A group of UPMC employees say they plan to strike Oct. 4 in protest of what they call “egregious violations of workers’ rights.”
A press release Tuesday said “dozens” of workers will not report for work that day but instead participate in street-level protests.
The group includes patient care technicians, nurses’ aides, patient transporters, dietary and cafeteria workers, housekeepers, environmental services aides, floor technicians, research assistants and specialists, medical assistants and admissions and administrative assistants, according to the announcement.
SEIU Healthcare PA has been behind a lengthy union organizing drive at UPMC and the workers say they are protesting UPMC’s “continual violation of workers’ rights, including illegal firings, coercive interrogation and surveillance of workers who exercise their union rights.”
The group cited two National Labor Relations Board rulings in August that UPMC had violated employees’ rights related to the organizing effort.
A UPMC spokesperson said Tuesday, “We are fully prepared to take care of our patients regardless of turnout, which in the past has been very low.”
Steve Twedt: stwedt@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1963.
Updated at 1:15 p.m. Sept. 25, 2018
First Published: September 25, 2018, 4:32 p.m.