Forum furor
Forum Ardent
Union employees from AFSCME, Ohio Nurses Association and SEIU protested in front of a downtown Youngstown bank complaining that banks refuse to loan money to Ardent to complete the purchase of Forum Health facilities in Youngstown and Trumbull County.
Union, political leaders assail actions of hospital system’s secured creditors
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
State and local governments and Mahoning Valley residents should withdraw their money from secured creditors’ banks if the creditors stand in the way of Ardent Health Services’ attempt to purchase Forum Health, state Rep. Robert Hagan told a labor rally in downtown Youngstown.
“If you continue to try to tear our hearts out, we’re going to hit you in the only place you ever hurt — the bottom line,” Hagan said of bank executives at a Thursday rally outside J.P.Morgan Chase Bank, one of the secured creditors.
Hagan was flanked by state Rep. Ron Gerberry of Austintown, D-59th, and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Canfield, D-33rd, as he spoke to the press and Forum workers and their union leaders. Those leaders were from American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Ohio Council 8, the Ohio Nurses Association and Service Employees International Union District 1199.
As Hagan spoke, Gerberry and Schiavoni held turnips to illustrate the message the creditors could not get blood from a turnip.
“It’s time for J.P.Morgan and the rest of the Wall Street gang to understand that they can’t squeeze any more out of Forum’s workers and this community,” Hagan said, adding that Forum’s workers already have made $70 million worth of concessions to keep Forum’s doors open.
“Sadly, it has become an all-too common tale that when corporations mismanage affairs, it is the employees and their families that suffer,” Hagan said.
“This is a perfect example of hard-working people making very real sacrifices with the hopes that their co-workers and neighbors will benefit.”
Forum’s major components are Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.
The secured creditors recently filed their own bankruptcy reorganization plan for Forum, which employs about 4,000 people.
Forum filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2009 after having lost nearly $100 million in the previous four years. In the year after the filing, Forum lost an additional $20.6 million.
Becky Williams, SEIU president, said greed drove the creditors’ proposed reorganization plan, which she said could force Northside to close if the workers don’t make more concessions.
The creditors fear they won’t get enough money if the Tennessee-based Ardent buys Forum, she said.
“They’ve made a decision that they would rather demand it from the backs of the working people,” Williams said.
“It is exceptionally unreasonable for the lenders to think that the people in the community should make sacrifices, that the employees should make sacrifices, that the [Forum Health] foundation should make sacrifices, but they should walk away completely whole,” Mayor Jay Williams added.
After the rally, AFSCME’s lawyer, Sean Grayson, said the creditors’ proposed plan suggests Northside will close if all the unions don’t make millions of dollars in additional concessions and if the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. doesn’t agree to take over union pension plans.
Grayson added that as far as he knows, Ardent’s offer to purchase Forum is still on the table. At the end of 2009, Ardent bid $76.8 million for Forum Health, which is 60 percent of the $128 million owed to the creditors, he recalled.
Forum’s lenders were the first to suggest the health-care system pursue a sale and “continue to support a sale that reflects Forum’s value and complies with the bankruptcy code and the judge’s past orders,” said Lance Ignon, a consultant to MBIA Insurance Corp., which is one of Forum’s secured creditors.
“There still is no viable sale offer, and Forum has yet to file a plan of reorganization. So we were forced to file our own plan so that Forum has a realistic and timely path out of bankruptcy,” added Ignon, a member of the San Francisco-based Sitrick & Co. Inc.
Just as Forum’s secured lenders had the right to file a plan of reorganization with the bankruptcy court, other parties also have the right to express their views, according to a press release from a Forum Health spokesman.
“Because of the confidential nature of our ongoing discussions with numerous parties, however, we will not comment on any of these actions,’’ the spokesman added.