Pennsylvania labor groups are taking an unorthodox approach to supporting University of Pittsburgh Medical Center employees who can’t join a union by calling for an antitrust investigation of federal.
Healthcare Workers International Pennsylvania Federation, which leads the coalition, filed a complaint with the Department of Justice on Thursday accusing UPMC of engaging in anticompetitive behavior that creates poor working conditions and distorts markets. labor. The company has made a series of mergers and acquisitions, giving its employees fewer alternative employment options and imposing non-compete clauses on workers to tie them further to UPMC. , the union alleges.
UPMC is Pennsylvania’s largest private employer, with more than 95,000 workers in 40 hospitals, 800 offices and clinics, and the health insurance division. The nonprofit health system recorded $26 billion in operating revenue last year.
According to the SEIU affiliate, because UPMC has significant influence over the Keystone State labor market, it can pay low wages, require heavy workloads, and limit employees’ ability to advance their careers. member in the company.
“This is groundbreaking because no one has ever filed a complaint alleging that these travel restrictions and labor law violations are anticompetitive practices that violate federal antitrust laws,” said SEIU President Healthcare Pennsylvania, Matt Yarnell said in a press conference Thursday.
UPMC declined to comment on the antitrust allegations. Spokesman Paul Wood wrote in an email that the average UPMC salary exceeds $78,000 and that the health system plans to increase the starting hourly wage for new jobs to $18 next year. 2025, this will be the highest among the state’s healthcare providers. “The company does not have a policy that prohibits employees from transferring to other jobs in the healthcare system,” he wrote. UPMC is “one of the best places to work” in the Pittsburgh area, he writes.
SEIU has largely been unsuccessful in its efforts to organize UPMC staff over the past decade, even though it represents hundreds of employees at the health system’s facility in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
