or their members) about their wages, hours, terms and conditions of employment, or sick leave (or any other kind of leave). The lords just decide how things will be, and that's that. How that, in any way, is different from feudalism escapes me. Teachers, firemen, police, serfs, all the same.
• As a former teacher union President (CTU), one of the best things we had in the contract was language limiting class sizes. Not that you couldn't have oversized classes, but the Board had to pay the teacher a penalty if the class got beyond a certain level. Our thinking was they'd do everything possible to avoid giving teachers an extra buck, and we were right. Classes were nicely balanced most of the time. The idea that the teacher-serfs should have any say in class size is now forbidden by SB5. Good for lords, not so good for kids.
• SB5 mandates "performance based evaluations." Great, except who defines performance? SB5 also mandates part of the evaluation must be based on student performance; and, as we all know, all students in Ohio come from identical families, with identical parents, have equal talents and abilities, and live in equally safe and attractive neighborhoods, so this is completely fair and unbiased.
• The law eliminates step raises, which is fine by me since, I guess, it means first year teachers will shoot to the top of the salary schedule because they can't get there by steps. Actually, I don't think that was the lord's thinking at all, but I have no clue what murky logic lurks behind this apparently random event. Whatever it is, I suspect it's not good for the serfs.

• Eliminating pay scales is another pearl of wisdom emanating out of SB5. In the olden days, high school teachers got paid more than elementary teachers (high school teaching was a more important job!), and men teachers were paid more than woman teachers (men had families to support!). We in the union movement were rather proud we eliminated that thinking and, we thought, made it fair and equal for everyone with pay scales that treated everyone equally. Little did we know how good the old system (now perfectly possible as per SB5) was. Shame on us for such muddled thinking that everyone should be treated the same.
• The crown jewel of SB5, however, is the elimination of seniority rights when layoffs must happen. The second-year gym teacher who happens to be a nephew of the principal stays, the twenty five-year veteran math teacher with a wife, three kids, and a problematic mortgage goes. Now I ask you, what could be fairer and better for education than that?

The real motive behind SB5, as I see it, had nothing whatsoever to do with fiscal integrity or intelligent public policy. The impelling goal of SB5 is the destruction of public sector unions who seldom endorse Republicans, since most Republicans never met a management right they didn't like. In simple terms it's a law meant to facilitate the reelection of Republicans in the State of Ohio. Should SB5 remain in effect, the law of unintended consequences will inevitably kick in, and our best, most intelligent and most competent firemen, teachers, police, and other public sector workers will abandon public service in this state. This is 2011 A.D.; people don't do serf anymore.