Ohio voters rejected a controversial anti-union measure Tuesday, with a strong majority voting no in a referendum on whether to approve a new state law that would have limited collective-bargaining rights for public employees and severed many public-college professors from the bargaining process.
The vote overturns a measure known as Senate Bill 5, which was signed into law last March but put on hold pending the results of Tuesday’s referendum.
The bill sought to broadly curb public-employee collective-bargaining rights, and included language defining public-college professors who engage in faculty governing organizations as “management-level employees,” exempting them from union representation and preventing them from engaging in the collective-bargaining process.
A majority yes vote was needed on the ballot question, Issue 2, for the law to take effect, but in early returns, about 60 percent of voters were rejecting the law.
“It’s an incredible, historic moment for the middle-class citizens of Ohio who protect, serve, and educate,” said Maureen Reedy, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Education Association. “We sent a loud, strong and clear message to our politicians that we reject the notion of tearing down the middle class. We’ve really confirmed that Ohioans across the state support keeping the voices of those who protect and educate our citizens at the negotiations table.”
The Ohio vote was the most controversial of four ballot measures affecting higher education in state elections this fall. Texans, also voting Tuesday, approved a measure authorizing the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to issue more bonds for a low-interest, fixed-rate student-loan program. The coordinating board will issue up to $1.8-billion in bonds for the program, called the College Access Loan Program.
The other states with education questions on their ballots were Louisiana, where voters in October approved a proposal to dedicate a portion of the state’s tobacco-settlement money to a scholarship program, and Colorado, where voters rejected last week a temporary sales-tax increase that would have benefited public education.
In Ohio, labor unions especially opposed Senate Bill 5, as it sought to overhaul the state’s collective-bargaining laws, hampering public employees’ ability to negotiate salaries and other work agreements. Many faculty members at private universities were already considered managers, under a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980 known as NLRB v. Yeshiva University. Senate Bill 5 would have been the first time Ohio—or any state—limited public-college faculty members by defining them as managers.
“We’re certainly happy that Ohio voters have spoken and have chosen to defeat Issue 2 to retain collective-bargaining rights for Ohio’s faculty and maintain their ability to join a union,” said Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the American Association of University Professors’ Ohio Conference.
The “management-level employee” definition applied to faculty who engage in activities such as planning budgets, selecting or reviewing administrators, and making policy—all generally considered regular tasks of the tenured and tenure-track faculty.
That language was inserted into the bill shortly before it went before the Senate for a vote. Cary Nelson, president of the AAUP, had said on March 2 that the association was “blindsided” by the language and would fight the bill. Days later, Bruce E. Johnson, president of the Inter-University Council of Ohio, told The Chronicle that he had suggested the language to state policymakers.
Mr. Johnson could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
In Kentucky, Attorney General Jack Conway, who has been leading an investigation into the for-profit education industry and has attracted the ire of for-profit college administrators, won re-election Tuesday. Several administrators at the for-profit institutions made campaign contributions to his opponent before the election.
In Arizona, meanwhile, Senate President Russell Pearce, author of a tough immigration law that college leaders have worried will create a climate of fear on campuses and discourage some students from attending, conceded defeat in a special recall election. The vote was seen by some as a referendum on the hardline immigration stance championed by Senator Pearce.
