YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Encouraged by Insight Hospital’s announcement several weeks ago that it intends to reopen the former Steward Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren, Tom Connelly nevertheless sees a challenging task ahead.
The president of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, Local 2026 notes the more than 150 registered nurses he represents at the shuttered hospital share a guarded optimism – guarded because of the stress health care workers have faced over the past two decades in the region’s volatile health care environment.
“The nurses are extremely fatigued over the various ordeals that we’ve gone through over the past 15 or 20 years,” Connelly says. “Beginning with Forum Health, then Community Health Systems, then Steward, and now Insight. We want to make sure the hospital is fiscally stable, because we don’t want to go in and run into the same thing that we’re experiencing now.”
In many ways, organizing in the health care field has mirrored the ups and downs of labor activity across the Mahoning Valley. Other major unions, such as United Auto Workers Local 1112, for example, have rebounded after near extinction in the wake of General Motors Co.’s closure of its Lordstown complex in 2019. Today, the local represents more than 1,400 workers at Ultium Cells LLC’s battery cell manufacturing plant in Lordstown.
Furthermore, national statistics show that labor unions enjoy a more favorable reputation than ever, inspiring unions to step up organizing efforts.
HOPE FOR HOSPITAL
Connelly, a registered nurse, has spent his entire 50-year career at Trumbull Memorial – today Insight Hospital & Medical Center Trumbull hospital. “I’ve pretty much seen it all,” he reflects.
The hospital – along with Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland – merged with Mahoning County’s Northside Medical Center, Southside Medical Center and Beeghly Medical Park to create Forum Health during the late 1990s.
It was during this phase that nurses at Trumbull agreed to organize, Connelly says. Since 1999, AFSCME Local 2026 has represented the hospital’s nursing staff; the Ohio Nurses Association represents RNs at Hillside Rehabilitation.
Connelly recalls that organizing the nurses wasn’t a foregone conclusion. “Some nurses at the time worried that it would diminish their professionalism,” he says. “I believe that it’s increased it. Anytime that nurses can speak together to address problems and their needs, they’re in a better place.”
Forum Health shortly thereafter closed Southside and then filed bankruptcy in 2009, creating uncertainty through the entire system. In 2010, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems acquired the group from bankruptcy, creating ValleyCare Health System of Ohio.
Then, in 2017, Community Health announced it had sold the system to Boston-based Steward Health Care, which then shuttered its Northside Hospital campus in September 2018. Steward, saddled with mounting problems of its own, ultimately filed bankruptcy in May of 2024, and Insight reached a deal through bankruptcy court to acquire Trumbull and Hillside in October 2024.
Despite the sale, Insight was forced to shut down operations, alleging Steward was withholding payments for services rendered at the hospitals. Insight was also unable to reach an agreement with a third-party transition company, further complicating its efforts to keep the hospital open.
Connelly says that now he understands Insight is working through many of these obstacles and plans to reopen Trumbull. “I don’t know that for sure,” he acknowledges. “I would like us to be sitting down every week and talking about what’s going on with the hospital,” he says. Local 2026 has two years left on its existing collective bargaining contract with the hospital.
Nurses, Connelly says, are in high demand and staffing is always a challenge. Moreover, when Insight announced it would close, many of the nurses represented by Local 2026 found employment elsewhere. Furthermore, the closure has left a bad feeling among many nurses, who are now torn between returning to Trumbull and trusting Insight’s leadership. “They want to come back to work, and we’ve always been proud of that hospital,” he says. “But, I don’t know whether they’re going to come back. That’s one of the big mysteries.”
Still, Connelly remains optimistic, and recent developments have restored faith among the nursing staff that the hospital will reopen soon. “I believe it’s going to happen,” he says. “We’re in discussions to see if there are ways that the union can help the hospital stay viable through this transition period of them reopening.”
Most likely, the hospital will reopen in phases, he says.
The first priority is to maintain the quality of health care and patient safety, Connelly continues. “We want to make sure that patient care doesn’t suffer or is not jeopardized, and that we afford the hospital and ourselves the chance to grow so we can get back to where we once were.”
Connelly reflects that he’s not sure whether the hospital could have overcome the major hurdles it has faced over the last 20 years without a union. “I don’t believe we would have survived through a number of these issues here had we not had a union,” he says.
UNION FAVORABILITY
Recent studies show that Americans today are warming to the cause of labor. According to data released by American National Election Studies in late 2024, Americans feel more positively about labor unions today than at any time since the ANES first published its findings in 1964. Simultaneously, favorability toward big business had declined, a trend that has slowly developed since 2012.
In Ohio, union membership between 2014 and 2024 has increased, albeit modestly, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2014, union membership across the Buckeye State stood at 615,000, while in 2024, BLS reported that 621,000 employees were members of organized labor.
Still, the percentage of union members that represent the state’s total workforce has declined, according to BLS. In 2020, for example, union membership represented 13.2% of the total employed workforce in Ohio. In 2024, representation fell to 12.1% of the total employed, data show.
According to BLS, union membership in Ohio reached its peak in 1989, when it averaged 21.3% of the workforce. Its lowest rate was recorded in 2019, when organized labor membership dwindled to 11.9% of the total employed workforce.
“We’ve polled better than we’ve ever had in our history,” says Bill Padisak, president of Mahoning-Trumbull AFL-CIO. “Membership has remained steady and approximately 80% of people in this country view unions favorably.”
Padisak observes those represented by unions see opportunities to have a say in their workplace. “There hasn’t been a mass exodus of people leaving the unions because they see value and want to be able to negotiate good contracts.”
Nevertheless, Padisak says there are major challenges ahead for organized labor. Among them is the fight to keep bargaining rights for public employees, especially those employed by the federal government. “We’ve heard almost 400,000 people around the country are losing their collective bargaining rights,” he says.
Padisak says it’s unclear how many in the Mahoning Valley would be affected.
“I would say that labor today is strong, but under attack,” Padisak says.
NEXT GENERATION
Central to the success of organized labor in the region is attracting the next generation of members, says Marty Loney, president of the Western Reserve Building and Construction Trades Council and business manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 396.
Efforts to draw young people to the building crafts took a major leap in 2019, when local trade unions and educators hosted the first Mahoning Valley Skilled Trades Expo at the Canfield Fairgrounds.
“It’s been pretty remarkable,” Loney says. “We’ve gone from a one-day event to a three-day event.”
Last year, nearly 6,000 students from the region attended the expo, this year scheduled for Sept. 16-18. The first year, organizers expected between 700 and 750 students; the event attracted 1,500 in a single day.
The expo has been held every year since 2019, except for 2020, when it was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has since attracted a large following through the engagement of the trades, career centers, and local school districts, Loney says.
“We had to figure out a way to show what we do,” Loney says. “The first was to introduce the trades to younger people and get the guidance counselors on board.” The idea was to gather all of the building trades and place them all under a single roof, where area middle school and high school students can observe firsthand how these organizations operate and what it takes to become a journeyman.
Loney says that the trades present a pathway to a rewarding career for those who don’t elect to pursue college. Expanding the event to three days means that organizers can spend more time with young people who express interest in a particular craft. The expo – combined with other outreach efforts – has helped circulate a positive message to young people about rewarding careers in the building trades.
The results have been very encouraging, Loney says, especially for Pipefitters Local 396. “We know that it is working, because it’s the younger people who are applying now,” he says.
Local 396’s apprenticeship programs have enjoyed larger classes over the last three years, Loney says, as interest has increased among young people. “Two years ago, we took in 25 or 26 apprentices,” he says. “We’ve never taken that many before.”
Moreover, the building trades have had several years of active business and there is substantial work ahead, Loney says. Most visible are the $800 million Kimberly-Clark construction project in Warren and Howland townships, Amazon’s new 160,000-square-foot distribution center in Bazetta, and Mercy Health’s new emergency center in Champion Township.
“Trumbull County is pretty busy right now,” Loney says. “We’ll probably start the underground plumbing at Kimberly-Cark in the next couple of weeks, so it looks like we’re going to be full go here real quick.”
Pictured at top: Tom Connelly, president of AFSCME Local 2026, which represents nurses at Insight hospital, Warren.