Columbus, Ohio – Sean Hannity taped his Fox News talk show in Columbus Wednesday.
Hannity interviewed Ohio Governor John Kasich and State Senators Joe Schiavoni (D-33) and Keith Faber (R-12) regarding the controversial collective bargaining reform bill known locally as SB 5.
Schiavoni is the Ranking Minority Member of the Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee and Faber is Vice Chair.
Senator Schiavoni advised Hannity that he does support the provisions of SB 5. Referring to the provisions of SB 5 requiring government employees to pay 10 percent of their pension premium and 15 percent of their Insurance benefit, Hannity asked Shiavoni, “What’s wrong with the contribution aspect that we just mentioned, do you have a problem with that?”
Schiavoni replied, “No, and if that was the bill, that would be the discussion.”
Schiavoni then stated SB 5 would take away employees right to bargain collectively, a claim Faber refuted.
With Schiavoni beside him nodding in apparent agreement, Faber told Hannity, “This bill doesn’t eliminate collective bargaining for government workers. It specifically, in the statute preserves collective bargaining for wages, hours and terms and conditions [of employment] and for benefits, too. It just says you can’t negotiate for less than paying 15 percent toward your healthcare, and you can’t negotiate not to have to pay your 10 percent employee share towards your pension.”
SB 5 states in statute 4117.01 (G) “To bargain collectively” means … to negotiate in good faith at reasonable times and places with respect to wages, hours, terms, and other conditions of employment…”
“It’s actually a much better deal than people in the private sector get,” Faber said. “In Ohio, the average is about 31 percent of payments for people in the private sector toward their health care.”
“The benefit structure for in the public sector for government employees is vastly better than it is for the same private sector employees,” Faber said.
Prior to speaking with the Senators, Hannity interviewed Governor Kasich.
Kasich said that SB 5 is meant to assist local governments by allowing them to hold their employees to the same standards state employees already work under.
“This issue was designed to give local governments the tools to control their costs,” Kasich said. “It doesn’t affect state employees. State employees already pay this. This is for local, for government employees at the local level who don’t pay this.”
“It’s an issue of fairness, too. We want our government workers to pay 10 percent for their guaranteed pension and 15 percent for their health care. That’s very reasonable. But, in addition to that, if local governments keep raising taxes, then what it does is it makes it more difficult to create jobs.”
“In one community here (Lancaster), south of Columbus, they just laid off 1 (3) firefighters today, because they don’t have enough money to meet the budget. The other alternative is you raise taxes.”
“Up in Cleveland, we saved a company called American Greetings, the greeting card company. The community of Brooklyn, Ohio, raised taxes. Guess what American Greetings did? They moved. They moved to Westlake, Ohio, where the conditions were better.”
“It is so hard for small businesses to be successful and when you raise the cost of doing business they’re going to go somewhere [else].”