When the Service Employees International Union pulled their mandatory sick leave measure from the Ohio ballot, their disappointment was obvious. They tried hard to put a good face on their actions, especially with Governor Ted Strickland and Senator Sherrod Brown standing at their side. They claimed they were pulling Issue 4 to avoid a “shrill and vitriolic ballot campaign marred by misinformation and disinformation…” Which begs the question, “When did the SEIU, one of America’s toughest unions, lose its stomach for a fully engaged public debate?"
The real sponsor of Issue 4, the National Partnership for Women and Families, has been talking about mandated sick leave for years. The idea is simple. The government steps into the relationship between an individual citizen and their employer and tells them exactly how many sick days they will take and who is going to pay for them.
Most companies try to provide some form of sick leave - and for good reason. There is a profound difference, however, between companies working to help their employees and forced government programs. If government mandated sick leave is such a good idea, then why has no other state embraced it? Why would the Legislature of California reject the measure as too radical even for America’s left coast? Why would backers in Ohio suddenly drop the measure after investing millions to place it on the ballot?
The SEIU claims they traded the Ohio ballot issue in return for Governor Strickland’s support for federal sick leave legislation. The more likely reality is this: The SEIU got surprised by the intense opposition encountered by Ohio ballot Issue 4. When they were gathering petition signatures at the union hall it was easy to find people who agreed with free sick leave. Who wouldn’t? Once people began to think through the consequences of such a radical change, the concept of mandatory sick leave crashed into a wall of reality. Polling on Issue 4 started dropping like a rock.
What seemed liberating at first glance led to a dead end. Employees would lose their rights to negotiate the best benefit packages with their employers because state-mandated sick days, rolling over in perpetuity, would be hanging over the company budget. Assembly lines could be shut down because the state mandate permitted sick leave by the hour. Employers and employees would be handcuffed by the mandates and victimized by those few who might decide to game the system by playing sick. The law gave even cheaters the right to sue their employers for challenging their sick leave claims. No “mis- or dis-information” here, just the facts of the proposed law.
When Ohioans looked into the details of the SEIU plan, they began to rightly fear for their jobs. The costs associated with this mandate and the loss of flexibility, especially for people in smaller companies were staggering. Even the Governor admitted finding over 20 different points of contention in the SEIU proposal.
The reason the SEIU walked away from Issue 4 is simple: They knew they would lose badly on Election Day. The failure of Issue 4 would expose the fatal flaws of government-mandated sick leave to the nation and blow up the national agenda embraced by Senator and Mrs. Obama as well. So the SEIU rolled their proposal back behind the curtain of political rhetoric and pretended their sensibilities had been offended by the shrill sounds of opposition. In reality, those were the cries of the vast majority of Ohioans who are not members of the SEIU who wanted to keep their jobs, their benefits and the prospects of a growing Ohio economy.
One real mystery remains. Crossing the powerful SEIU was certainly a decent thing for Governor Strickland to do. However, supporting a tougher SEIU federal mandate will only cost more Ohio jobs. Why would Governor Strickland oppose state sick leave mandates, yet agree to support federal legislation which places even tougher mandates on Ohio companies? Forcing every state into a one-size-fits-all dictate doesn’t make the price cheaper for Ohio companies. Could it be that Governor Strickland still hasn’t seen behind the curtain and rightly discerned the real dangers of government mandated sick leave?
David Zanotti serves as the President/CEO of the non-profit American Policy Roundtable and the Ohio Roundtable. Since 1988 the Roundtable has led efforts on 17 major ballot issues in Ohio and Florida.
