Protect our teachers
by Sophie Kruse

Impacting over 350,000 workers, limiting collective bargaining for public employees, and cutting wages, sick leave, and vacation time, Senate Bill 5, signed by Governor Kasich this past spring, directly affects our beloved teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public employees.

Collective bargaining (by definition: a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions) is used to set wage scales, training, working hours, health and safety, overtime, and rights. While Senate Bill 5 now allows only for union negotiations on these issues, it prohibits these employees from collective bargaining, bargaining for benefits and from going on strike. If the employee was to strike, it also requires the employer to deduct an amount equal to twice the daily rate of pay for each day the employee is on strike from their compensation.

Directly affecting teachers, Senate Bill 5 prohibits a public employer, such as a school district, to enter a collective bargained agreement with the teachers that include things such as establishing a maximum number of students assigned to a class. While I can understand how this would help in providing everyone with the education needed (limiting class size may cause students to not be able to take a certain class, which may be necessary for graduation), it also may force teachers into a teaching environment that isn’t sufficient to provide the proper education to the students. It’s much easier to learn and succeed in a class with a smaller number of students than in one with a larger amount. Some teachers may feel comfortable with larger numbers, but to prevent teachers from having a say in how they run their own classrooms is taking away a key right to them.

Senate Bill 5 abolishes continuing contracts for teachers (or tenure, as we usually hear it being called) besides those already in contract prior to the effective date of the bill. Tenure is something that is earned by the employee, and will often take a great deal of time, effort, and dedication to reach. It is something common in higher education, and results in guaranteed academic freedom to the professor. It’s no secret that teaching jobs are extremely competitive. There are thousands of recent college graduates looking for teaching jobs with a very small amount available to them, let alone the teachers with previous experience looking for a job. Giving tenure teachers who have been with the school for a decent amount of time and show tremendous effort in their job is simply a reward, and insures that they will be employed in the future.

This Bill requires teachers pay to now be performance-based. Evaluations conducted under a policy based on a framework for teacher evaluations that has been adopted by the State Board of Education will dictate the pay of these teachers, and essentially show the fate of the teachers job. To put this simply: teachers whose students excel will be evaluated higher than those whose students have lower scores. This is a part of the bill that really bothers me, simply because this is not fair. There are students that perform well in any class they take, because they care about the work they are doing. On the other hand, there are students who don’t ever perform well, because they don’t care. This will not be an evaluation of the teachers, but instead, their students. This can put additional pressure on the already stressed teachers, which in turn may affect their own performance.

The coalition We Are Ohio is a citizen-driven group driven to repeal Senate Bill 5. People such as sector workers, officers, firefighters, teachers, and nurses have come together to fight this unfair attack on employee rights worker safety. On June 29, over 6,000 supporters delivered nearly 1.3 million signatures (when only 231,149 were required) to the Secretary of State’s Office in order to put the repeal on the ballot in November. While I cannot sway your opinion to be on my side, I will tell you to think of your favorite Roosevelt teachers. Why not protect the ones that you have learned from?

---

A Kernel of Truth
by Callie Cunningham

At their peak, unions were quite a powerful entity. While their intentions were good in the beginning, it seems as if they have inadvertently created a monster. Nowadays, unions have made it so that practically the only way you can get fired from your job is if you kill someone, and even then you might be safe. Senate Bill 5, which was signed into law this past spring by Governor John Kasich, is a bill that has diminished the power of these labor unions, including the unions that of which teachers across the country are members.

One of the major concerns about the bill is that it eliminates the ability to collectively bargain. While this is true, it seems like that collective bargaining is almost unnecessary in this day and age. This would be a problem if our teachers were forced to work ungodly hours in unsafe conditions with little pay, but that’s simply not the case. That’s not to say that teachers don’t work very hard at their jobs, I know they do, but that the conditions and circumstances that they work under are pretty comfortable and generally very fair. Senate Bill 5 also gives the power to the employer to do things such as determine the standards and quality of work, make any rule or regulations within reason, hire/fire employees, and several other reasonable powers that they already have control over. (How dare they?!) Workers should be based on individual performance, not the overall performance of the staff. If someone is giving a poor job performance, they should be fired. Darwin would be disappointed to find that his pecking order has gone awry. Would you want a doctor who continuously underperformed to operate on you? More than likely the answer is no, and the same should apply across the board for all workers, regardless of the job they hold.

The bill also takes away the ability to strike as well as consequences for doing so, including a deduction of pay and a fine of up to a thousand dollars with possible jail time. Jail time seems a bit extreme, but a dock of pay seems reasonable. If you’re not on the job, why should you still be getting paid for the job that you loathe so much? You’re protesting against your employer, so it doesn’t make sense for them to keep paying you for not only not doing your job but also protesting against them. Another feature of the law says that when layoffs must be made, seniority is not the only factor when deciding who can stay. Just because you’ve been on staff the longest, it doesn’t mean you work the hardest. Layoffs, among many other things, should be based on performance rather than seniority.

Before you think me a heartless jerk, or if you already have, I ask you to have mercy upon my soul and hold that thought. I agree that the provisions in the bill could definitely be seen as unfair. However, I think that they are only unfair if they are abused, which goes for just about any law. There are already several standards in place that employers can’t really deviate from without getting fired- or even worse- sued. Therefore, they couldn’t do anything completely outlandish without having a lawsuit shoved down their throats in a matter of minutes.
So while I’m not confident that Senate Bill 5 will replace the New Testament, I think that the bill has potential, and with the quality of teachers of at Roosevelt, there shouldn’t be any concern.