Public Employee Strikes in Ohio: The Ferguson Act Reconsidered

A SOCIETY CHANGES through normal evolutionary processes, the laws by which that society elects to be governed must also be changed.2 The diminution of the rationale for a given law tends to render that law vacuous. Impossibility of effective enforcement of the law will often render a law impotent. Failure by the appropriate legislative body to revise or repeal such laws to more accurately accommodate the current consensus results in a general deterioration of society's respect for law. An example is the Ferguson Act, which unequivocably prohibits any public employee in Ohio from striking.

It has become clear that the proscription has lost its legitimacy.