The Ohio Public Sector Labor-Management Health Care Benefits Committee was established by members of an informal advisory group to members of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. In 2004, the State Employment Relations Board began meeting with this group in its search for an instructional model for establishing, maintaining, and evaluating effective, local labor-management health care benefits committees. Convinced that the advisory group had the knowledge and experience to develop such a solution, it sought a grant from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to develop this model.

The training program developed by the Committee consisted of two days of intensive training in health insurance, procurement, committee effectiveness and problem-solving for labor-management health insurance committees. Five facilitated sessions followed the training to provide support for committee development. The training and facilitation intervention were evaluated by the Ohio Collaborative, a policy research center dedicated to meeting the educational policy research needs of Ohio by bringing together education experts from across Ohio colleges and universities. While the grant concludes March 31, 2007, much of the material from the training will reside on this website until March 31, 2009.