Category Archives: Labor Union

America’s newest doctors fuel efforts to unionize

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https://www.axios.com/2024/04/15/doctors-union-gen-z-millennial

A new generation of doctors struggling with ever-increasing workloads and crushing student debt is helping drive unionization efforts in a profession that historically hasn’t organized.

Why it matters: 

Physicians in training, like their peers in other industries, increasingly see unions as a way to boost their pay and protect themselves against grueling working conditions as they launch their careers.

What they’re saying: 

“We deserve an increased salary to be able to afford to live in one of the most expensive areas in the United States,” said Ali Duffens, a third-year internal medicine resident at Kaiser Permanente’s San Francisco Medical Center.

  • She’s among the 400 residents at Kaiser’s Northern California system filing to unionize earlier this month.
  • Duffens earns about $82,000 per year, while paying $3,000 a month for rent and facing $350,000 in medical school loans.

The big picture: 

The Kaiser residents are part of a growing number of younger peers in medicine who have been unionizing in recent years.

  • The number of medical residents in unions has about doubled to more than 32,000 in three years, per CalMatters.
  • In the last year, residents at Montefiore Medical Center, Stanford Health Care, George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania voted to unionize, per WBUR.
  • “The cost of day care … in a month is about half of my salary in total, and the cost of a nanny is essentially the entirety of my salary,” Leah Rethy, an internal medicine resident with Penn Medicine, told NPR last year.
  • Residents can work as much as 80 hours per week while earning far less than their older colleagues.

Yes, but: Just about 6%-7% of physicians are estimated to be in unions.

  • Historically, doctors have thought they could just suck up the long hours and relatively low pay in training as part of the tradition of medicine, said Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
  • “For a new generation, they look at it and say, ‘That’s crazy. I can’t believe you did that. I want to work hard, but I also want a life and I want a family, and I want a reasonable income,'” he said.

And it’s not just younger doctors. 

Those more established in their careers are also unionizing as they see the industry changing in ways that they think undermine their profession.

  • In recent months, attending physicians at Salem Hospital, owned by Mass General Brigham, and a Cedars Sinai-owned anesthesiology practice filed to unionize.
  • About 600 doctors at Allina Health in Minnesota and Wisconsin last fall agreed to form what appears to be the largest union of private sector physicians.

Zoom in: 

The corporatization of American medicine is seen as a key driver. More than half of all U.S. doctors now work for a health system or large medical group rather than running an independent practice.

  • This shift has brought heavier workloads and less control over how they care for patients, said John August, director of health care labor relations in the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at the ILR School at Cornell.
  • That could mean demands to see more patients, limiting the time that doctors can spend with them.
  • “What you will hear from them 100% of the time in every conversation they have is they feel that they have lost control over the patient-physician relationship. I mean, every single physician says that now,” August said.

The other side: 

Health systems and large practices generally say they value their doctors and the relationships they hold with patients.

  • Hospitals have also struggled with pandemic-era financial shortfalls, including increasing labor costs.

The bottom line: 

While this is a labor issue, it ultimately trickles down to quality and safety for patients, said Rachel Flores, organizing director of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists.

  • “Patients should care because that’s less time to address their issues,” she said. “Patients should care because there’s not enough staff to support the physician.”

Allina Health doctors unionize over health system’s objections

Posted on by • Posted in Doctors Council Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Organizing, Labor Relations, Labor Spend Management, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Patient Safety, Physician Burnout, Physician Employment, Physician's Labor Union • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/allina-health-doctors-union/704751/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202024-01-17%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:58245%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

Dive Brief:

  • The National Labor Relations Board has certified the union election of more than 130 Allina Health doctors at Mercy and Unity Hospitals, nearly a year after they voted to join the Doctors Council Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
  • The certification follows objections from the Minneapolis-based nonprofit health system, which said that physicians active in the union drive held supervisor or managerial positions and may have unlawfully pressured colleagues into supporting the union. The NLRB rejected that claim.
  • It’s another victory for Doctors Council SEIU at Allina facilities. In October, more than 500 Allina doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners at over 60 facilities voted to join the union, according to NLRB documents.

Dive Insight:

Allina doctors and physician assistants said that chronic understaffing, high levels of burnout and compromised patient safety due to the corporatization of care motivated them to seek union representation.

“We have been seeing the shift of healthcare control going to corporations and further and further away from patient voices and patient advocacy. That really fell apart during the pandemic,” said Allina physician Liz Koffel during a press conference on Aug. 15 announcing primary care physicians’ unionization drive.

Koffel detailed workplace grievances that she said occurred due to Allina’s push for profits, including high productivity demands backed by few support staff and the health system’s now-abandoned policy of interrupting non-emergency medical care for patients with high levels of debt. 

In a statement to Healthcare Dive, an Allina spokesperson said the system had “committed to taking steps to make sure the National Labor Relations Board’s process was fair to all involved,” and that it would not take further procedural action against the union.

Across the country, physicians’ feelings of limited autonomy is driving similar interest in unionization, according to John August, director of healthcare labor relations at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. 

“Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole career — where so many people are saying exactly the same thing at the same time, from a profession that heretofore has been essentially not unionized,” he said.

Although doctors have historically shown little interest in unionization — the physician unionization rate was under 6% nationwide in 2021 — the tide is beginning to turn. 

Doctors are increasingly working in consolidated hospitals owned by larger health systems or private equity firms. They report consolidation limits the influence they have on their day-to-day jobs, according to a December study from the Physician Advocacy Institute.

In addition, other options, such as physician-owned practices, are disappearing, with the percentage of owned practices falling 13% between 2012 and 2022, according to an analysis from the American Medical Association.

Elsewhere in the healthcare industry, unionization and strikes have led to gains for workers.

Last year, nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital successfully negotiated nurse-to-patient ratios by holding the picket line for nearly four months in New Jersey, and more than 75,000 healthcare workers secured a 20% raise over four years at Kaiser Permanente by staging the largest healthcare strike in recent history.

Starbucks softens its union stance

Posted on by • Posted in Labor Activism, Labor Agreement, Labor Cost Structure, Labor Organizing, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance • Leave a comment
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-0545b7bd-57c8-4181-aae8-569abdcfc91e.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmarkets&stream=business

Starbucks is softening its stance toward unionization after years of pushing back.

Why it matters: 

It’s a potentially huge shift for the chain and a signal of the staying power of the labor movement that surged in the wake of the pandemic.

  • “They know this isn’t going away,” said Nick Setyan, an equity analyst at Wedbush who covers Starbucks. He called the company’s new posture “capitulation.”
  • Setyan said recent worker walkouts were a turning point. Also, at least five more stores this month voted to unionize.

Zoom out: 

Union organizing efforts have been a public relations headache for Starbucks since at least 2021 when a store in Buffalo became the first to vote for a union. Meanwhile, pressure from labor regulators isn’t slowing.

Zoom in: 

Starbucks’ strategy shift began in March when Laxman Narasimhan took the CEO reins from founder Howard Schultz, who had repeatedly clashed with workers over unionizing. The new CEO spoke of the need to care for customer-facing staff, per Reuters.

  • It’s accelerated over the past week — last Friday, Starbucks vice president Sara Kelly sent a letter to Workers United (the union that reps workers), saying the company wanted to restart bargaining.
  • The union has yet to bargain a contract. Starbucks now says it wants an agreement by next year.
  • On Wednesday, the company released an audit on its labor relations practices that was commissioned by Starbucks — after a shareholder vote forced its hand — and conducted by a former management-side lawyer.
  • Though the report asserted Starbucks didn’t have an “anti-union playbook,” it did find the company was unprepared to deal with its unionizing workforce and acknowledged that store managers made mistakes in how they handled the situation.
  • The report offers recommendations for improvement — including better training. Change starts with “tone from the top,” the audit says, suggesting that the company should reach agreements with the union “expeditiously.”

What happened: 

Starbucks initially believed it could fend off unionization by messaging about best-in-class wages and benefits, Setyan said, noting that it’s true the chain offers better compensation than competitors.

  • “Internally, they felt kind of aggrieved,” he said, that workers who management perceived as well-compensated would want to organize.
  • For a while it seemed like the messaging campaign was working, but the Red Cup Rebellion walkout last month and a flurry of new union votes changed minds.
  • Starbucks has historically been very sensitive to public relations — and it became clear pushing back isn’t great for its image, Setyan said.

The other side: 

Union representatives are skeptical of Starbucks’ new position.

  • “We are hopeful your letter is indeed the beginning of a sincere effort, and not a publicity move in the face of pressure from partners, Wall Street, shareholders, and others,” Workers United president Lynne Fox, said in a letter to Kelly last week.

What to watch: 

If Starbucks’ change in tone is a sign that the company will finally come to terms with these workers, and agree to a contract, or just a shift in its public stance while it continues efforts to avoid a deal.

Employed physians at Allina Health vote to unionize

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https://mailchi.mp/59f0ab20e40d/the-weekly-gist-october-27-2023?e=d1e747d2d8

Around 400 primary and urgent care physicians, along with 150 nurse practitioners and physician assistants, employed by Minneapolis, MN-based Allina Health System have voted to unionize with the Service Employees International Union, forming the largest private-sector union of physicians in the country. 

Allina, which operates 12 hospitals across Minnesota and Wisconsin, already saw over 100 inpatient physicians at its Mercy Hospital vote to unionize earlier this year. While Mercy’s physicians organized against pressure to adhere to the hospital’s new length-of-stay guidelines, this larger group of clinic-based providers say they are motivated by chronic understaffing that they claim has caused burnout and threatened patient safety. Allina Health laid off 350 workers this summer after posting a nearly $200M operating loss in 2022.

The Gist: When health systems originally recruited physicians into their newly developed employed medical groups, many pitched the arrangement as more of a partnership than traditional employment.

However, now that a majority of the nation’s physicians are employed by hospitals, some physicians are rethinking their relationships with their employers. 

Only six percent of doctors were unionized in 2021, but a recent spate of unionization efforts by residents and physicians suggest that number is on the rise.

Health systems hoping to address physicians’ concerns and unionization activity should note that the motivating factors cited by organizing physicians surround working conditions, including a lack of support staff and professional autonomy, rather than personal wage demands.

California passes law raising healthcare worker hourly minimum wage to $25

Posted on by • Posted in Employee Compensation, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Kaiser Permanente, Labor Spend Management, Labor Union, Operating Expenses, Operating Margin, Recruiting, Talent Competition, Talent Management • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/59f0ab20e40d/the-weekly-gist-october-27-2023?e=d1e747d2d8

Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that puts all full- and part-time California healthcare workers, including all ancillary support staff, on a path to earning $25 per hour.

While wage increases will begin phasing in next year, the timeline for implementation depends on facility type and other factors like payer mix. Large health systems and dialysis centers have until 2026 to fully implement the new wage, while rural, independent hospitals and those with high public payer mixes, as well as other clinical facilities, have more time to comply.

The law, which replaces the $15.50 state minimum wage for all workers, is projected to impact over 469K healthcare workers in the state, potentially including 50K who already earn more than $25 per hour but are forecasted to receive wage increases to maintain their pay premiums. Strongly backed by California healthcare unions, the law ultimately received the support of the California Hospital Association on the grounds that it will “create stability and predictability for hospitals” by preempting local wage and compensation measures active in many California cities. 

The Gist: On the heels of a tentatively successful labor negotiation with Kaiser Permanente—which would raise the system’s hourly minimum wage to $25—California healthcare unions have flexed their might for another win.

While this new law directly benefits healthcare workers earning less than $25 an hour, its knock-on effects will extend to those earning above that to avoid pay compression, as well as to workers in other industries that draw from the same labor pool. 

The mandated higher pay may provide California healthcare employers with a recruitment edge (and lure talent away from neighboring states), but higher costs will exacerbate the margin challenges plaguing many hospitals in the state.

California sets $25 per hour minimum wage for healthcare workers

Posted on by • Posted in Employee Compensation, Executive Compensation, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Cost Structure, Labor Spend Management, Labor Union, Minimum Wage • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/california-sets-minimum-wage-healthcare-workers/696672/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%20Weekly%20Roundup:%20Healthcare%20Dive:%20Daily%20Dive%2010-21-2023&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive%20Weekender

The law, which was heavily backed by healthcare unions, is expected to affect approximately 469,000 healthcare workers and will be phased in over the next several years.

Dive Brief:

  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a law raising the minimum wage for thousands of healthcare workers in the state from $15.50 an hour to $25 per hour.
  • State lawmakers argued in the law’s text that competitive wages are necessary to attract and retain healthcare workers who provide critical services, noting that “even before the COVID pandemic, California was facing an urgent and immediate shortage of healthcare workers, adversely impacting the health and well-being of Californians.”
  • Although wage increases will begin rolling out next year, the timeline for implementation depends on facility type. Large health systems with more than 10,000 workers and dialysis clinics must implement the law fully by 2026, while rural independent hospitals and those with a high mix of Medi-Cal and Medicare patients have until 2033 to implement the new wage minimums. 

Dive Insight:

The law, backed by California healthcare unions, broadly defines healthcare workers as full-time or contract employees of a healthcare facility, including those in roles supporting the provision of healthcare, such as janitors, clerical workers, food service workers and medical billing personnel. 

The wage increase is projected to impact approximately 469,000 employees, many of whom are currently living on the margins, according to an analysis from the University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center.

Nearly half of California’s healthcare workers do not presently earn enough to cover basic needs, such as housing, and are enrolled in public safety net programs, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Newsom signed the bill into law on the same day that Kaiser Permanente unions announced they had secured a tentative $25 per hour minimum wage for over 60,000 California-based Kaiser employees, pending ratification from members. California healthcare workers were represented by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West president Dave Regan during Kaiser bargaining.

In Senate analyses of the minimum wage bill conducted in May and September, lawmakers said that SEIU-UHW’s organizing elsewhere in the state had motivated the state-level analysis of pay. The union spearheaded several similar local ordinances last year, including in Los Angeles and San Diego. 

SEIU California, which sponsored the bill, released a statement on Friday saying that raising healthcare workers’ wages is a matter of equity. Three out of four workers who will see increases in wages thanks to the new law are women, and 76% are workers of color, according to SEIU California. Almost half of all healthcare workers affected are Latino, the union said.

“Governor Newsom signed SB 525 into law because he heard our call for change to a status quo that has left us exhausted and struggling to pay our bills,” Dr. Kelley Butler, resident physician at San Francisco General Hospital and member of SEIU California, said in a statement. “I’m proud of our collective advocacy as a union and proud of our Governor for doing right by the California healthcare workforce and the patients it serves.”

The law went through several edits since the beginning of the legislative session to make it more palatable to healthcare facilities, which largely opposed its passage earlier this year. An earlier version of the bill, debated in May, tasked all healthcare providers with instituting the new minimum by June 2025.

The final version of the law has a phase-in approach that grants some workers the new minimum by 2026 and leaves others waiting ten years to reap the full sum. Healthcare facilities that are in financial distress can also apply for a waiver program to temporarily delay payroll hikes. Tribal clinics are excluded from the new pay requirements entirely. 

The California Hospital Association, a lobbying organization, ultimately supported the law, saying in a statement that it provided “stability and predictability for hospitals” by providing more reasonable phase-in requirements and “preempting city and county minimum wage measures for 10 years and local compensation measures for six years.”

The dialysis industry also got on board after lawmakers added an amendment which prevents SEIU from pushing for ballot measures targeting dialysis centers. The union’s unsuccessful lobbying for changes in the dialysis industry has cost the healthcare industry over 100 million dollars in recent years, according to reporting from CalMatters.

Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers initiate record strike

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https://mailchi.mp/9fd97f114e7a/the-weekly-gist-october-6-2023?e=d1e747d2d8

On Wednesday, 75K Kaiser Permanente (KP) healthcare workers in five states and Washington, DC walked off the job as part of the largest healthcare strike in US history.

The striking workers are a diverse group, based mostly in California, that includes support staff, X-ray technicians, medical assistants, and pharmacy workers. They will continue their work stoppage until Saturday morning, though union leadership is threatening an even larger strike in November if a new contract agreement is not reached by then.

Their employment contract expired on September 30th, and while negotiations have progressed on issues like shift-payment differentials and employee training investments, union leaders and KP executives remain at odds over key wage increase demands, with the unions asking for a $25 national minimum wage, and KP proposing $21.

The company has sought to minimize disruptions to patient care during the strike, bringing in temporary labor to keep critical infrastructure open, but has told its members to expect some non-urgent procedures to be rescheduled, some clinic and pharmacy operating hours to be reduced, and call center wait times to be lengthy. 

The Gist: Kaiser Permanente has enjoyed solid relations with its unions for decades, making this strike a significant break from precedent, fueled by post-pandemic burnout and staffing shortages. 

While KP is keeping all essential services open, care disruptions are inevitable with around one third of its total workforce on strike. 

The stakes of these labor negotiations extend far beyond just KP and its employees, as union success could inspire other unionized healthcare workers to adopt similar tactics and demands. (Case in point: Employees at eleven Tenet Healthcare facilities in California represented by SEIU-UHW, one of the unions representing striking KP workers, just voted to authorize their own strike.)

While happening alongside high-profile strikes in other industries, labor unrest is a troubling trend for health systems, whose margins remain well below historical levels amid persistently high labor and supply expenses.

Thousands of US health care workers go on strike in multiple states over wages and staff shortages

Posted on by • Posted in Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Kaiser Permanente, Labor Organizing, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Net Income, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Operating Margin, Operating Metrics, Operating Performance, Operating Revenue • Leave a comment

https://apnews.com/article/kaiser-health-care-workers-strike-b8b40ce8c082c0b8c4f1c0fb7ec38741

Picketing began Wednesday at Kaiser Permanente hospitals as some 75,000 health care workers went on strike in Virginia, California and three other states over wages and staffing shortages, marking the latest major labor unrest in the United States.

Kaiser Permanente is one of the country’s larger insurers and health care system operators, with 39 hospitals nationwide. The nonprofit company, based in Oakland, California, provides health coverage for nearly 13 million people, sending customers to clinics and hospitals it runs or contracts with to provide care.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, representing about 85,000 of the health system’s employees nationally, approved a strike for three days in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, and for one day in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

A cheer went up from union members outside Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center when the strike deadline arrived before dawn.

The strikers include licensed vocational nurses, home health aides and ultrasound sonographers, as well as technicians in radiology, X-ray, surgical, pharmacy and emergency departments.

Doctors are not participating, and Kaiser says its hospitals, including emergency rooms, will remain open during the picketing. The company said it was bringing in thousands of temporary workers to fill gaps during the strike. But the strike could lead to delays in getting appointments and non-urgent procedures being rescheduled.

It comes amid unprecedented worker organizing — from strike authorizations to work stoppages — within multiple industries this year, including, transportation, entertainment and hospitality.

Wednesday’s strike is the latest one for the health care industry this year as it continues to confront burnout with the heavy workloads — problems that were exacerbated greatly by the pandemic.

Unions representing Kaiser workers in August asked for a $25 hourly minimum wage, as well as increases of 7% each year in the first two years and 6.25% each year in the two years afterward.

They say understaffing is boosting the hospital system’s profits but hurting patients, and executives have been bargaining in bad faith during negotiations.

“They’re not listening to the frontline health care workers,” said Mikki Fletchall, a licensed vocational nurse based in a Kaiser medical office in Camarillo, California. “We’re striking because of our patients. We don’t want to have to do it, but we will do it.”

Kaiser has proposed minimum hourly wages of between $21 and $23 next year depending on the location.

Since 2022, the hospital system has hired 51,000 workers and has plans to add 10,000 more people by the end of the month.

Kaiser Permanente reported $2.1 billion in net income for this year’s second quarter on more than $25 billion in operating revenue. But the company said it still was dealing with cost headwinds and challenges from inflation and labor shortages.

Kaiser executive Michelle Gaskill-Hames defended the company and said its practices, compensation and retention are better than its competitors, even as the entire sector faces the same challenges.

“Our focus, for the dollars that we bring in, are to keep them invested in value-based care,” said Gaskill-Hames, president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals of Southern California and Hawaii.

She added that Kaiser only faces 7% turnover compared to the industry standard of 21%, despite the effects of the pandemic.

“I think coming out of the pandemic, health care workers have been completely burned out,” she said. “The trauma that was felt caring for so many COVID patients, and patients that died, was just difficult.”

The workers’ last contract was negotiated in 2019, before the pandemic.

Hospitals generally have struggled in recent years with high labor costs, staffing shortages and rising levels of uncompensated care, according to Rick Gundling, a senior vice president with the Healthcare Financial Management Association, a nonprofit that works with health care finance executives.

Most of their revenue is fixed, coming from government-funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid, Gundling noted. He said that means revenue growth is “only possible by increasing volumes, which is difficult even under the best of circumstances.”

Workers calling for higher wages, better working conditions and job security, especially since the end of the pandemic, have been increasingly willing to walk out on the job as employers face a greater need for workers.

The California legislature has sent Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom a bill that would increase the minimum wage for the state’s 455,000 health care workers to $25 per hour over the next decade. The governor has until Oct. 14 to decide whether to sign or veto it.

New Jersey hospital to suspend healthcare benefits from striking nurses

Posted on by • Posted in Collective Bargaining, Employee Benefits, Health System, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Mediation, Quality of Care, Recruiting, Retention, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/new-jersey-hospital-to-suspend-healthcare-benefits-from-striking-nurses.html?origin=BHRE&utm_source=BHRE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=2893H2397267F7G

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., said it plans to temporarily cut off healthcare benefits for striking union workers, effective Sept. 1.

Hospital spokesperson Wendy Gottsegen described the move as unfortunate.

“We have said all along that no one benefits from a strike — least of all our nurses. We hope the union considers the impact a prolonged strike is having on our nurses and their families,” Ms. Gottsegen said in an Aug. 28 news release shared with Becker’s. “As of Sept. 1, RWJUH nurses must pay for their health benefits through COBRA. This hardship, in addition to the loss of wages throughout the strike, is very unfortunate and has been openly communicated to the union and the striking nurses since prior to the walkout on Aug. 4.”

The ongoing strike involves the United Steelworkers Local 4-200, which represents about 1,700 nurses at the facility.

Union members voted to authorize a strike in July. The union and hospital have been negotiating a new agreement for months, with the last bargaining session occurring Aug. 16.

During negotiations, the union has said it seeks a contract that provides safe staffing standards, living wages and quality, affordable healthcare.

Local 4-200 President Judy Danella, RN, said in a previous union release, “Our members remain deeply committed to our patients. However, we must address urgent concerns, like staffing. We need enough nurses on each shift, on each floor, so we can devote more time to each patient and keep ourselves safe on the job.”

Several nurses told TAPinto New Brunswick last week that they began preparing for the current situation ahead of the strike, taking overtime shifts and saving as much money as possible. Others told the publication they are taking part-time jobs or temporary employment elsewhere in the nursing field or adjacent roles.

“I think it’s important that you [remember] you might not get the job you want to do at that moment, but people have to do what they have to do to get it done,” Jessica Newcomb, RN, told TAPinto New Brunswick.

Meanwhile, the hospital has contracted with an agency to hire replacement nurses during the strike. 

“As always, our top priority is to our patients. RWJUH is open, fully operational and completely staffed, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to deliver the highest quality and always-safe patient care,” Ms. Gottsegen said.

As of Aug. 28, no further dates for negotiations were scheduled by mediators.

Pennsylvania unions file antitrust complaint against UPMC

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Dept of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Spend Management, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Retention, Staffing Ratios, Staffing Shortages, Talent Management • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/upmc-unions-antitrust-complaint-doj-workers/650739/

Dive Brief:

  • Pennsylvania unions have filed a complaint with the Department of Justice alleging integrated hospital giant UPMC is abusing its dominant market position to suppress wages and retain workers.
  • On Thursday, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania and a coalition of labor unions filed a 55-page complaint against UPMC, the largest private employer in the state, saying the hospital system’s size has allowed it to stamp out wage growth, “drastically increase” workload and keep workers from departing to other jobs.
  • The unions are asking federal regulators to investigate UPMC for antitrust violations, citing its dominance of the healthcare market in select regions of Pennsylvania. UPMC denied allegations of wage suppression.

Dive Insight:

The Pittsburgh-based system has seen a rise in labor complaints, according to the unions, as the system has grown into its 41-hospital footprint through a series of mergers and acquisitions. UPMC, which also operates 800 doctors offices and clinics and a handful of health insurance offerings, reported $26 billion in operating revenue last year.

Attempts in the last decade to organize UPMC’s hourly workers have been unsuccessful, according to SEIU.

Matt Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, called the complaints groundbreaking on a Thursday call with reporters, saying that no entity has ever filed a complaint arguing that mobility restrictions and labor violations are anticompetitive, and in violation of antitrust law.

The complaint alleges that, for every 10% increase in market share, the wages of UPMC workers falls 30 to 57 cents an hour on average. UPMC hospital workers face an average 2% wage gap compared to non-UPMC facilities, according to a study cited in the complaint.

In addition, the labor groups allege that UPMC’s staffing ratios have fallen over the past decade, resulting in its staffing ratios being 19% lower on average compared with non-UPMC care sites as of 2020.

The unions are going after UPMC for being a “monopsony,” or a company that controls buying in a given marketplace, including controlling a large number of jobs. UPMC has some 92,000 workers, according to the complaint, and has cut off avenues of competition through non-compete agreements, in addition to preventing employees from unionizing.

“If, as we believe, UPMC is insulated from competitive market pressures, it will be able to keep workers’ wages and benefits — and patient quality — below competitive levels, while at the same time continually imposing further restraints and abuses on workers to maintain its market dominance,” the complaint states. “Because we believe this conduct is contrary to Section 2 of the Sherman Act, we respectfully urge the Department of Justice to investigate UPMC and take action to halt this conduct.”

In response to the allegations, UPMC said it has the highest entry-level pay of any provider in the state, and offers “above-industry” employee benefits. UPMC’s average wage is more than $78,000, Paul Wood, UPMC’s chief communications officer, told Healthcare Dive in a statement.

“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,” Wood said.

Healthcare workers are increasingly pushing for better working conditions and pay amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as hospitals grapple with recruitment and retention issues driven by burnout and heightened labor costs.