Family Services Workers in Ohio Have Been Striking for Six Months
Union chalk art appeared in July outside of the county administration building in Elyria, Ohio. Strikers change the art every week after county officials wash it off. Photo: Philip Althouse
A sign in the empty parking lot at the administrative offices for Lorain County Job and Family Services in Elyria, Ohio, tells passersby that the agency is open for business. That’s only part of the story.
On the perimeter of the empty parking lot in front of the building is a picket line by members of Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2192 who began a strike on February 18. It has become the longest public sector strike in Ohio history, with 140 case workers on strike.
Inside the JFS headquarters are largely empty offices with a growing mass of benefit applications waiting to be processed. Supervisory staff are working extra-long hours but can’t keep up. Medicaid, food stamps, child support, childcare assistance, adult protective services, and other critical social services managed by JFS are on hold for county residents who desperately need them.
The contract expired last September. The union’s focus is on chronically low wages, high job turnover rate, and a 50 percent increase in health care costs. Among its demands was an annual 8 percent wage increase.
Darlene Gray, a strike captain, said workers can walk through the door at the JFS agency in neighboring Erie County and “make more than I make after working for 23 years at Lorain JFS.”
REJECTED PROPOSALS
The County Commissioners called the union’s contract demands “unrealistic” in the face of budgetary constraints that they claim the county is facing.
The contract dispute was referred to a State Employment Relations Board neutral fact-finder. But on January 27, the Lorain County Board of Commissioners unanimously rejected the fact-finder’s recommendation for a 3-year contract with wage increases of 4.5 percent, 3.5 percent and 4 percent. The Board urged both sides to continue to bargain.
The county gave a final offer of a 12 percent total wage increase over three years on February 10, and then declared impasse after the county commissioners rejected the union’s proposal for a $1 per hour above the proposal. While the union expressed a willingness to continue negotiations, the commissioners refused.
Lorain County residents have complained to local news media that they have to wait hours on the phone to reach staff at JFS and experience delays of over a month just to find out if their benefit application was approved. Kathleen Janda, Director of Operations at the Lorain County Free Clinic, told Cleveland NewsChannel 5 that the non-profit has seen an increase in requests for its free pharmacy services from people whose Medicaid coverage has lapsed due to the strike.
Gina Jones, Chair of the union’s bargaining team, lays blame for the strike squarely on the County Commissioners and said that “we’re going to be on strike until we get what we need.”
FISCAL MISMANAGEMENT
She cited public records data that reveal fiscal mismanagement by commissioners that contribute to the county’s budget crunch. According to County Auditor records, six-figure salaried administrative positions at the county zoomed from 55 in 2021 to 174 in 2025.
Jones cited a report by a local independent investigative journalist who uncovered internal emails by one of the commissioners about ways to shield administrative personnel compensation from public scrutiny.
Jones said the union’s $1 supplement wage demand adds up to a small fraction of those administrative pay hikes. Meanwhile, Lorain commissioners have been embroiled in a series of scandals. Earlier this year the commissioners slashed funding to the county emergency children’s shelter. Officials from the County Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court said that they had been by blindsided by the cut and were forced to close the shelter.
In June, the County Sheriff’s Public Corruption Unit seized records from the county administration building in a probe of a contract for the county 911 call center that was approved by the commissioners.
Jones said the strike has begun to take a toll on union members. “Nine have left JFS for other jobs,” she said. She said UAW strike pay is as much or more than JFS workers were being paid for working.
Gray worried about what working conditions will be like for case workers when the strike ends. “We were already short-staffed before the strike, and now there’s a huge backlog of work waiting for us.”
Philip Althouse is a member of UAW Local 2320, and a Senior Attorney at Cleveland Legal Aid.
