Chamber bashed for endorsing SB 5

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The leaders of the union representing Mahoning County sheriff’s deputies and the county’s Democratic Party bashed the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber for its endorsement of Senate Bill 5 as passed by the Ohio Senate.

“Senate Bill 5 is unfair and unjust,” and is an assault on the middle class, said Thomas J. Assion, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 141, which represents the county’s sheriff’s deputies.

In a Thursday news conference, Assion said law- enforcement personnel and emergency responders “take great offense” to the chamber’s endorsement of the bill, which would limit public-employee collective bargaining.

“We believe the legislation will make state and local government more efficient and effective,” and make Ohio more competitive in attracting jobs and investment, Thomas M. Humphries, chamber president, wrote to Gov. John Kasich.

Citing major labor-contract concessions made by the deputies in recent years, David J. Betras, the county’s Democratic Party chairman, called the chamber endorsement of the bill “totally insensitive.”