In a hard-won victory for Democrats and their labor-union allies, Ohioans decisively rejected the state's collective-bargaining law on Tuesday night, repealing Republican Governor John Kasich's signature legislation in a referendum that could reverberate into 2012.
Known as Issue 2, the ballot proposition asked voters to decide whether to implement or throw out a recently passed law, known as SB5, that would prevent public-employee unions from collective bargaining, prohibit strikes and force teachers, police offers and firefighters to contribute a set amount toward their health benefits and pensions. The Associated Press called the race with a quarter of precincts reporting and 63% of voters opting to restore bargaining rights for the state's 350,000 unionized public employees. The margin of victory was even larger than the rout projected by several recent polls.
The referendum, the latest battle in the ongoing war over union rights and benefits, was the subject of a massive push by Big Labor. After SB5 passed last spring, unions stalled implementation by collecting more than a million signatures, and collected some $30 million to help galvanize opposition to the law. Its rejection was a sharp blow to Kasich, whose tethered himself to the contentious issue by aggressively urging its passage. "John Kasich chose to put his face on this campaign," said state Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern. "The people of the state pushed back."
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