Employees of UPMC can no longer say that their employer hasn’t been listening to their concerns and addressing their needs.
Since non-medical employees began seeking unionization earlier this year from SEIU, they have been telling the public about the low wages paid by the healthcare giant and how it affects their ability to make ends meet. Many employees, like Leslie Poston, have told the public how they’ve had to go to food banks to make sure they have enough food for their families. Others have said they have to go on public assistance.
But fear not, good workers: UPMC Cares, and they’ve come up with a solution. In fact, since Poston was one of the first workers to tell such tales, UPMC brass decided to alert her to the news first.
“It was two days before Thanksgiving and my unit director came up, put an arm around me and said ‘we’ve been hearing what you’ve been saying,'” Poston told City Paper earlier today. “She pulled out a flyer and said, ‘We’re starting a food bank for the employees.'”
“I turned my head and started to cry because I was so angry, although she thought I was crying because of the gesture. They just don’t get that I’d rather they pay me a better wage so I wouldn’t have to go to a food bank.”
CP sent a list of questions to UPMC about the food bank last week, but received no response. For example, it’s unclear if UPMC is directly contributing to the food bank — but they are certainly asking other employees to donate. We confirmed the formation of the food bank through several fliers and emails posted and sent to UPMC employees. Notification was also posted in a UPMC newsletter entitled “Inside Extra: News and Information for UPMC Staff.”
Under the heading “‘Tis the Season to Help Our Community,” the Nov. 30 newsletter asks employees to take “part in activities that demonstrate our caring and compassion for our patients, families and the colleagues we work with everyday.”
“One of these ‘Tis the Season activities is the opportunity to donate nonperishable food items to stock employee food pantries that will be established on both the UPMC Presbyterian campus and at UPMC Shadyside. The Pantries will be open later this month, giving employees in need sufficient time to pick up items they and their families can use to make their holidays brighter.” Food was to be collected at the various staff holiday parties held over the past week.
There was also this flyer that has been hanging in UPMC Shadyside break rooms that asks employees to “demonstrate another core value — caring — to help our UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Community.” Here’s the full flyer:
For Poston, who’s been employed with UPMC for nine years, the food bank is a “slap in the face” and not a very well thought out proposition for several reasons.
“I don’t need them to pick out my food for me; I need them to pay me better wage so I can pick out my own food,” says Poston. “Also, it’s going to be more demeaning and embarrassing for me because now I have to go and pick up food at a food bank where I work in front of my friends and co-workers. I make it a point to go to food pantries where nobody knows who I am.”
But anonymity, at least in the UPMC community, is something that Poston has given up to speak out against her employer. Last Wednesday, she spoke publicly at an Allegheny County public hearing challenging the tax-exempt status of UPMC, and has written letters to the editor.
She says she has no plan to stop.
“Some of my co-workers are very scared to speak up,” Poston says. “But it’s very hard to intimidate me; that’s just how I was raised. I want as many people as possible to listen and know exactly how UPMC conducts business.
“Yes, they do good things for the Pittsburgh community, but that just isn’t felt by its own workers.”
UPDATE (Dec. 12): Though they didn’t talk to us, UPMC did speak to the Post-Gazette‘s Steve Twedt. A spokesperson told Twedt that a food-pantry program began at UPMC Mercy, and was extended to Shadyside/Presbyterian complex this year. The hospital maintains the program has nothing to do with wages.”It’s unfortunate in this holiday season that no good deed goes unpunished by those promoting other agendas,” Susan Manko told the paper.
This article appears in Dec 5-11, 2012.
After their “employee food banks” prove a big hit, they can expand the program to offer “employee on-site shelters” and a “merit-based employee no-beatings program.” Then we’ll really see the community benefits of UPMC’s vast commercial success.
What friggin planet does the UPMC administration live on? #irony
Like i said the modern day Andrew Carnegie how he treated his employee’s
No way!
UPMC did miss the boat on this one, but I suppose they could have done nothing.
Do the employees(aside from nurses) at UPMC make minimum wage like a lot of other folks around Pittsburgh? Would be interesting to see what the average wage for non medical personnel.
Just supports my theory that they need to put these people out of business! shame on you UPMC!
Maybe they could start paying them with tokens that are only good at the company store too.
I believe everyone should make a liveable wage. I can also see that sometimes a program like the food bank could be an extra benefit, for example a larger family could not support itself on what might be liveable for a single individual. It is unlikely that it would be any better accepted if a company based its wages on the number of dependents the employee has.
I wanna give her a hug.
The pantry was started by employees, not UPMC. We all see our coworkers go through tough times like a husband or wife losing a job, or an unexpected medical expense that puts a strain on finances – wouldn’t it be nice if you had a resource like this at work if something like that happened?
There are minimum wage jobs at UPMC, just like at any other company, that have low-skill, entry level responsibilities – many of them being the non-medical jobs. Poston spends a lot of time complaining about a company and a salary that could be used to find a better paying job somewhere else if she’s really so unhappy. It’s also funny that she spoke at the hearing challenging UPMC’s tax-exemt status, since she’d probably lose her job if UPMC had to pay taxes on their hospital properties….
@J.John This story may be slightly inaccurate in regards to who set up the food bank, but the point remains.
I can’t understand why you would mock someone who is standing up publicly for what they think they deserve, or why you would essentially applaud a company for not paying it’s employees fairly. The minimum wage is a joke, and we all know it. People SHOULD stand up and fight when they believe they (and likely many others around them) are being treated unfairly. Why is it not OK for Ms. Poston to be making a big deal out of this? Why do you think it would be better for her to just turn a blind eye to this, and allow it to continue by just moving on? And furthermore, are you completely unaware of the job market in the US at the moment?
The employees are free to work elsewhere. They are not indentured.
@Worker Bea – you don’t know UPMC very well then – many UPMC employees are under contract and might as well be for all intents be indentured servants.
@J.John – don’t be fooled. UPMC isn’t going broke anytime soon even if they paid more property taxes – they had close to $92 million in profit for the last three months of 2011 : http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/upmc-revenue-rises-by-1-billion-312078/
They’re greedy. Plain and simple.
@rg I wasn’t mocking someone for publicly standing up for what they believe in. If that was the case I would be a hypocrite since that’s exactly what you and I are doing now. I was just pointing out the irony that her public challenge of UPMC’s tax-exempt status is contradictory, seeing as if UPMC was forced to pay more taxes, they would have less money to pay employees and would most likely have to layoff many workers.
I agree that it’s a tough job market and minimum wage isn’t exactly livable, but all companies, (including non-profits… especially healthcare non-profits) have to run like a business. Otherwise we’ll see more and more medical centers on the brink of bankruptcy like West Penn. What’s worse? A low wage or no wage and no healthcare for the employees and patients who have relied on West Penn.
Someone is going to be looking for a job soon.
Hunger is a serious issue in our region, and a growing concern in all communities. A very large percentage of those seeking food assistance in 2012 are indeed among the working poor, and employed by for-profit organizations, many of which make large donations to anti-hunger causes.
It will take time to analyze this move by UPMC in terms of the size of their endowment, the number and average family size of people they employ (how many are part time, with spouses who lost jobs in the past year?), projected revenues vs operating costs, and executive salaries. Absent this information, I am reluctant to comment directly on this initiative.
I would, however, like to make clear a distinction that is often neglected in the press and by the public at large: UPMC is creating a *Food Pantry*, not a *Food Bank*. A Food Bank is generally a membership-based organization that serves as a clearinghouse for food, other grocery items, financial and programmatic support for food pantries, onsite feeding agencies (AKA “soup kitchens”), and other hunger programs throughout their service area.
In SWPA, our largest food bank serves 11 counties, about 400 member agencies, and (through these agencies) hundreds of thousands of individuals. Pantries are vital to the food security of countless families in our region. However, by misusing the term “Food Bank” to describe a pantry, the CP unintentionally downplays the scale of the work performed by actual food banks. Perpetuating this misconception could hurt these organizations’ efforts to raise the operating funds and public support vital to furthering their mission.
@TiredOfIt No fool here. As the article states, UPMC had $406M in operating income for the entire year. The majority of that is reinvesting into improved technology and creating clinical excellence – something that was recognized when UPMC was named one of the top 10 medical centers in the country. We love to hate the big institution that is UPMC, but forget that the miracle work that is done in the hospitals every day wouldn’t be possible without it.
The hungry employees could be paid with UPMC Cash like they have Carnegie Cash at the museums…. that way they can only spend it at UPMC gift shops and the money won’t leave the building…. … UPMC makes me sick and their romanticization of their healthcare system is nauseating…stop those bloody awful ads with that bloody awful piped romantic music…people are having babies, dying of cancer, are wounded, injured, having serious operations… healthcare is not romantic….and neither is human misery …. now we learn the underpaid employees are hungry too. Everyone who works for UPMC deserves a living wage whereby they can buy the food of their choice, not some canned processed muck. Give them a salary increase….UPMC you are embarrassing to the hilt. You make everyone sick.
What clueless morons are running UPMC?!
How much does the CEO of UPMC make? How much do all the highly-paid administrators make a year? What is the total spent on there benefits and retirement packages? There is the money that could be better used for the technology improvements and decent wages for the employees that are the backbone of the system. UPMC probably has the typical non-proft profile: overblown high administrator salaries, and underpaid, overworked support staff.
I don’t live there, in fact, I don’t live in PA, but, I do have some experience in hospital matters. My wife has been a nurse for the past 35 years and we use the local medical center.
I’ve seen, first hand, how employees, other than medical staff, work in these, usually large places. I also worked in the plumbing and heating business for 48 years, so I have some experience in dealing with workers. I’ve worked for the Steamfitters union and been a manager with a few crews working.
Although I don’t totally agree with companies seeing employees like lightbulbs, or the electric bill, all employees must be productive. Employees are generally accounted for under “overhead”, like the phone bill, by doing that, it makes it easier to dehumanize people. Larger outfits are more prone to this than smaller ones.
I think we must ask ourselves how much someone, who’s only duty is to sweep and wipe all day, is worth? Sure, as a Christian I believe in treating people fairly, but, in business, if you are to succeed, then you must consider more than just the comfort of the people working for you. They may not understand that you must produce, or go out of business, plain and simple. The idea that people are underpaid on purpose is silly, no company operating like that will last, it’s just not good business. It takes time and money to train people, that’s a big investment and if the person doesn’t work out, the company looses more than the person applying.
The biggest problem that M.C. has is over regulation and over litigation. The cost of lawsuits is huge, and there are a lot of them every year. In closing, wait until Oblamacare kicks in, if you think hospitals are a mess now?
You aint seen nothing yet.
She could…apply for a new job somewhere else if she doesn’t feel she’s getting paid what she’s worth. If she stays there, seems thats her best option. I love how employees complain about not getting paid enough and think thats their “lot” in life. If you don’t like it, go do something else. We still live in a free society (for now)!
About that BS someone spewed vis-à-vis lawsuits impacting the bottom line:
Limiting certain kinds of damage awards would reduce spending on health care by a whopping one-half of 1 percent according to the CBO.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in January 2004 that, overall, it found “no statistically significant difference in per capita health care spending between states with and without limits on malpractice torts.”
http://cbo.gov/publication/15162
I have deleted a post advising people to call up and harass a UPMC administrator. Future such posts will also be deleted. None of that here, please.
Afraid to tell what she does make in wages and benifits? and what her job is? Seems like the news media never ever does any real stories, they so like to sensationalize every thing! If your going to write a story , do your damm job!
I have worked for a “not for profit” hospital system. Doctors and executives get the bulk of the pay. Expensive luxury is spent on these two classifications of employees, including lavish parties, expensive gifts, trips to “conventions”, etc. Nurses get good pay but not nearly close to what the doctors and executives get.
Non-medical staff, including college educated and skilled IT that keep everything running smoothly, get the leftovers from the table. Turn over was high, as skilled and experienced employees walked off to jobs that doubled their salary on day 1.
When the new administrative building was being built they order expensive, custom, hand made desks from Canada and had them shipped down to Texas. Some of them were too big to fit in the elevators and a crane had to be hired to lift them to the 4th floor and the glass windows removed to get them into the offices.
I no longer work there. I’m making 3 times what I did at the hospital. I felt good about what I did during my time in a supporting role, but had a bitter taste in my mouth from the pill I had to swallow watching what was going on.
oh for crying out loud, so now they get to have a tax write off in this under the guise of helping?
Was a patient twice @ UPMC. Never again if I can help it. What a slap in the face for UPMC employees. I knew the patients were not cared for and about. But I never dreamed the staff was so disrespected as well. At least the disrespected patients can look to their care givers and know they are all in the same boat…. not cared for or about.
Go Norma Rae, Erin Broc, Stand up for what you believe !
Ask any Union member what job was like before they went on strike.
It’s genius! Instead of paying their low-earning employees enough so they can feed their families, UP Medical Center are asking their high-wage employees to give some of their wages to the poorer employees by donating to the food bank. It’s like they’ve lowered the wages of the medical personnel. And many of those people go into healthcare because they have a personality type of wanting to “be of service” and “help people” so they are likely to want to donate to a food bank.
As for management, they don’t take on any higher wage costs or dig into profits. Because obviously they aren’t really attempting to operate like a non-profit.
Anyway, it’s win-win-win (and it is disgusting and demeaning- just find a way to pay them more.)
J. John states that if they company had to pay taxes then they would have to try to save more. Not true – if they are a for-profit, then they only pay taxes on their profits. Most hospitals I see around me (i don’t know UPMC) are investing in extravagant expansions and have very highly paid administrators. it doesn’t seem right that these hospitals don’t have to account for profits and pay their taxes to the government like the rest of us.
Many of us at UPMC who stand in support of the union like what we do. I dont want to seek work elsewhere because I love being a medical assistant. I dont love making less than $12/hr. I dont love feeling defeated because I pay more than $250.000 a month for benefits and still have 100’s of dollars in co-pays and medical bills. I work for the health care system AND owe the healthcare system! I dont love feeling as though my position isnt respected because the additional education needed yielded a certificate and not a degree. Although my goal is to continue my education some people are happy with their current role and they should feel confident in that decision. If everyone desired to be a nurse, therapist, physician or administrator…then who would register patients, prepare food trays, empty the trash, wash the linens, escort patients, valet your vehicle, etc. EACH position is vital. I just want to be able to love what I do and feel compensated, appreciated and respected while doing it.
“One reason companies are so profitable is that they’re paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those “wages” are other companies’ revenue.
In short, our current system and philosophy is creating a country of a few million overlords and 300+ million serfs.” Blodget
“There has been class warfare going on,” Buffett, 81, said in a Sept. 30 interview with Charlie Rose on PBS. It’s just that my class is winning. And my class isn’t just winning, I mean we’re killing them.”
“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks,” Buffett wrote in a Sunday New York Times Op-ed.
What’s even more disgusting is that Mercy Behavioral Health pays their employees even less than UPMC does!
Seriously.. You made a public statement that you go to a food bank. Now your worried that you are going to get seen by your friends and co workers. there are so many places that pay alot less. My medical insurance is 600 dollars a month for me and my husband I work sixty hours + a week and most of my employees making minum wage are making more than me on most week because Im salary.. If anybody ever wonders why companies go every where else than here. This is why.. We keep saying we dont get paid enough.. Yes we live in America be happy for that. If you don’t like it get another job. Or use coupons like I do and never have to go to the food bank. Matter of fact I donate a ton of food to the food bank, and to my employees off of my less than what I should get paid salary.. If you don’t like them don’t work for them.. Be happy with what you have or find something different..
@Be Happy: Maybe if YOU don’t like it, YOU should get a new job. Sell your precious business and find a new line of work. You are not entitled to own a business, and no one is forcing you to stay. And maybe you wouldn’t be so strapped for cash if you didn’t “donate a ton of food to the food bank”. And why are you donating food to your employees if they make more than you do?
She can work somewhere else. She has a choice. It’s that simple.
Let’s see if everyone is so up in arms when increased wages for employees makes health care costs go up even further than their current astronomical state.
Reading these comments, it’s easy to see why I love not living in Pittsburgh any more: Everyone is on here like “if you don’t like what you get paid get a new job, dummy!” As if it were that easy. Looks like everyone else in Pittsburgh missed the point, too. The ENTIRE place doesn’t make a living wage, not just this woman. I know at least one person who has a professional job at UPMC, for which she has a degree, and she still is on food stamps. The rest of the world isn’t like this, Pittsburgh. Just you.
Roxanne Nagy, this is not a Pittsburgh issue, unfortunately. Were you not paying attention to the 2012 election?
How dare these people want a fair wage for an honest day’s work? Seriously, the contempt so many people have for vital menial work is disgusting.
To everybody whose response is “well if you don’t like it, find another job”:
If it’s so easy, then YOU find her a new job that fits her qualifications and pays better on day one, and also allows her to break contract with her existing job without penalty. Not your responsibility? You’re right, but you don’t seem to grasp what an ordeal it is.
Looking for a job takes up resources. If not money, then definitely time. The search alone takes up time, application takes time, interviews not only take up time but specific scheduled blocks of time. Moving to a different city with perceivedly better job prospects takes time and LOTS of money, both scouting for a new place and making the move itself. If a person is working 40+ hours a week and isn’t getting by, simply telling them to quit isn’t a viable solution.
This has been a big enough problem nationwide for a long enough period that I really can’t understand how people can still believe that every industry just has loads of unclaimed jobs ripe for the picking. Yes, there are jobs available in most cities right now, but the vast majority of them are not well-paying enough for a person to live on. These are jobs that are suited for high school or college students or members of an already-supported household who just want to earn something extra.
I work full time hours for definitely less than $12/hr, and if I lived alone I wouldn’t be able to make rent and bills, let alone groceries. If my company decided the best solution was to take up a collection of short list food items from my better-paid coworkers to distribute to the lower-paid workers, I would absolutely flip. I’ve had lots of coworkers come and go, and some have come back after they couldn’t find anything else. We have insane employee turnover and it makes life harder on those of us who try to stick with it. Most of us feel that it would be in the company’s best interest to offer better pay and better hours to encourage employee retention (and morale, which is important in a customer-service-oriented industry), but the company feels that it’s more important to save money on payroll in the interest of the shareholders.
For people who are saying “A food pantry is a good start” or “at least they’re doing something,” they’re really not. All they’re doing is setting out a big collection box and asking the other employees to share with each other. Even if UPMC itself pledged to match every food donation made by other employees, it’s still dependent on the other employees. All UPMC has done is suggest a way in which its struggling employees can get “help” from people other than those in a position to affect the paychecks.
I am thinking that in this economy telling someone to “just get another job if you are not happy” is just a little unrealistic?
22 UPMC employees make more than $1 million, with CEO Romoff leading the pack at $5.97 million in total compensation. For Romoff, that’s up from $4.45 million in 2009, an increase of over 33% in 3 years. UPMC is the largest property owner and the largest employer in Allegheny County. A few years back they started offering their own health insurance plan, competing with other plans in the area, but then used strong-arm tactics to try and stop Blue Cross-Blue Shield acquiring West Penn Allegheny Health System; they had no respect for the physicians, the patients, or the community that would be impacted by their actions. They closed a much needed facility in one of the poorest towns in the region and opened a palace of a facility less than a mile from another system’s in a more affluent location. And they made $726 million in profit last year.
I have a relative living in one of their assisted living facilities. During the time she’s been there, I’ve watched them cut staffing, even at the management level, as well as among their poorly paid aides. A couple of years ago, UPMC top management worked hard to convince their lower-level employees that de-unionizing would benefit them; management won and there is no more union. Employee conditions are worse than ever and that does nothing to benefit the residents of long-term care facilities nor does it benefit hospital patients.
A few more facts about UPMC: UPMC controls real estate valued at $1.6 billion and, as a tax-exempt organization, pays no property tax on 86% of its property, meaning that they use municipal services but do not contribute back to the communities. While they claim to have provided $200 million in free health care, a health care consultant says the value of their free services is actually only $96 million, a number that represents under 2% of their annual revenues (note that even if UPMC’s number is used, while it doubles the percentage of revenue, it’s still only 4%). They own two corporate jets, have their main corporate offices in one of the most expensive locations in the city, and spend millions on advertising. Their reserve investment account is $3.7 BILLION (while an investment account certainly will help provide income to the system, one must nevertheless question whether this amount is appropriate for a non-profit, especially a non-profit with paid personnel so poorly paid that they need to use a food bank).
You people are so scared for your jobs,bring in a union,UPMC will say were letting you go,They”ll be so many lawers there,UPMC will be on there knees.What,they going to run out and hire 10,000 plus to take jobs.Thats a joke foodbank!
I thought UPMC employees got tuition remission. So couldn’t this employee, instead of complaining, start going to school at Pitt and move up that way? That’s a 10K+ benefit right there.
Seems the way today – complain about things – but don’t work to improve your situation.
Like Gen Y says, I’m just saying.
This is typical large corporate thinking. Instead of fixing the real problem of wages, they make a silly gesture of starting a food bank for good publicity.
People who do an honest day’s work should not have to rely on a food bank to make ends meet. UPMC should be ashamed of itself.
regulator: UPMC offers a tuition reimbursement of $3500/year. A part time College of General Studies student at PITT pays $655/credit. So a 3 credit class will cost about $2000 or more after you get done with fees. So you pretty much can take 5 credits a year on the UPMC dime at the University of Pittsburgh. A 4 year degree will require 120 credits and take 24 years with UPMC tuition reimbursement attending the University of Pittsburgh. You may be confusing UPMC’s tuition reimbursement with the University of Pittsburgh staff reimbursement (which is actually very generous). The University of Pittsburgh and UPMC are two distinct and separate institutions, and benefits are vastly different depending on which institution you work for. Ironically, you actually have better health benefits working at the University of Pittsburgh than working for the actual institution providing the benefits, UPMC.
I work for UPMC and I like my job. I’ve been here since 2005 and I don’t want to have to go out and search for other jobs. I see people on here saying that we get tuition reimbursement. We do…but $3000 a semester isn’t much if you want to go somewhere like Pitt or Carlow. It would take YEARS to finish your degree on that kind of payment. And remember that that doesn’t cover the cost of books. I work for a health plan that makes me pay $75 to go to the ER in the hospital I WORK in and if I don’t pay it because I don’t have the money to they send me to a bill collector and ruin my credit. UPMC has 54,000 employees…if they gave us each a $5/hr raise it would only cost them $270,000. That’s not much when you make a billion dollars a year, is it? Hell, $10/hr raises per employee would only cost them $540,000. No one wants to have to go to a food bank or be on food stamps or welfare when they have full time jobs. It’s just sad.
To “Worker”: I’m sympathetic to the idea that everyone deserves a working wage but I believe you made a mistake in your math when trying to make your point. If we assume the average employee works 8 hours a day for 260 days per year a $5/hr raise per employee would cost UPMC an additional $10,400 per worker. If they employ 54,000 people that means the cost to UPMC would be $561,600,000—not $270,000 as you stated in your post.
I assumed that all UPMC emplyoyees received full tuition remission. It seems like that it is only $3,000 a semester, so I retract my snarky comment.
For those who work for UPMC and are complaining about their health insurance – I think that speaks volumes to the issues in healthcare. You would think that they could at least provide a quality health plan to employees.
The issue here is broader than UPMC. It includes this: Every year our healthcare goes up, yet everyone but the top 5% is making less. Combine that with low GDP growth and lack of high paying jobs, and we have an issue. I read an article that 70% of Walmart workers are on foodstamps. So basically, the tax payers are paying for Walmart to have record profits and pay their workers a poverty wage.
Regulator
@Worker- you posted that there are 54,000 UPMC employees, and that giving each a $5/hour raise or $10/hour raise would only cost $270,000 or $540,000, respectively. Before you tell that to too many more people, please realize that it reflects only one hour of work, one time. multiply those numbers by how many hours 54,000 employees work…
do the math again if there is 54000 people empl. 54000*5=270000 thats one for ONE hours of work TIMES THAT BY 8 that equals 2160000 and that for one day!!!!! now if u times that by 40 (typical week) =86,400,000
I worked at UPMC for 12 years, quitting recently to go back to school for a higher degree. I worked my way up from nursing assistant to RN and went to a UPMC school of nursing. They paid my tuition for that but I still had to take out loans to pay for parking, books, and uniforms (yes, they made me pay for my own school uniforms and for parking at both school and my clinical sites). I have watched them lower benefits every year and increase how much employees pay for insurance. I have family who has UPMC insurance through their employers and they are offered cheaper insurance with better benefits and no copays or deductibles, which for UPMC employees they have to take “Healthy Steps” to even get the deductible down to $1000.
As a nurse, I watched my respect from management go down and with it the respect patients gave me decrease because we had no back up. We were allowed to be treated like crap by patients and families, sworn at, hit and threatened, but we were the ones that were wrong. I’ve seen nurses fired over saying the wrong thing, but a doctor get a slap on the wrist for swearing at a nurse or throwing equipment.
Everyone wants to tell health care workers to work somewhere else. But where in Pittsburgh is there to go. West Penn Allegheny are always in flux so you can’t be guaranteed a job there and may end up back at UPMC, making less money than you were before you left, plus you lose your seniority (which really didn’t matter since they were trying desperately to get new nurses to come and stay since senior nurses would get fed up and leave).
I hate to say it, but UPMC doesn’t care about its employees despite what its public face may be. They care about the almighty dollar, cutting hours and staff to skeleton crews and giving more and more responsibility to those that stay, but cutting them off at the knees and not giving them any authority or respect doesn’t make the job any easier.
As a nurse, it was bad enough for me and I know it was worse for those in unskilled and lesser paying jobs.
I would love to be able to put my name to this, but since I plan on staying in the health field and not moving out of Pittsburgh, I don’t want to put a bulls eye on my head when my family relies on my income.
A lot is being said about UPMC and the profits they are making and the salaries paid to the executives. I’ve worked for both Highmark and UPMC and wonder why no one is talking about about the salaries and profits at Highmark? Is it because the SEIU doesn’t want to disrupt the pending takeover of WPAHS.
Why does anybody complain about their pay, no matter where they work? Jobs are freely entered contracts by both parties and you have the right no leave if you want to.
The whole employability industry should be disbanded. I’ve worked i it for over ten years now
and can only see it as a complete sham. I got into it in order to help people but over the
years it’s become so very clear that all it is is about people and organisations helping
themselves and using often quite vulnerable people as commodities to do so.
I worked for the “other hospital system” in Pgh and it wasn’t much better. The longer I worked there, over 10 years, the less I made in real money. I had to contribute more and more to my healthcare benefits and got less and less benefits. Raises were not given for a few years because the CEO threw away money on all kinds of wild ideas, but the CEO and other top staff got raises. I was salaried and went from working about 40 hours a week to over 60 hours without compensation for the additional time working. I had started to document this as it is illegal, but had an accident and had to retire early and never did follow through with it. The working class isn’t appreciated by most of the companies in the country and profit is king. The only reason not to unionize is if you trust your employer to do right by you. Few employers are that trustworthy.
Having read this article and some of the comments, I feel some of you do not know the region . I was born and raised here and have family in the Medical Industry, I say medical Industry, for that is what it has become, when I was young, most of the hospitals were independent , The independent hospitals are now all but gone, it kind of reminds you of the wild west, where you have two cattle barons controlling everything, from the government to the local media, mind you this is not the doctors or nurses this is the folks who run UPMC. back in the early 70’s when UPMC was an infant they got the city fathers and state government to help them be declared as a non profit, which in fact they are not, they are worth hundreds of millions to even billions of Dollars, When the city fathers realized they had been screwed by UPMC they started a turf war with them and lost. it still simmers up every few years like the war that was fought between UPMC and HighMark, The problem is there is no other competition in town, and that hurts the Nurses and Doctors and other employees. It is very easy to say well leave town, its not so easy when you love the city and the people, you have a family and the kids are in school and other obligations.
Five years ago my sister took me to UPMC Mercy, I was told originally they were going to amputate my left leg at the knee, they changed there minds and amputated the front quarter of my left foot instead, but warned me tat I was not out of the woods and that the next few weeks were critical and that I may still loose the leg at the knee, I was in the hospital from October 17, 2009 till November 4 2009, at the time I had just been laid off from my full time job and had a part time job, with no benefits, the social workers helped arange to get me medical coverage, It was a workmen’s compensation case. I want to note the care from the Doctors and the nursing staff was excellent and top notch, today Iam not so sure! my bill was $57,000.00 that is just for the hospital stay. Now my part time employer and the insurance Company , approached the Judge hearing the case and my Attorney and my-self and asked if we would be willing to settle, I agreed to.
in May 2011, we reached an agreement, of $95,000.00 of which I had to pay my attorney fees and I repaid the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania $28,000.00, I walked away with about two years salary. They had also agreed to pay the Hospital Bill, the surgical bill, I was also placed in a nursing home the one bill I saw just for the stay there from November 4,2009 to November 27, 2009 was around $57,000.00.
I was told The bills would paid, In August of 2012 If I recall, I receive a Letter from a collection agency demanding around $57,000.00 it was for my stay at upmc mercy from October 17, 2009 till November 4, 2009, not to long after that the surgical for 2009 was sent to collection, I called my attorney who contacted liberty mutual’s attorney they talked to them and the were to be taken care of and would be paid, they also told my attorney the reason they were not paid was that UPMC filed the Bill incorrectly as the surgical bill under the workmens compensation regulations. My attorney tried contacting upmc on both issues and they refused to work with so as to get the bill’s filed correctly so they could get paid and clear my name. I ended up having to get involved the hospital bill as it turned was being properly filed under the workmens compensation rules the surgical bill was not and was assured by UPMC Physicians Associates it would be.
Jan. 2013, I receive another collection notice in regard’s to the unpaid UPMC Mercy Hospital Medical Bill for $57,000.00. I went through the roof when I saw it and wrote a letter to the judge who heard the case. Than I heard from my attorney and he went to court and filed for a penalty hearing, the hearing date was set for June of 2013, When I arrived for court, my attorney tells me Liberty Mutual’s Attorney informed him that UPMC and LIBERTY MUTUAL reached an agreement and the hospital bill had been settled and paid. Total paid was around $33,000.00.
The hearing went on because they were in violation of the agreement with me and he had also informed the court that there were other unpaid issues.
The next hearing was held in October of 2013.
an issue had arisen that UPMC did indeed tell me the truth, that they had properly filed the hospital bill correctly,
the reason that Liberty mutual gave as to why it was not paid
was the London, Kentucky, address the bill had been sent to they claim did not exist.
My attorney stated to me yet once again UPMC was not being help with us, as he said you would think they would be since you took action to force liberty Mutual to pay them ?
In this hearing a liberty mutual employee was to testify and one did over the telephone, and quite frankly she was not being (FRANK) as to the date that Liberty Mutual’s Office Opened in London Kentucky. at one point I thought the Judge was on our side when she interrupted my attorney to ask the witness the following, Should the office in London
November 2014 we get the ruling from the judge there would be no penalty, that liberty mutual met its obligation, even though I had to take them to court.
My attorney had filed a motion and got a ton of evidence part of this evidence found that Liberty Mutual and UPMC formed an alliance against me once, UPMC was paid off !