After Senate Bill 5 was signed into law last month, many unions and interest groups sought to put the law to a citizen’s vote in the November elections.
Beginning today, there will be numerous opportunities in Athens to sign the necessary petition forcing such a vote.
Both the Ohio Council 8 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Ohio University College Democrats will be holding petition-signing events starting today and continuing throughout the week.
AFSCME will be holding petition drives from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Athens County Fairgrounds until Friday. The local efforts are expected to be well attended, said Staff Representative Sandra Shonborn.
“We’ve had hundreds of calls wanting to know if we’ve had petitions, and we’ve had people stopping by wanting to sign,” said Shonborn.
Gov. John Kasich signed SB5 into law on March 31, limiting collective bargaining rights for 360,000 public employees across the state.
To force a citizen’s vote, 231,149 registered-voter signatures would need to be collected, said Nate Hall, a senior political science major and president of OU College Democrats. Valid signatures need to come from registered voters from their home county, he added.
“We’ve been planning that all along,” Hall said.
“Ever since the bill was passed, it has been a coalition between the state Democratic party … and various public unions. We’ve been planning all along to let the people vote on it,” he added.
The College Democrats will be holding today’s petition table on the first floor of Baker University Center from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and another on Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the corner of Union and College Streets, according to a press release.
Both groups will try to add on to the 300 signatures collected by the College Democrats this past Saturday.
AFSCME Council 8 has trained several individuals to collect the signatures in order to ensure the proper gathering of signatures before they are turned into the AFSCME headquarters, said Shonborn.
“What we’ve done is we’ve given them a brief outline of what Senate Bill 5 means to the working people,” Shonborn said. “(We’ve shown them) exactly how to gather signatures, make sure that people are from that county, registered voters, 18 … to validate the petition.”
Signatures must be turned no later than July 15, Shonborn added.
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