ATHENS, Ohio — About 50 Hopewell Health Centers employees will decide next month whether to form a union.
“The way that Hopewell is structured and run right now — the way that it’s ballooned into this behemoth with the profit motive being the core thing that upper management and administration is concerned with — the bottom line is that it affects us and it affects our clients,” said Elise Westenbarger, a case manager at Hopewell.
She’s one of 51 employees who will vote May 22 on union representation with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Ohio Council 8.
An “overwhelming majority” of eligible employees signed cards to file for a union election, said AFSCME organizer Namita Waghray.
The union would represent all full-time and regular part-time therapists, community psychiatric supportive treatment providers and peer support specialists at the agency’s 90 Hospital Drive location in Athens, according to National Labor Relations Board records the Independent obtained through a records request.
The bargaining unit would exclude team leads, clerical workers, guards and supervisors employed at the location.
“I see a real need and a purpose to unionize … in order to make Hopewell function better, and to be able to deliver the best quality services to the most people in need in the best and most efficient way, without burning out our workers,” said Jesse Luther Woodard, a therapist at Hopewell.
Westenbarger, who has organized for the union off and on since 2022, said organizers have emphasized three main points: low pay, unreasonable productivity requirements, and a lack of transparency.
Westenbarger estimated most employees in the proposed bargaining unit make between $30,000 and $35,000 per year.
“When I first started as a case manager, I was applying for a lot of the same benefits that I was helping my clients apply for,” Westenbarger said. She was making $15.50 an hour at the time.
According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no children in Athens, Ohio needs to make at least $19.39 an hour — over $40,300 per year — to get by. For families, that number is substantially higher.
“Money is not why we got into this field,” said Jamie Ware, an employment specialist at Hopewell. Ware joined the agency after reevaluating her career following a major loss in her life, and resolving that she wanted to do work where she could help people.
But, Ware said, “It’s just not practical to expect folks who are struggling to meet their basic needs to then turn around and help others — not just a couple, but a caseload of 20 to 30 people — meet their basic needs.”
According to Hopewell’s most recent tax filing, available through ProPublica’s nonprofit explorer, CEO Mark Bridenbaugh was paid $212,798, equivalent to $102.31 per hour. Director of Psychiatry Mary Hanessian was paid $294,270.
Westenbarger started working in the mental health field because of her own mental health struggles, for which she received services at Hopewell. Employees take home second-hand trauma and frequently worry about their clients, she said.
“We’re not paid commensurate for having to deal with those things,”Westenbarger said. “And it’s insulting. It hurts.”
Because of high productivity requirements, meanwhile, employees described feeling stretched thin and unable to serve their clients to the best of their ability. Decisions affecting the workforce are often made with little transparency, employees said.
Woodard said that when he started working for Hopewell a decade ago, decisions were kept informed about the agency’s budget and related decision-making. Now, he said, decisions are made higher up without input from employees, which he believes often limit employees’ ability to provide effective care for clients.
“It just leaves us wondering, what are those things that go into those decisions? How are they made?” Woodard said.
Should the 51 workers at 90 Hospital Drive vote to unionize, they would become the second group of the nonprofit healthcare provider’s more than 950 total employees to do so. About 30 workers at the agency’s Columbus Road location unionized in fall 2022.
That first group of employees is still negotiating its first union contract, Waghray said. The process has been ongoing for about eight months.
“They are going back and forth with negotiating around the specifics of wages and raises and time off, and so on and so forth, or they’re getting budgets. It’s not an easy process,” Waghray said. “They really want to work with Hopewell. … They want this institution to exist. They want to have a voice in it.”
Hopewell spent slightly more than it brought in in 2022, according to its 2022 tax filing. The agency maintained hefty cash reserves though, with almost $38 million in net assets reported on its 2022 filing. Those reserves alone could carry the agency for about six months, based on the agency’s 2022 expenses.
Bridenbaugh did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment.
