UPMC Nurses Unfair Labor Practices Lawsuit
Levin Sedran & Berman LLP, representing a former University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) nurse, filed a class-action lawsuit against UPMC alleging it used anticompetitive tactics to acquire monopoly power over health care in Central and Western Pennsylvania and then used that power to suppress nurses’ wages and subject nurses to unfair and unlawful working conditions.
What is the Lawsuit About?
UPMC currently employs over 95,000 workers, making it the largest private-sector employer in Pennsylvania. Over the past two-plus decades UPMC has expanded its geographic reach and its market concentration. Currently UPMC comprises over 40 hospitals located throughout Central and Western Pennsylvania. UPMC is now the 18th largest hospital chain in the country and boasts an annual revenue of $26 billion.
The lawsuit alleges that most of UPMC’s growth was done by way of anticompetitive acquisitions with the goal of expanding UPMC’s market power.
Part of UPMC’s illegal scheme was to maximize its profits by using its monopoly power to pay its hospital healthcare workers less while, at the same time, requiring them to do more work.
The lawsuit alleges that UPMC harmed hospital healthcare workers by: using restraints like noncompete clauses and do-not-rehire blacklists to keep workers from leaving; suppressing wages to sub-competitive levels while also reducing staffing and increasing workloads; and suppressing workers’ labor law rights to keep them from improving working conditions or forming unions.
Per the lawsuit, assuming a 40-hour work week and a 52-week work year, UPMC Nurses have experienced an average annual income penalty of $1,289.60 as a result of UPMC’s anticompetitive conduct.
This lawsuit, filed on behalf of current and former UPMC nurses, alleges the same misconduct by UPMC that was recently exposed in a report issued by the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), claiming that UPMC has grown to its massive size in part due to anti-competitive conduct. These same facts were also alleged in a complaint that SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania (a labor union representing nurses at one UPMC facility) filed with the U.S. Department of Justice (the DOJ), urging federal prosecutors to investigate whether UPMC employs monopolization, monopsony, and job and wage suppression in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. However, unlike the SEIU complaint that asks the DOJ to investigate UPMC for antitrust violations, this lawsuit seeks to hold UPMC accountable to the nurses who have been directly injured as a result of UPMC’s misconduct. This lawsuit seeks to recover monetary damages to compensate the nurses who have been injured by UPMC’s misconduct.
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Want to know more?
Current or former UPMC nurses who may want to learn more about this lawsuit can contact Levin Sedran & Berman at (215) 592-1500 or use the Contact Us form above.
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