TURNING POINT COUNSELING Agency: Managers to fill in for strikers

Workers planned to strike today rather than pay a share of their health care insurance.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Management employees at five Turning Point Counseling Service locations will continue to provide mental health services if unionized workers strike, the agency director said.
About 100 workers, members of Service Employees International Union, District 1199, were making plans to walk out at noon today after negotiations broke down Monday night.
Based on Belmont Avenue, Turning Point is under contract with the Mahoning County Mental Health Board to provide counseling, psychotherapy, diagnostic assessment, crisis intervention, hospitalization and other services to adults in the county. The agency's five locations have a combined caseload of more than 2,500 clients.
Health care dispute
Becky Williams, SEIU Ohio Area director, and Joseph Sylvester, Turning Point director, agreed that the only major sticking point is employee health care benefits -- the agency wants employees to pay a share of their health care premiums; the union is resisting.
Williams said the union proposed a wage freeze for the first year, a move she said would save the company $70,000, and promised to work with agency officials to find solutions to the growing health care costs in the following years of the agreement.
The company was offering a 2 percent wage increase this year and a comparable raise next year but asking workers to pay 10 percent of their health care premiums, she said, arguing the employee share would also be about $70,000.
"This is the craziest strike in the world," she said. "We're having a strike over an issue that could have easily been resolved."
But Sylvester said the one-year wage freeze offer wouldn't solve the problem of future health care cost increases. The agency proposed that workers pay a flat rate toward health benefits this year, he said, with percentage payments for future years to assure worker contributions would keep up with health care cost increases.
"Health care costs keep going up, but they want to maintain a fixed rate or not pay at all," he said. "Everywhere you look, employees are paying something toward their health care costs. I'm hoping they'll just see the light."
Books opened
He said the agency opened its books to the union Monday to demonstrate that it is offering what it can. "There is just basically nothing more for us to give them," he said.
Sylvester said most managers are licensed counselors or social workers and are qualified to continue providing services. Some programs will be moved to the Belmont site and workers will have to prioritize cases, he said, but there are no plans to hire replacement workers.
The union represents caseworkers, therapists, counselors, social workers, clerical workers, nurses and van drivers. Their contract expired at midnight Monday. Williams said their salaries vary widely, with nonprofessional employees averaging $15,000 and professionals averaging $27,000.
vinarsky@vindy.com