Workers stage protests of Ohio union-rights bill

COLUMBUS (AP) — Private-sector union members and environmentalists have joined the fight against a bill abolishing most collective-bargaining rights in Ohio.

The thousands of people at a Statehouse rally today included steel workers, the Sierra Club and retirees protesting a coming vote on Senate Bill 5.

Teachers, firefighters and other public employees demonstrated and canvassed neighborhoods trying to stop a likely committee vote Tuesday on the bill prohibiting public-employee strikes and abolishing unions’ rights to bargain on any job conditions other than wages.

Earlier today, several hundred people had filled a park in the working-class city of Lancaster, shouting and waving signs in an effort to stop lawmakers 30 miles north in Columbus from passing the bill.

The protests came as the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate worked on changes to the legislation.