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Forum unions discover contract options
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
YOUNGSTOWN
Forum Health unions learned Friday that mirroring their agreements with Ardent Health Services is not the only avenue listed in Community Health Systems’ proposal to buy the bankrupt hospital system.
Community Health Systems emerged from an auction Thursday as the owner-elect of Forum Health after submitting a bid of $120 million for its assets.
In a statement after the auction, Forum Health said CHS would offer the unions the same conditions, wages and benefits contained in memorandums of understanding negotiated with Ardent before the auction. Ardent was the unsuccessful bidder.
However, in a conference call Friday with Forum officials, union leaders learned three other options are possible with CHS, said Mary Ann Hupp, administrative organizer for Service Employees International Union District 1199. SEIU represents about 1,000 employees at Northside Medical Center in Youngstown and Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren.
Forum’s other major facility is Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.
The other options CHS may pursue, Hupp said, are: Assume the contracts; negotiate new work agreements; or if there are successor clauses, follow what they spell out.
She said SEIU and CHS had exchanged e-mails but that no meetings had been scheduled as of Friday.
“We are interested to see how CHS works with us. We remain optimistic and committed to getting the best option for the community and our members,” Hupp said.
Thomas Connelly, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employes Local 2026, said Friday he did not know when the union would meet with CHS again.
Local 2026 represents nurses at TMH.
Connelly said the terms of the memorandums with Ardent remain confidential, and said it is likely that negotiations with CHS would also remain confidential.
CHS had, as of noon Friday, not made any attempts to set up another meeting with the unions, said Eric Williams, president of Youngstown General Nurses Association/Ohio Nurses Association, which represents nurses at Northside.
“They keep saying that they want to have a good relationship with the unions, and we want the same ... but when we do meet they have provided us with no written proposals. It is hard to negotiate without a written proposal,” he said.
Williams said he assumes that the unions are going to file an objection to the sale related to the successorship agreement, but wouldn’t give any further details.
Also at this point, the union does not know with whom it will be negotiating: CHS or the Youngstown Ohio Hospital Company, the CHS subsidiary that wants to by Forum Health, or some other CHS entity, Hupp said.
That’s the $64,000 question, said another union official.