Senate Bill 5...bad for education...bad for Ohio

I need some help here.

An Ohio state Senator, Shannon Brown, has introduced a bill, Senate Bill 5, that will drastically change the landscape of education and public service in Ohio. Feel free to take a while and read the full text of the proposed bill here.

Here's the summary of what the bill will do from the OEA's website...

• Eliminates collective bargaining for state employees and employees of higher education institutions
• Existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) covering those employees expire according to their terms
• Eliminates salary schedules and step increases and replaces them with a merit pay system 
• Eliminates continuing contracts for teachers after the bill’s effective date
• Eliminates teacher leave policies in statute and requires local school boards to determine leave time
• Eliminates seniority as a sole criterion for Reductions In Force (RIFs) 
• Removes healthcare from bargaining and instead permits school boards to govern healthcare benefit plans for employees 
• Requires employees to pay at least 20% of their healthcare costs
• Allows public employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike
• Limits bargaining for local government employees (including school districts) to issues of wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment
• Eliminates binding arbitration for police and fire
• Abolishes the School Employee Healthcare Board
• Prohibits school districts from picking up any portion of the employee’s contribution to the pension system 
• Allows a public employer in “fiscal emergency” to serve notice to terminate, modify or negotiate a CBA 

(What I'm writing about the bill, I should mention, is true as of Saturday, 2/26, when I'm writing this post. Because the bill hasn't, at this point, anyway, made its way out of committee, the bill's final form isn't known.)

Throughout the course of this week, I'll be posting some arguments against Senate Bill 5 and would ask you to help me convince Ohio's senators that the bill is a bad idea.

If you're an Ohio voter and you're down with helping out, please call the OEA's action hotline - 888-907-7309 - and ask your local Senator to oppose SB 5. If possible, try to request a meeting with your Senator (I've done that pretty much every day since Tuesday) so that you can explain your position in person. If you do get lucky enough to get a meeting, take along some of the folks who will be affected by this bill: fire fighters, police officers, non-elected city and county and state officials, teachers, and pretty much every union member in Ohio.

I'll do what I can throughout the course of the week to convince you why SB5 is bad for education and bad for Ohio.