Clever rhyming chants, raucous marches, scratchy megaphones. A finger-wagging from a police officer after protesters briefly entered the McDonald’s restaurant on Liberty Avenue, Downtown. The wave of strikes and rallies that spread throughout Pittsburgh on Thursday sure looked and sounded familiar.
In recent years, Pittsburgh has hosted numerous rallies and protests over wage issues.
But there was an added ingredient to the demonstrations Thursday, which organizers said were coordinated in 300 cities worldwide to highlight the struggle of low-wage workers in the service industry: momentum.
The rallies come two weeks after UPMC health system, the region’s largest employer, agreed to boost entry-level pay to $15 an hour. That decision followed a slew of other victories for labor groups fighting to raise the minimum wage to that target, including laws passed in California and New York.
And earlier this month, Pennsylvania nursing home workers employed at 42 facilities settled contracts to earn at least $15 an hour, according to the Service Employees International Union.
Yet dozens of low-wage workers at UPMC’s facilities could be found among the fray, as they renewed calls for a long-elusive demand: a union.
Under federal law, nonunion workers are allowed to call a one-day strike without penalty from their employer, which is how fast food and hospital workers can go back to work today. But the short-term strikes have risks, labor advocates say, and workers at Burger King, McDonald’s and Walmart have been reprimanded for legal missteps while striking.
The hospital workers reasoned that they could strike as a result of unfair labor practices by UPMC, which has rejected unionization efforts for years and has faced charges from the National Labor Relations Board for impeding the process.
In a press release announcing their strike, which organizers called the first at the health system, workers cited “UPMC’s practices of harassing, surveilling, discriminating against and illegally disciplining workers who want to form their union.”
UPMC did not respond to a request for comment.
The hospital workers gathered for a morning press conference outside the city council chambers, holding signs reading “$15 and union rights” — the “and” was underlined for emphasis.
“The ‘Fight for $15’ is changing the landscape of this country,” said City Councilman Ricky Burgess, who chaired the wage review committee that collected testimony from low-wage workers and that took aim particularly at UPMC. “It is because of the people of Pittsburgh standing up for themselves that we are winning fair wages across this city.”
Jannelle Long, a nursing assistant at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side, spoke of solidarity with the UPMC workers. Last June, SEIU Health Care PA successfully organized technicians, dietary workers and housekeepers at the hospital, which is owned by Highmark Health, and the workers are negotiating their first contract.
“We need our city’s hospitals to be accountable to workers,” Ms. Long said. “It’s by standing together that my co-workers and I joined a union ... We’re already working with management and using our front-line knowledge to improve the outcomes of our patients.”
Conservative groups used the day to spread an opposing message.
Hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour “would kill jobs and damage the economy, hitting lower-income workers the hardest, who would see hours slashed and jobs eliminated,” wrote Jeremy Adler, spokesman for Virginia-based America Rising Squared, a right-leaning nonprofit.
The Employment Policies Institute took out a full page ad in Thursday’s USA Today newspaper that featured an automated machine at McDonald’s. The text reads: “Labor unions protesting for a $15 starter wage should be careful what they wish for. When customers reject higher prices, entry-level jobs are automated.”
Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2743 and Twitter @PGdanielmoore.
First Published: April 15, 2016, 4:00 a.m.