Top court to hear Austintown union picketing case

Staff report

BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio

The Ohio Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a labor union case from Mahoning County, which poses a key constitutional question concerning free- speech rights related to informational picketing.

In an April 24 session at Bellefontaine High School in Logan County, the top court will hear arguments concerning the constitutionality of a part of the state collective-bargaining law that requires a union to give an employer 10 days’ notice of its informational picketing plans.

The case arises from a unanimous June 2012 decision by a three-judge panel of the Youngstown-based 7th District Court of Appeals that the 10-day notice requirement violates free- speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

That decision arose from peaceful informational picketing by the Mahoning Education Association of Developmental Disabilities outside a Nov. 5, 2007, Mahoning County Board of Developmental Disabilities meeting in Austintown, while the union and the board were negotiating a new contract.

MEADD represents teaching and nonteaching employees of the board.