On Tuesday afternoon, the 12 members of Ohio’s Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee convened in a corner room on the second floor of the state senate building in Columbus. No vote or amendment was on the agenda, just a hearing on what is simply called Senate Bill 5. Outside the door, hundreds of protesters pressed into the halls and stairwells of the capitol as thousands more crowded the surrounding streets. They all wanted to testify.
SB5, introduced by Republican state Senator Shannon Jones and backed by Governor John Kasich, would abolish collective bargaining rights for some 42,000 state workers and scale back those of roughly 300,000 local government employees in Ohio, including teachers, firefighters and police. It was those workers and allies of the unions that represent them that swarmed the statehouse Tuesday, chanting “This is our house, let us in.”
