Ohio voters may get say on ‘right to work’

In the wake of Indiana’s recent passage a right-to-work law, opposing sides in Ohio are preparing to battle over the same issue.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels earlier this month signed the first right-to-work law to be enacted in the so-called Rust Belt, a stronghold for union-represented work forces. The law makes it illegal to force employees to join a union or pay union dues and is similar to laws in 22 other states. Indiana was the first state in a decade to enact such a law.

Some believe the law will give Indiana a competitive advantage in luring businesses to that state. Others don’t believe that.

On Monday, the organization Ohioans for Workplace Freedom said it will gather signatures to place before voters a proposed constitutional amendment to “guarantee the freedom of Ohioans to choose whether to participate in a labor organization as a condition of employment.”

The people behind the drive — which they hope to place before voters this November or November 2013 — are some of the same people who wrote the Ohio health care amendment, Issue 3, that voters overwhelmingly approved last November. Maurice Thompson, an attorney and executive director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, crafted the language of both Issue 3 and a proposed amendment that would make Ohio a right-to-work state.

“Our polling has always shown that Ohioans want the freedom to choose that other states have always had,” Thompson said Monday.

Other recent polling by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed that more than half of Ohio voters favor passing a right-to-work law.

Ohioans for Workplace Freedom wants to collect the signatures of about 600,000 registered voters in Ohio, said Chris Littleton, a Butler County resident and former president of the conservative Ohio Liberty Council. The organization needs to collect a minimum 386,000 valid signatures, Littleton said.

Last week, the Ohio secretary of state’s office approved the organization as a single-issue political action committee, Littleton said.

The group’s proposal and Indiana’s new law sparked strong reaction among proponents and opponents.

“Seven years of evidence and experience ultimately demonstrated that Indiana did need a right-to-work law to capture jobs for which, despite our highly rated business climate, we are not currently being considered,” Daniels said.

Tim Burga, chief of staff of Ohio AFL-CIO, calls the issue “right to work for less.” He contends that right-to-work laws drive wages and benefits lower and do nothing to create new jobs. He cited a recent New York Times article that reported that six of the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates have right-to-work laws.

“We had this debate all last year about workers’ rights and collective bargaining, and voters spoke very clearly,” said Burga, referring to Senate Bill 5, which would have weakened the ability of Ohio public-sector unions to collectively bargain and which voters overwhelmingly rejected.

Thompson and Littleton reject comparisons with Senate Bill 5, saying SB 5 and right-to-work laws have nothing to do with each other.

James Winship, president of the International Union of Electronic Workers-Communication Workers of America Local 755 in Dayton, calls right-to-work legislation an attack on unions.

When members stop contributing, unions “crumble,” he said. To counter that, Winship believes younger workers need to be reminded that unions have a history of winning for them benefits, including a 40-hour work week and child-protection labor laws, which they may now take for granted.

Winship also believes Indiana will lose in the long run. Without dues and members, union negotiators lose “clout” in workplaces, which ultimately puts pressure on wages and benefits — and tax revenue, he said. “Wait and see what happens with their tax base there,” Winship said.

But Warren Davidson, owner of metal stamper West Troy Tool & Machine, sees the issue differently. In the year 2000, about 90 percent of his sales were to customers in Ohio. Last year, his Ohio sales amounted to just 40 to 50 percent of his company’s business. Davidson says he is watching customers move to the southwestern states with right-to-work laws. If enough of his customers move, he may have to move as well, he said.

“The customer base is making location decisions,” said Davidson, whose 50-employee shop is not unionized. “And total cost is a factor. But labor cost is a very big factor.”

However, Davidson said, Dayton-area companies like his can easily serve customers in Indiana.

Where customers move is an issue as well for Michael van Haaren, president and chief operating officer for Stillwater Technologies, a Troy firm that makes tooling for original equipment manufacturers like Honda and Chrysler. While Stillwater isn’t unionized, some of van Haaren’s customers are, and he believes those companies are sensitive to the perceived business climate of other states.“Directly, it’s not an impact,” van Haaren said of Indiana’s new law. “But indirectly and long-term, it’s definitely an impact.”

Dennis McLaughlin, a Middletown-based shareholder of business consultant Clark Schaefer and Hackett, works with manufacturers, many of them small, family-owned and nonunionized. Right-to-work provisions don’t often come up in conversation with owners of those businesses, McLaughlin said. Taxes, regulations and other issues seem to be more critical to them, he said.