If the law is not repealed through Issue 2, it could take the state back to a time when labor relations in the public sector were particularly sour, and the delivery of government services was often disrupted due to work stoppages.

Ohio public-sector workers did not win the right to collective bargain until 1983. Prior to that, it was illegal for public employees to engage in strikes or work stoppages.

However, that certainly didn’t stop them from fighting for what they felt was right. Prior to collective bargaining, it was not uncommon for police officers in a municipality to call off sick en masse or teachers to walk an illegal picket line.

Under federal law, employers had the right to fire their striking public-sector employees if they did not return to work within 24 hours. However, that was an entirely unrealistic option.

“You think that would conclude strikes in Ohio. But, depending on the year, we ranked second or third in the nation in the number of strikes which were illegal,” said former state Sen. Eugene Branstool, a sponsor of the 1983 collective-bargaining law that SB5 could replace.

“The mayor can’t just fire all the firefighters. The superintendent can’t just fire all the teachers. It’s just impossible.”

Knowing their employers had little recourse in the face of a work stoppage, public employees in Ohio would frequently shut down public service in order to bring attention to working conditions.

“It was unharmonious,” Branstool said. “But they had no way to resolve differences, no way to have their concerns heard. When people are pushed into a corner, they do what they have to do.”

From 1978 through 1980, Ohio averaged 61 public strikes each year.

In the early 1980s, the city of Newark, Ohio, virtually shut down because almost every one of its employees was engaged in some form of work stoppage.

“Really every public employee in the city was down, whether it was teachers, firefighters, police. The city was hard hit,” said former state Rep. Mark Guthrie, another co-sponsor of the original collective-bargaining law. “Newark wasn’t alone. There were strikes all over the state.”

Under Ohio’s current collective-bargaining law, strikes among certain public employees are still illegal. But there are tools to resolve differences between employers and employees, namely binding arbitration. SB5 would end the practice of third-party binding arbitration, instead allowing management to implement their last offer if negotiations reach an impasse.

After the collective bargain law was passed in 1983, public-sector strikes have become almost non-existent. In the past three years, Ohio has had a total of just five public-sector strikes.

To Branstool, the lack of public-sector strikes in the years since the law was passed is proof that it has worked well.

“We practically eliminated strikes. Thousands of agreements these last 27 years have been worked on,” he said. “Not one word has been changed in 27 years. All these previous administrations, Democrat, Republican, nobody laid a hand on it because it was working.”

A television ad from Columbus-based progressive think tank, Progress Ohio, highlighted footage from an actual meeting of the Xenia (Ohio) City Council, in which council members question the city fire chief’s request for $13,755 worth of “turn-out gear” (the protective outer-garments worn by all firefighters that include helmet, boots, heat- and fire-resistant trousers and an oxygen supply) for seven firefighters.

The council members’ responses range from incredulity to accusatory.

“I have a hard time believing that the gear needs to replaced every five years; that’s just my opinion,” says one in the video.

Another points out that firefighting is “one of the only occupations I know of that you aren’t responsible for absolutely anything.” He added, “Maybe a fireman should have to buy his own turn-out gear.”

Another member of the council highlighted a dangerous conflict between safety needs and political expedience, arguing, “it’s my opinion that we wait on this expenditure until after the election.”

When the chief argued the suits were as critical to a firefighter’s survival a police officer’s bulletproof vest, a member of the council pointed out that police officers in the city supplied their own bulletproof vests. (They don’t.) Another council member corrected him, and he responded, “Maybe that’s something else that we need to fix.”

Liberal commentator Ed Schultz aired the spot on his MSNBC television show, Ed TV, on Oct. 24. His guest was Mark Sanders, the president of Ohio’s Association of Professional Firefighters. Firefighters trust the collective bargaining process as it stands now, Sanders said, but if Issue 2 passes Tuesday, “you see what might happen all across Ohio, as those who might not be equipped to make those decisions will be making those decisions in the end.”

Supporters of the law say the legislation passed in March, Senate Bill 5, will help prevent layoffs by preventing unions from negotiating too-favorable contracts for their members, putting an end to binding arbitration, giving local officials the final say in contract disputes and criminalizing workers’ strikes. But Smith doesn’t think SB5 would have helped his town at all.

“Senate Bill 5 doesn’t save the day for anybody,” he told The American Independent. “It’s still up to the local government to have a meaningful relationship with their bargaining units, which I think we do, here in Lancaster. In particular, both fire and police have taken zero-percent increases over the last two years without SB5 hanging over anyone’s heads.

“Both fire and police [unions’ bargaining units] had closed contracts, but they opened them up to allow us to work with them on a number of issues, not just salary,” he said.

SB5 would also prohibit pension pick-up, a common practice in which the municipality offers to pick up some or all of the employees’ share of their pensions in lieu of a costly wage increase. Governments wouldn’t be permitted to offer it, even if they wished to. Smith said Lancaster “didn’t touch the pension pick-up aspect” in recent negotiations.

SB5 would require all public employees to pay at least 15-percent of the costs for health care.

“The health insurance participation [for employees] used to be minimal; now it’s up to 14 percent,” Smith said about Lancaster. “Three years ago, we asked for 10- and then 12-percent, and we have been working with our employees to have them pay more of their share, because health-care costs have been escalating. But we’ve also changed the health plan itself, so it’s not as favorable as it used to be, and all of that has been done with the understanding of the bargaining units.”

The intention of SB5 is to bring public workers’ contributions for health care and pensions more in-line with those in the private sector, where many have neither employer-offered health care or any pensions at all. But in reality, both of those contract elements can provide a local government extra flexibility in negotiations, allowing them to stall or avoid wage increases.

Smith said Lancaster didn’t have a problem with bargaining units but rather the state’s reduction of funds allocated to local governments. In an attempt to balance the state’s budget, Governor John Kasich reduced the amount paid out to cities and towns in the state by about half.

Smith said Lancaster also received fewer local income tax dollars, as well, compounding the problems.

“We lost 50 percent of that due to the state allocating that money back to themselves, instead of to the city,” he said.

Smith said the city had been unable to fill three other firefighter positions due to budget constraints as well as five police jobs, and around 20 other city positions.

He added the loss of state funding for his city was exacerbated by a decrease in local income taxes collected there. Smith said that, while he was optimistic about stabilizing the short-term with a .25-percent raise in local income tax, he predicted that Kasich’s plan to do away with the estate tax by 2013 would represent yet another obstacle to Lancaster’s return to normalcy.

Unions reacted to the SB5’s passage last February by organizing a massive petition drive to place the law on the state’s November 8 ballot via a referendum, thanks to Ohio’s unusual constitutional provision for citizen’s veto. A majority ‘yes’ vote on Issue 2 means the law would stay on the books; a majority ‘no’ vote would repeal it.

According to the group’s Facebook page, Saturday’s meeting would be important: A release was circulated indicating that protesters were looking to begin a more ambitious campaign, requesting cold-weather tents and sleeping bags, gas-powered generators and other materials indicative of a more powerful movement building in the Midwest capital.

So far, Columbus city officials have refused to grant the activists any sort of permit to allow semi-permanent camping. The city is enforcing regular sidewalk and city-park rules, which do not permit tents or overnight camping.

“Those tents are people staying here 24-7, and not going home,” said one Occupant in his 60s.

“That permit in there, that says we have a right to have them there for storage and sleeping quarters,” he continued, gesturing to the main tent. “And, until they tell us to take them down, they’ll stay there.”

He was at least partly right. The permit, issued by the city’s Department of Public Services, says that its purpose is to allow activists to “OCCUPY SIDEWALK WITH 3 TENTS AND TABLES TO PASS OUT FLIERS.”

One of the six or so other protesters clarified.

“We’re not allowed to sleep,” said Miles Coleman, though he acknowledged that “nodding off” was sometimes unavoidable. “We’ve been working in shifts, and you just go home when you are tired.”

Coleman said some strides had been made in working conditions for protesters -– for example, they had a wi-fi Internet hotspot at the Statehouse location –- but, he added, they were still missing some critical supplies, such as additional sleeping bags and blankets. He also noted a generator “would be nice,” although he was uncertain as to the legality of using one at the location.

“At a day-to-day level, it’s always nice to get coffee and food, especially around meal times,” he said. “The coffee could come all the time,” he laughed. “We drink a heck of a lot of it.”

Coleman said although the movement was actively seeking a more permanent place to occupy, he wasn’t sure where they would actually end up.

“All I know right now is that it’s up in the air,” he said. “You could say we already tried to occupy the [Columbus] Commons,” he said, referring to a new park in downtown Columbus owned by a non-profit development corporation. Coleman said they were there for just a short time before security guards told them to leave; when they refused, the police were called.

“When they notified the [Columbus Police Department], it took them 45 minutes to respond,” said Coleman, speculating the cops could be sympathetic to protesters. “They were nice to us, but they told us to leave, and none of us wanted to get arrested, so we evacuated the park,” said Coleman of the short-lived occupation of the Columbus Commons.

Occupy Columbus (Photo: David S. Lewis)

Part of that “sympathetic” attitude could be because police and other safety workers in Ohio are on the defensive after Ohio Republicans took aim at public employees’ ability to bargain collectively with the passage of Senate Bill 5 last March. Unlike similarly controversial laws passed in New Jersey and Wisconsin, Ohio’s provided no exceptions for public safety workers, who are already being laid off from local municipalities across the state. Supporters of the law say layoffs would increase without the legislation, blaming overly generous pensions and health-care packages for costing more than the public can afford, despite evidence of numerous concessions made by the state’s public unions in recent years; opponents of the law say the cuts to local governments at the state level have robbed their coffers, and that state Republicans were blaming public workers for problems they haven’t caused.

Regardless, many Occupy protesters have carried anti-SB5 signs, and are encouraging passersby to vote on Nov. 8 against Issue 2, a referendum by citizens’ veto to repeal the contentious bill. In return for their support, many of the protesters have said the cops were more sympathetic to their protests than they had experienced in other, unrelated activism.

Coleman said unions have told Occupy Columbus members they will return to support the movement after the big election, though he would not speak for Occupy Columbus on their relationship with labor groups overall. He added the group had been getting support, mostly in the form of supplies, from individual members.

The city of Lancaster, consisting of 35,000 residents in rural Fairfield County, saw one of its three fire stations closed last week, and 13 firefighters suddenly out of a job. Although a .25-percent income tax on the ballot in November could allow the city to re-hire some or all of the laid-off personnel, the vice-president of the firefighters’ union isn’t optimistic.

“I don’t think they’ll pass either one,” said Jeremy Kraner, a Lancaster firefighter and paramedic. “So there will be more layoffs, most likely.”

Kraner blames city officials. “Our city government doesn’t know how to manage money,” he said, citing numerous concessions made by the union, International Association of Firefighters Local 291, in the last few years.

He added that Senate Bill 5 would have an even more deleterious effect on the fire department’s ability to keep the citizens of Lancaster safe, sentiment echoed by other Ohio public safety workers, as The American Independent has reported. Supporters of the legislation say it would prevent lay-offs by giving local municipalities more control over union contracts.

In a blog post on the pro-Issue 2 website, BetterOhio.org, proponents of the law blame public workers for breaking the city’s budget, calling their benefits “generous” and citing the $1 million worth of pension pick-up the city provides. The site says Lancaster workers pay only 12.3 percent of their health-care premiums, as opposed to the 15 percent that would be required under the new law.

The post also mocks Lancaster’s proposed solution to the layoffs, asking, “So what is the only course of action the city of Lancaster currently has to rectify their crisis? You guessed it. Tax hikes.”

“I don’t think Senate Bill 5 could have prevented this; these firefighters were going to be laid off,” Kraner said. “But it will effect our take-home pay, and basically not give us a voice in manning issues; it gives all the power to management. It would cause more lay-offs.”

Kraner said the law, if kept on the books, would be bad for “everybody in Ohio.” The law prohibits unions from bargaining for minimum staffing (PDF).

“And the last three years we went from a 22-man minimum to a 16-man minimum,” said Kraner. “That was part of the concessions our union made.”

Other concessions made in Lancaster include turning down pay raises they were contractually owed last year in an attempt to prevent layoffs. New firefighters in Lancaster make around $38,000 per year, and can earn up to the $70,000s as an officer.

Kraner said he thinks SB5 will result in even lower minimum-staffing levels, and that could result in a dangerous situation for the city, as run times would increase even further.

“We like to think we’re as low as we can go at 16 (minimum manning requirement), because at our last negotiation, we asked them where the thought we needed to be,” he said. “I think for a city our size, we are at the minimum we can be at. I would hope they see it that way.”

Signed into law last March as the signature project of first-term Ohio Governor John Kasich, SB5 has caused a backlash across the state, with unions leading the charge to repeal it. Voters will decide the bill’s fate by either voting ‘yes’ on the referendum, Issue 2, allowing it to stay on the books. Aa majority ‘no’ on Issue 2 will scrap it.

The bill, which voters will have the chance to repeal on Nov. 8 via the veto referendum Issue 2, ends the long-running practice of allowing service members going into teaching to count some of their active-duty service towards classroom tenure. It could limit the ability of unions to negotiate for additional protections for their members that serve in the National Guard and Reserve.

“It’s a failure to acknowledge the service and commitment that many of us have had to go through. It’s a slap in the face is really what it is,” said Zach Roberts, the veterans outreach coordinator for We Are Ohio, a citizen-driven, community-based, bipartisan coalition that has come together to repeal SB5 by voting ‘no’ on Issue 2. “It’s not enough to support the soldier; you have to support the veteran, too. You don’t get half of us, you get all of us.”

Currently, veterans hired as public school teachers in Ohio can count every eight consecutive months of active duty military service towards one year of tenure in the classroom, for up to a maximum of five years. Doing so provides a minor bump in salary for veterans that go into the education field.

For some veterans, it can amount to up to $2,000 in annual salary, according to Roberts. The extra pay is designed to encourage veterans to enter the field and, for those who do, to level the playing field with their colleagues that had the opportunity to gain experience while servicemembers were active.

“They missed out on going into that career field because they were serving their country at that point. That’s really what it’s all about,” said Roberts. “Veterans Preference is really about nothing more than giving a veteran an equal opportunity.”

If SB5 is not repealed, that provision of existing Ohio law would be removed.

The legislation could also result in uncertainty for veterans in public service that are members of the National Guard or Reserves. By stripping public sector unions of most of their collective bargaining powers, those teachers, firefighters and police officers deployed overseas could have to worry about their families transitioning to a new health-care plan.

Prior to SB5, public sector unions could bargain for protections that allow those returning from duty to return to the exact position they left. The ability to negotiate such terms could be endangered by SB5.

“Health insurance is one of these things where you want consistency. You don’t want to have to switch up your doctors; you don’t want to have to change up anything that could complicate a treatment that a family member may be having,” said Roberts, who is both a veteran and member of the Ohio National Guard. “This provision is critical for that continuity and consistency and that’s not something that a union will be able to negotiate for in the future given the restrictions placed on the collective bargaining process.”

Paul Worley, who was recently honorably discharged from the Army after seven years of active duty that included two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, decided to volunteer for We Are Ohio after learning about the ways that SB5 could affect Ohio’s veterans.

Through his conversations with fellow veterans, he’s learned that few are aware of the impact the legislation could have on the community. When they do learn, they are not particularly happy, he said.

“You wouldn’t call it discriminatory towards veterans, but it definitely doesn’t put them in that higher echelon and give them an advantage,” Worley said. “We want veterans working these public sector jobs because they know what self-sacrifice is. They’ve seen things and done things and had training that the average citizen hasn’t.”

For Roberts, defeating SB5 is a matter of looking out for Ohio’s nearly 1 million-strong veteran community and the countless others that depend on them.

“Voting ‘no’ on Issue 2 protects Ohio’s veterans, military service members and their families. This law disrespects our experience, it dismisses what we have to offer to those in our communities,” he said. “People should be voting no on this to maintain the protections that we have in place for National Guard members and Reservists and to maintain the opportunity that it provides veterans to be able to move into public service.”

The problem is, Quinn is not a supporter of Senate Bill 5. In fact, she is adamantly opposed to the anti-union legislation, and made that clear in an anti-SB5 ad that aired prior to the Building a Better Ohio ad.

Building a Better Ohio took footage of that previous ad and manipulated it, adding in its own narration to make it seem as though Quinn supports SB5 in order to avoid layoffs of firefighters.

“I think it’s dishonest and downright deceitful that they would use footage of me to try to play tricks and fool voters,” Quinn said in a statement.

Watch the Building a Better Ohio ad:

In the original, anti-SB5 ad produced by We Are Ohio, Quinn speaks about her great-granddaughter Zoey being saved by firefighters from a potentially deadly fire. SB5 is dangerous, she said, because it could result in fewer firefighters to save lives.

“It’s insulting to the brave firefighters that saved the lives of my grandson and my great-granddaughter Zoey,” she said. “I’m outraged. They did not ask my permission.”

A cease and desist order was sent by We Are Ohio to all stations airing the ad, asking them pull it off air. We Are Ohio argues it “intentionally distorts information,” according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Given the legal questions surrounding the ad, 30 Ohio television stations stopped airing the ad as of Thursday morning, according to We Are Ohio, a citizen-driven, community-based, bipartisan coalition that has come together to repeal SB 5 by voting NO on Issue 2.

“Issue 2 supporters have sunk to a new low by stealing the words of a great-grandmother,” said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio. “This ad raises serious questions about the motives of their campaign and the personnel behind making the decisions to air this type of underhanded campaign commercial. Who is funding these attacks? Who approved this ad? Did Governor Kasich and legislative leaders know about it and/or approve it?”

For his part, Kasich (R) told the Columbus Dispatch he is not responsible for the misleading ad. However, he also added that “what they’re doing is fine.”

“I applaud the decision by the stations to pull down this deeply offensive and misleading ad,” Paul Weber, one of the Cincinnati firefighters who responded to the call which saved Marlene Quinn’s family, said in a statement. “Marlene Quinn is deeply hurt by the deceptive use of her words. My fellow firefighters and I are outraged that anti-worker politicians have taken advantage of a senior citizen for speaking out in support of her great-granddaughter.”

This is just the most recent example of the deceptive tactics used by Building a Better Ohio. Recently, the organization obtained the email addresses of an unknown number of Ohio teachers and has inundated them with emails asking them to support the anti-union legislation that will drastically limit the rights of teachers to bargain collectively.

In another instance, the group produced an ad entitled “Teachers.” In it, they attempted to pass a Republican political operative off as an ordinary teacher supporting Issue 2.

“I know a lot of people in my caucus who are frankly underpaid,” he said in June, after his caucus led the charge in ramming a bill through the Legislature that strips nearly all Ohio public employees of their collective bargaining rights.

But data compiled by Innovation Ohio shows Ohio lawmakers that supported Senate Bill 5 are hardly living on ramen noodles and taking the bus to work.

In fact, the 70 part-time state lawmakers that voted in favor of the measure receive an average annual salary of $67,737, not including all the other perks that come with the job.

By comparison, the teachers, firefighters and police officers they voted to strip of collective bargaining rights make annually about $50,000, $46,000 and $45,000, respectfully.

“We think that voters deserve to know these things. You have a governor and his legislative allies who are telling Ohioans that there have to be sacrifices because it’s necessary to save money,” said Dale Butland, communications director for Innovation Ohio. “And yet, they themselves have exempted themselves from the kind of sacrifices that they are asking everyone else to make.”

Led by Batchelder, Ohio House Republicans rejected an amendment to Gov. John Kasich’s budget bill that would have cut their salaries by five percent.

Had the amendment passed, legislators would have still received various “leadership bonuses,” ranging from $5,000 to $34,000.

In their war against Ohio’s public employees, Republican lawmakers have alleged the meager salaries and benefit packages offered to them are wreaking havoc on the state’s finances.

“Whether it’s automatic pay raises just for holding a job, generous retirement packages at little-to-no employee cost, excessive paid leave policies or unprecedented job protections, these perks of public employment are bankrupting our communities,” Sen. Shannon Jones (R) wrote on her Facebook page this month.

What Jones fails to mention, however, is the “excessive paid leave policies” and other perks state lawmakers are accustomed to receiving.

According to Innovation Ohio, state legislators have an unlimited amount of paid personal days, sick days and vacation time. Not only do they receive all the time off they want, they barely work. For the remainder of 2011, Republican leaders have just 13 days of in-session work scheduled. Another four days are scheduled on an “if-needed” basis.

“I earn my pay, and I’m not ashamed of what I make,” Rep. Louis Blessing (R) said hours before the vote on SB5.

When they actually do have to drive to work, they are compensated for their commute. Of the 70 lawmakers that voted for SB5, they receive an average of $3,361 per year for travel to the Statehouse. The vast majority of Ohio workers are prohibited from law from seeking mileage reimbursements.

Republicans legislators have also routinely attacked public employees for so-called “double-dipping,” in which they retire, collect a pension, and are rehired and continue to collect a regular paycheck at the same time.

But, according to Innovation Ohio, 12 of the 70 lawmakers that voted for SB5 are also double-dippers. Batchelder is among those lawmakers that collect a pension and a paycheck at the same time. He receives over $100,000 annually though the Ohio Public Employee Retirement System and collects an annual salary of $94,500.

“Politicians who support SB5 and Issue 2 don’t embarrass easily. They seem to be all for pay and benefit cuts as long as those cuts apply to police and firefighters and teachers and not to themselves,” said Butland, adding that Batchelder is the biggest double-dipper in the entire state. “They’re against double-dipping unless they are the ones doing the double-dipping.”

Curiously, the only current member of the Senate that does not receive such a bonus is Republican Bill Seitz, who, in an unprecedented move, was stripped of a committee assignment because he refused to support SB5. After he was removed from the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee and replaced with an SB5 supporter, the bill passed the committee in a 7-5 vote.

While Ohio Republicans lawmakers may have been on the front lines of the battle over SB5, it has been Gov. Kasich that has led the vocal push in targeting public employees. He said his goal is to “break the back of organized labor in schools.” In addition, earlier this year, he called a police officer that pulled him over for speeding an “idiot.” (Read previous reporting by The American Independent on SB5′s potential impact on public safety workers.)

He claimed the union-busting legislation was necessary to get Ohio’s fiscal house in order, but he didn’t bother to look for any savings in his own office.

While other Ohio employees will receive raises based on merit under his legislation, Kasich would continue to receive annual three-percent pay increases on his salary of nearly $150,000.

The governor’s senior staff receives an average salary of over $110,000. His office’s total payroll is $5.4 million, an eight-percent increase over his predecessor.

The 27 members of the governor’s cabinet take home an average of $131,000 annually. They also receive $6,600 taxpayer-funded “car allowances.”

“It is absolutely hypocritical for the politicians who support Issue 2 to call for “shared sacrifices” when they aren’t willing to participate,” said Melissa Fazekas, a spokesperson for We Are Ohio, a citizen-driven, community-based, bipartisan coalition that has come together to repeal SB5. “While they were balancing the budget on the backs of public workers, they were also enjoying their perks and giving pay raises and bonuses to their highest paid staff members. This continued “do as I say, not as I do” attitude is exactly why Ohioans want to stop SB 5 by voting NO on Issue 2 on Nov. 8.”

Senate Bill 5, legislation that strips almost all of Ohio’s public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights, will allow Ohio police and firefighters to nominally negotiate for wages and benefits.

Under the legislation, though, bargaining is more like pleading. If the bill is not repealed in a Nov. 8 statewide referendum, Issue, 2, management will hold all the cards in any negotiation.

“When someone gets to choose their own last best offer anyway, it really doesn’t give someone incentive to bargain,” Director of Governmental Affairs for the Ohio Association of Professional Fire Fighters Jim Carney said. “It’s really collective begging. We can say, ‘This is what we want. This is what we need. This is what we need to protect the public.’ All they have to do, at the end of the day, is say, ‘No. We like our offer better.’”

Jay McDonald, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Ohio, compared it to negotiating with his children over bedtimes. They can ask to stay up past midnight. But, at the end of the day, they can only ask. He ultimately makes the decision.

The inability to bargain in any meaningful way could affect public safety in Ohio in a myriad of ways, McDonald said.

“It prohibits police officers and firefighters from talking to their employers about staffing,” he said. “It’ll be politicians that are making the decision on how many people are on a fire truck or how many police officers are working through a shift as opposed to the experts that know the needs of their community.”

According to McDonald, if Senate Bill 5 is not repealed, about 51,000 public employees across the state could lose their jobs. He estimates that about two-thirds of those will be public safety employees.

Less police on the beat could mean increased crime rates while fewer firefighters in stations across the state could add to response times in emergencies.

“Without the ability to negotiate for staffing levels, we lose firefighters. When a call comes in, there’s less firefighters available,” said Carney. “When you reduce staffing you reduce the availability of people to be able to respond to emergencies.”

While Senate Bill 5 does provide public safety officials the right to bargain –- or beg, as Carney put it –- for personal safety equipment, nowhere in the legislation is it spelled out exactly what that means.

Public safety officials fear that, too, could be left up to management.

“We have the right to ask for personal safety equipment, but no one can decide what that is. Does that mean bullet resistant vests? Does that mean cruisers? Does that mean radiator detectors? Does that mean Hazmat suits?” McDonald asked. “Even if you have the right to ask for them, in a Senate Bill 5 world, that’s all you get to do is ask. We’re going to be dependent upon the benevolence of our employers when we’re talking about safety equipment.”

Goodwill should not be relied upon when it comes to life and death, though.

In testimony in opposition to Senate Bill 5 in front of the Ohio House’s Commerce and Labor Committee, Elaine N. Silveira, assistant general counsel to the Ohio State Troopers Association, outlined just how fine that line can be.

In 2003, a Missouri officer died in the line of duty after his Crown Victoria Police Interceptor -– the same vehicle used by the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSTA) –- was rammed from behind. Troopers soon learned the safety hazard could be fixed by installing a steel plate over the gas tank, and sought to have them installed.

It was not until two Ohio State troopers died in the same manner as their colleague in Missouri, followed by a lengthy and bitter arbitration process, that the plates were put on OSTA cars.

“You would think that the state of Ohio would say, ‘Absolutely. We want to protect our state troopers.’ But they had to go to arbitration to force the state of Ohio to install the shields to keep the vehicles from exploding,” said McDonald.

Under Senate Bill 5, the task of the third-party arbitrator falls on the elected body that also serves as management.

“If Senate Bill 5 becomes law, safety is going to be limited,” said Chris Weaver, vice president of the Youngstown Professional Fire Fighters Local 312. “We won’t be able to sit down and negotiate proper safety equipment that will protect us and protect the community.

“You’re gambling with your communities’ safety and their lives. There’s a lot at stake here when you’re talking about public safety.”

Democrats could once count on the support of labor unions across the country, but a Republican emphasis on social conservatism in the second half of the last century sent millions of middle and working class union members across party lines. Amid recent evidence that social issues are not a top priority for the vast majority of American conservatives, pro-union voters are now flocking to the party that they feel better represents their economic interests.

Politico reports consternation among public safety union members in Wisconsin and beyond:

[W]hen Walker ordered the Capitol police to arrest Wisconsin demonstrators who refused to obey a curfew, they refused – and instead hundreds of them lined up with the demonstrators to show solidarity.

“We know what’s right from wrong,” one officer shouted into a bullhorn in the packed Capitol building. “We will not be kicking anyone out. In fact, we will be sleeping here with you!”

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich and his Republican allies decided against giving police and firemen special treatment, opting instead to try to appeal to their conservative instincts and win them over to the cause.

Since then, Mark Sanders, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Fire Fighters, said he’s had Republican members “apologize” for backing Kasich. “They are never voting that way again,” said Sanders, a Cincinnati fire department lieutenant.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) experienced the blowback firsthand when he attended a recent event for rising leaders in the New York fire department.

“These are down-the-line conservatives. They fully supported Bush in the Iraq war, in the war against terrorism, and on all the gut issues they were there,” King said. “Some of the guys I talked to said, ‘We stood with Bush on Queens Boulevard. Now, the Republicans have turned on us.’ ”

While the evidence that Politico’s Jeanne Cummings cites regarding party switches among police and firefighters is largely anecdotal, there is at least some hard data suggesting that economic concerns are driving a sea change among independent and right-leaning voters. Cummings reports that a Hart Research poll found that in November, 47 percent of American building trade union members identified as Democrats and 25 percent said they were Republicans. By January, before the Wisconsin collective bargaining meltdown had even begun, “the percentage of trade union members who called themselves Democrats jumped to 63 percent while the self-described Republicans fell to 18 percent.”

Similarly, this isn’t the first evidence of discontent with Republican politicians within the law enforcement community. The Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association (WLEA), a union of state and local officers focused on collective bargaining, voiced opposition to Walker’s insistence that they arrest and perform crowd control on protesters back in February. A WLEA representative contacted by The American Independent at the time said he couldn’t comment on disputes with the governor’s office but stated that the union’s lobbyist was at work at the Capitol.