Buoyed by successes at the ballot box in recent years, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania is taking an ambitious run at longtime foe UPMC, this time claiming in a U.S. Department of Justice complaint that the hospital and health insurance giant suppresses wages because of declining competition.
On Thursday, SEIU along with a coalition of labor unions filed a 55-page complaint against Pennsylvania’s biggest nongovernmental employer, alleging that its size has allowed UPMC to hold down wages and benefits, “drastically increased workloads,” and kept workers from leaving for other jobs through a “draconian system of mobility restrictions.”
The union is asking the Justice Department to investigate UPMC for antitrust violations, made possible by its dominance of the health care market in Pittsburgh, Erie and other parts of Pennsylvania, something called monopsonization.
For every 10% increase in market share, wages for UPMC workers falls 30 cents to 57 cents an hour on average, according to the complaint. At the same time, the ratio of workers to patients has steadily increased, making UPMC’s staffing ratios on average 19% lower than at non-UPMC facilities.
“UPMC’s lagging wages, chronic understaffing and other subpar treatment of workers suggests the opposite: that UPMC doesn’t need to raise wages to preserve adequate working conditions or patient quality because it has monopoly and monopsony power in the markets where it operates that insulates it from the pressure of competition,” SEIU wrote.
UPMC has been “engaging in widespread and ongoing violations of workers’ labor law rights, which prevents workers from asserting bargaining power that could act as a restraint on UPMC’s monopsony power.”
UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said UPMC was “among the best places to work in all the regions we serve.”
“There are no other employers of size and scope in the regions UPMC serves that provide good paying jobs at every level and an average wage of this magnitude,” he wrote in a statement. “Nursing care UPMC provides for our patients is based on their acuity and needs, not staffing ratios, enabling us to staff with flexibility, deploying our nurses to best meet patients’ needs.”
Justice Department officials were not available for comment.
SEIU has been trying unsuccessfully for 10 years to unionize hourly workers at UPMC’s flagship Presbyterian Hospital in Oakland as unfair labor practice complaints piled up against UPMC. Unions typically don’t seek a vote unless they are assured of success.
The nomination of progressive Democrat Sara Innamorato to be Allegheny County executive in Tuesday’s primary election was the latest victory for SEIU-backed candidates, which have included Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and U.S. Rep. Summer Lee in recent years. Several former SEIU officials serve in the Gainey administration, which is seeking a review of the tax exemption granted to some UPMC properties.
Mostly through acquisitions and mergers over the years, UPMC has grown into a 41-hospital system giant with 800 doctors’ offices and clinics and $26 billion in operating revenue last year. The system employs about 95,000 people in medical and health insurance entities.
Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com
First Published: May 18, 2023, 10:29 p.m.
Updated: May 19, 2023, 1:01 p.m.
