Happy Endings

By Clyde Weiss

When a hospital twice changed hands, Council 8 saved union jobs by insisting on a contract provision that allows AFSCME members to follow the work — and keep it.

BARBERTON, OHIO

When the $35 million high school opened here in August 2000, the students of this rural, blue-collar town could hardly believe their eyes. They were greeted with a neon-decorated food court, an indoor track, a state-of-the-art science lab and other amenities that weren’t even a principal’s dream at the 85-year-old school that it replaced.

Barberton High students were not the only ones smiling when the doors opened. Equally excited were roughly 115 maintenance workers, teacher aides, food service employees and support personnel — members of AFSCME Local 265 (Council 8) — who had come over from the school’s dilapidated predecessor. They had the pleasure of knowing they had played a key role in ensuring that the new school was built predominantly with union labor.

For Council 8, that marked a second victory in Barberton, which is located southwest of Akron. A few years earlier, the council protected the jobs of Local 2317 members working at the nearby Barberton Citizens Hospital. In a positive case of what goes around comes around, the selling of the hospital had provided the very funds that built the high school.

This is a story with three good endings: First, the town used the hospital sale proceeds to build a sparkling new high school that it otherwise could not afford. Second, the school workers had a better place to work — and none lost their jobs. Third, the hospital employees also kept their jobs because their union leaders had the wisdom and foresight to insist on a "successorship clause" in their contract.

IN THE BEGINNING. When the high school and a 50-bed hospital both opened in Barberton in 1915, no one could have known just how closely their fates were linked. By 1949, both institutions were showing their age. Trustees of Citizens Hospital decided to build a more modern medical facility, and to help with construction costs, bonds were placed on the ballot to raise $1.65 million. The community approved the measure, but with a proviso: If the hospital were ever sold, the proceeds would go to the city. In August 1954, a new $3.5 million, 235-bed hospital opened.

In 1995, hospital trustees decided to sell the non-profit corporation to Quorum Health Group Inc., subject to regulatory approval and a vote of the people of Barberton. But city officials, knowing the importance of unions in this labor-oriented community, first approached Council 8 for its approval.

PROTECTING OUR JOBS. "I told them we simply couldn’t support the sale because the contract lacked a successorship clause," recalls Larry Stump, Council 8 staff rep. for the hospital. Stump was referring to a contract provision that requires a new employer to carry out the terms of any collective bargaining agreement then in effect, including voluntary recognition of the union and the obligation to enter into negotiations for another successor agreement when the current one expires.

Although the provision sounds complicated, it essentially protects the jobs of union members when their employer — in this case, Citizens Hospital — sells the company. AFSCME recognized the importance of the successorship clause at our 34th International Convention in Philadelphia last year. Resolution No. 78 (Bargaining to Organize) observes: "AFSCME affiliates have effectively utilized successorship language to ‘follow the work’ in cases of contracting out, privatization, and sale of employer operations."

"Our main concern was that the contract wouldn’t be honored [by Quorum]," says Roberta (Bobbie) Cox, president of Local 2317, which represents about 160 members — mostly nurses’ aides, maintenance workers, dietary specialists and secretaries.

Unless there was a successorship clause, Stump warned city officials, "not only would we not support the sale, we would go out and protest against it." It was tough talk, especially because the hospital’s sale would benefit the entire community as proceeds were invested in local projects like a new high school. But the need to protect the hospital workers’ jobs also was great.

"They could always come in and say, ‘Everybody’s going to be replaced,’" says Cox. The fear of losing one’s job was palpable.

Anxious for the sale to go through, city officials hoped to make the union happy. But they were forced to leave it up to Council 8 to negotiate directly with Quorum. Talks went well, and the successorship clause was approved. "In return," says Stump, "we offered our complete support for the sale."

Quorum, Stump believes, was only accepting reality. Had the company withheld recognition, he says, "I don’t believe the sale would have gone through. The hospital workers live in that community and have families there. Had we raised a fuss, the citizens themselves would have turned it down."

With the successorship clause a done deal and AFSCME members on board, the city put the sale to a referendum. It was approved by a 3-1 margin. A community foundation then was established to decide how to spend the sale proceeds. To date, they amount to $86 million; of that, about $20 million has gone to grants to a variety of community charities and programs, and $11 million to purchase bonds to build the new high school.

But a vital question remained: Who would build it?

UNION-BUILT. The school district initially opposed using union labor exclusively on the new school, says 
John Trew, president of Local 265. It became such a contentious issue, he recalls, that "at one time we even picketed the site" along with the AFL-CIO and the Laborers’ union.

Shrewd bidding, as well as forceful protests, proved decisive. When the school board tried to bid out contracts to private firms, local unions "were competitive enough to get them," says Trew. "We made sure the school was built with union labor."

SOLD AGAIN. Last April, four years after Quorum Health Group bought Barberton Citizens Hospital, another company — Dallas-based Triad Hospitals Inc. — acquired Quorum in a $2.4 billion buy-out.

Local 2317, engaged in contract talks as the buy-out was being negotiated, once again feared for the job security of its members. Consequently, says Cox, "We pushed [Quorum] to get us a letter from Triad saying that if and when they bought the company, the successor clause would be in it and that they would honor it for the duration of the contract."

The union got its assurance; the contract was renewed in January. "They gave us the successor clause on condition that we settled the contract without a strike," says Cox. "Our employer/union relationship is really good right now. They realized the successor clause was very important to us — we told them the contract negotiations depended heavily on that."

To Stump, the lesson of Barberton is that although a union should not always oppose the sale of an institution simply because its members work there, it should always try to prevent the loss of members’ jobs.

Both the union and the community of Barberton are happy. "The standard concept, that management and labor are always adversarial, doesn’t have to be that way," says Trew. "You can find common ground."