PITTSBURGH — “We have accomplished so much as a union at West Penn, Allegheny General, and Allegheny Valley,” Katie Kiesel, a labor and delivery nurse at West Penn Hospital and a member of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, told the Militant in a phone interview Sept. 19. “But we all know that only when nurses and hospital workers at every AHN and UPMC hospital are all standing together can we completely transform health care in this region.
“We’re committed to building a movement that achieves that. We’re committed to standing with union members that are continuing to negotiate contracts, and we’re committed to standing with nonunion health care workers advocating for a voice for their patients and their professions. Our victory at West Penn is just the start!”
The Allegheny Health Network and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center dominate health care access in the Pittsburgh area. UPMC is largely nonunion. After voting to strike overwhelmingly in November 2023, nurses at Allegheny General Hospital won a contract with a 23% wage increase over three years and improvements in nurse-to-patient ratios. This September, similar gains were demanded by nurses at AHN hospitals West Penn and Allegheny Valley, who voted strike authorization by over 99%. At Allegheny Valley, hospital workers bargained together with the nurses.
Nurses and hospital workers rallied in front of both hospitals vowing to strike if their demands were not met. Management offered contracts raising wages for nurses to a minimum of $40 an hour by the end of the three-year contract. Hospital workers at Allegheny Valley will get a minimum of $20. Nurse-to-patient ratio improvements were won, as well as gains in working conditions. Workers voted to approve the contracts overwhelmingly.
Now on the agenda are negotiations for a better union contract for nurses at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. Chronic understaffing has led to the closing of one-third of patient beds there. Nurse Chris Hunter described in the Tribune-Review the more than 100% turnover in nurses there over three years.