Contract negotiations between Getswelle Hospital and the union weren’t going well.
The hospital and the American Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 711 weren’t at an impasse, but neither side was eager to budge from their positions on salary and benefits.
If you’ve never heard of the hospital or the union, it’s because they don’t really exist. But for several hours earlier this week at the Northeast Ohio Worker Center’s High School Collective Bargaining Program, they did. About 30 or so students, whether role-playing union or management, convincingly fought for their side and eventually hammered out a contract.
Isabella Hall, a junior at the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine who was on the union bargaining team, didn’t realize that negotiating would involve so much give-and-take. She had expected a straight route, instead of a sometimes circuitous path, to landing a contract. Hall recalled how her team would send proposals to management only to have them either reject them or make counterproposals that the union viewed as unacceptable.
“And then we would have to redo the whole entire thing and present it again,” Hall said. “It was like a cycle. It really made my head hurt.”
Still, she treasures the experience, especially getting an introduction to how to negotiate.
“I feel like I’ve gained skills that are very beneficial towards my future,” Hall said.
Northeast Ohio Worker Center wants to curb declining union membership
This is the second year the Northeast Ohio Worker Center has held the collective bargaining program, which took place Monday at SEIU 1199’s offices on Shaker Boulevard in Cleveland. NEOWC will hold a similar program in August in the Mahoning Valley. The nonprofit partnered with the Cleveland Teachers Union for a collective bargaining program at some Cleveland Metropolitan School District schools during the last academic year. The role-playing collective bargaining exercise was designed by the Labor Education Center at DePaul University in Chicago.
If you live in Northeast Ohio, the labor movement should feel ancestral. That legacy of knowledge – what it means to be in a union household and what having a union job means – that’s being eroded.”
Grace Heffernan, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Worker Center
Historically, Greater Cleveland and Ohio had a sizable number of unionized workers. While the state continues to be above the national average in terms of the percentage of workers being represented by unions, the numbers here and nationally have tumbled over the decades. For example, the share of workers represented by unions in Ohio in 1989 was 23%, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By 2024, the percentage had dropped to 13.3%.
“If you live in Northeast Ohio, the labor movement should feel ancestral,” said Grace Heffernan, executive director of NEOWC. “That legacy of knowledge – what it means to be in a union household and what having a union job means – that’s being eroded.”
Many of the students were concerned to learn that the percentage of workers being represented by unions had plummeted. Among them was Torrey Marshall-Wright, who just graduated from Shaker Heights High School and is headed to the University of Cincinnati. She works at an assisted living facility where the workers are represented by SEIU 1199. Being part of the collective bargaining exercise helped Marshall-Wright put into perspective conversations she had heard at work.
“This is why I think unions are great: If you feel like there are some unjust things happening at work, you have the right to fight against it and not get penalized,” she said.
Heffernan said she was less concerned about the students knowing the intricacies of bargaining than knowing that they “have a voice in the outcomes of their own life.”
Most of the students interviewed, including Marshall-Wright, were glad they now know both.
Students preferred to bargain a contract for the union instead of management
The collective bargaining exercise was designed to simulate the real thing. Students, both union and management, caucused and made first proposals and then counter proposals. They sat across the table from one other at the negotiating table. Each side met individually with a mediator, who shuttled between both until a deal was struck. Union members, who had bargained contracts, coached the students. A Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service mediator helped the students prevent an impasse.
Students didn’t get to choose whether they would be labor or management. When Marshall-White found out she was management, she was a little perturbed. She didn’t want to be “the bad guy, who was trying to keep all the money. “
At first, Atarra Stephens, a Shaker Heights HIgh School freshman, didn’t want to be on the management team either.
“I didn’t know I would like being in the position of power – a little bit,” she said. “It gave me a different perspective. If I was on the union side, I feel like I wouldn’t know as much as I do right now.”
Hall, the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine junior, and Kenneth Griffin, who just graduated from Shaker Heights High School and is headed to Cuyahoga Community College, liked being chosen to represent the union.
“I think of myself as a helpful person,” he said. “I just feel like union was the best for me.”
Impasse or contract?
The union bargaining team waited in the room in anticipation of mediator Brittney C. Howard returning. They were hoping that management would accept their last offer and a contract could be struck.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Howard entered. Management had another counter proposal. Both sides had moved far from their first proposals. Take salary, for example. The union had proposed a 7.5% raise the first year of the contract, 5% the second and 4.75% the third. Management had proposed a one-time $2,000 bonus the first year of the contract and raises based on performance for the second and third years.
Now, the management team was proposing a 5% raise the first year; a 3% raise the second year plus a $1,750 stipend and a 2.5% raise the third year plus a $1,750 stipend. (Another union-management set bargained to different results.)
After hearing management’s proposal, some of the students started yelling,”Strike!, strike!” Then their coaches, Ron Gay, a Communications Workers of America staff representative, and Michael J. Piepsny, a staff representative for AFSCME Ohio Council 8, brought them back to reality.
So did Howard. She reminded the team that they were representing their union’s members.
“Realistically, people wouldn’t probably strike over this,” she said.
A few minutes later, they had a contract.