Two labor organizations filed an antitrust complaint against UPMC with the Department of Justice accusing the health care giant of using its market dominance to tamp down wages and trap workers in low-paying, unsafe conditions.

In a 55-page complaint filed Thursday, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania and the Strategic Organizing Center contend that Pittsburgh-based UPMC used its position as the largest private employer in Pennsylvania to “suppress workers’ wages and benefits, drastically increase their workloads, and prevent workers from exiting or improving these working conditions through a draconian system of mobility restrictions and widespread labor law violations that lock in sub-competitive pay and working conditions.”

The organizations are asking the DOJ to investigate UPMC for alleged violations of federal antitrust law.

The complaint breaks new ground in arguing that labor law violations should be considered a form of anticompetitive conduct, the labor organizations said.

UPMC employs about 92,000 workers and, through a series of expansions and acquisitions over the past two decades, has become the largest private employer in state. The health care system comprises 40 hospitals and 800 outpatient facilities. It is the 18th largest hospital chain in the country.

“Traditionally, workers have two ways to compete for jobs in labor markets,” said Matt Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, at a news conference Thursday. “They can leave their current job and look for a better job, or they can stay in their current job and try to obtain better working conditions.

“UPMC is cutting off both these avenues of competition by preventing workers from leaving by using doctor non-compete clauses and unofficial do-not-rehire practices and preventing workers who stay from attaining better working conditions by suppressing their labor rights and attempting to form a union.”

In an emailed statement, UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said there is “no policy that prohibits someone who leaves employment at a UPMC facility from being hired by another UPMC facility.”

He wrote that staffing levels are based on the “acuity and needs” of patients, not staffing ratios, “enabling us to staff with flexibility, deploying our nurses to best meet patients’ needs.”

Nila Payton, an administrative assistant in pathology, said most of her co-workers struggle to make ends meet.

“Our medical insurance is expensive, and we’re required to use UPMC medical facilities,” Payton said. “I have medical debt to my employer and so do many of my co-workers.”

“Management knows we are struggling,” she said. “They sometimes send us advice on how to stretch our budget, and we have an internal UPMC food bank. Where’s the dignity in that?”

The complaint cites a wage study conducted by Econ One Research that shows “when UPMC market share increases, UPMC workers’ wages fall relative to comparable hospital workers at a rate of 30 to 57 cents per hour in reduced pay, on average, for every 10% increase in UPMC’s market share.”

The complaint also alleges that the ratio of workers to patients has decreased while staffing ratios have, on average, increased at other Pennsylvania hospitals.

“As of 2020, UPMC ratios are, on average, 19% lower than the average non-UPMC staffing ratios,” the complaint says. “Further, 2020 UPMC staffing ratios correlate negatively with UPMC market share: UPMC’s staffing ratios are the lowest where it has higher market shares and highest where it has lower market shares.”

Jodi Faltin, a registered nurse, said there’s rarely a shift where workers don’t worry about staffing.

“Will we have to take on extra patients? Will we be pulled to an unfamiliar floor? Will we have to work unsafely to give our patients the care that they need? How many corners have to be cut before it cuts into UPMC’s bottom line?”

“My co-workers at UPMC are afraid to speak out or raise safety concerns or demand the kind of changes patients and caregivers need,” Faltin said. “They’re afraid that if they make too much of a fuss that UPMC will retaliate against them by terminating their position and barring them from being rehired. For nurses in our region, this is a terrifying possibility — when three-quarters of the hospital jobs in Pittsburgh are with UPMC, options are limited.”

The health care industry, overall, has been plagued by staffing shortages, exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. It’s an issue from hospitals to nursing homes.

UPMC noted it is raising pay to $18 per hour for nonunion workers by 2025.

The state and federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. UPMC and its rival, Allegheny Health Network, raised their starting wages to $15 in recent years. The move to $15 is a trend seen in other sectors.

“This is the highest entry-level of any health care provider in the state. UPMC is among the best places to work in all the regions we serve throughout Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland due to our wages and our above-industry employee benefits, which are designed to support our employees and their families,” Wood said in a statement.

“UPMC’s average wage is more than $78,000,” Wood said. “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.”

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