“Unpaid parental leave at the abortion clinic — that sounds like an Onion headline, but it’s real,” shares Emily Quinn, a counselor at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center and a member of the newly-formed bargaining committee.
Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, one of the area’s only two abortion clinics, serves Pittsburgh and surrounding regions. They also offer gynecological and gender affirming care. Quinn has been among the loudest voices for unionization at the clinic, where she’s worked since 2021.
On June 17, staff won their election and became a union under OPEIU. On August 21, they sat down to their first bargaining meeting, to discuss issues like parental leave, wages, and healthcare. But these successes haven’t come easily, Quinn says. Over the past four months, four of her coworkers have been fired.
The first was Nikki Terney, described as a mentor and fierce advocate for her coworkers.
“When Nikki was fired, it was like, ‘oh, all of us are vulnerable,’” Quinn tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “And the message was, if you speak up, you are expendable.”
Raven Kirksey, a former employee, says that Terney’s termination caused a ripple effect among staff. “Conversations started with us being really upset and sad about Nikki,” she shares. “And then it was like — OK, well, we’re not protected. Is anybody interested in a union?”
The coworkers met to discuss it one night. “We were with an organizer from Planned Parenthood of Western Pa. that talked to us about what unionizing is, what it can look like, the benefits of it,” former employee Colby Bell tells City Paper.
Staff at Planned Parenthood of Western Pa., the only other clinic in the region, unionized in March 2021. Both clinics saw surges of patients after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision as abortion bans took effect in surrounding states.
“There was this energy in the clinic of ‘we’re all in this together,’” Quinn says. “We were seeing at least double the amount of people, 30 or 40 names on the schedule per day.”
Employees like Terney say they frequently stayed at the clinic until 10 or 11 p.m. at night. Terney joined the staff a few years before Dobbs, and says she fell in love with the work. “Then, early this year, the culture of the clinic changed,” she tells CP. “[It] felt more capitalist, not as much for the community.”
“Allegheny Reproductive Health Center is committed to providing safe and quality care to patients,” the clinic said in a statement to CP. “In general, ARHC does not comment publicly on internal personnel matters. ARHC respects employees’ rights to engage in protected activities, such as the right to decide whether to unionize.”
Terney says community is everything to her. She speaks warmly about her patients—one thanked her by sending her lunch; another reaches out at Christmastime. “It truly means the world to me,” she shares.
When she was fired, her coworkers and friends set up a GoFundMe to help cover expenses. Over the next month, several more fundraisers would have to be organized.
Bell and Quinn were among the staff who announced their intent to unionize on May 20. “Management would not look people in the eyes for the rest of the day,” Bell says.
Then, when the workday ended on May 27, Bell was fired. “I was not allowed to gather any of my things from upstairs or see any of my coworkers on the way out, and they escorted me out of a back stairwell,” Bell tells CP. “They also flanked me — one manager in front of me, one manager behind me — as if I was gonna make a break for it or something.”
Bell says one of the reasons management gave them for the firing was “harassment” — “I had put a union email signature in my email,” they say.
Following the announcement, staff hoped that management would voluntarily recognize the union.
“We actually found out later that they were retaining lawyers,” Bell shares.
Quinn characterizes this as a “slap in the face” as she and others try to make ends meet on their salaries. “I’m on Medicaid; I have coworkers who are on food stamps. So many of my coworkers are parents,” she says. “I see that there is money for other things — there’s money for union-busting. You can’t expect people to take a pay cut just because they believe in what they’re doing for work.”
One parent is Andre’a Bailey, who was fired the week after Bell. Bailey worked at the clinic as an observation technician for individuals coming out of procedures. “I’m taking care of patients that are sedated,” she tells CP. “I’m taking care of patients that are sick and nauseous, so they’re spitting up at any given time.”
As call logs began to fill after the Dobbs decision, she was also trained on phones. “Calls could get hectic and mentally draining after a while, so I wanted to shift back to my role in the recovery room,” she shares. “Some days, I would do clinical work, and other days I would do administrative work.” Then, on June 3, she was asked to do both at the same time.
“I explained that I have to closely monitor these patients, and it’s not a good idea for me to schedule patients at the same time,” Bailey says. “I would also need to ask for medical history, financial history on the phone. So if I have patients in here recovering or waiting to go into the procedure, they’re going to hear me discussing that.”
Bailey refused, and finished her work day. “I walked out, and about 30 minutes later, I checked the schedule for the next day, and I was locked out of our email,” she remembers. “And that’s how I found out I was fired.”
Bailey says that taking on multiple roles is just one example of the hidden challenges that come with working in reproductive healthcare. Another is simply trying to get through the clinic door.
“We’re coming into work and there are protestors outside screaming at us, cursing at us, walking up to our cars,” she shares. “I have two young children, and if I was getting dropped off at work, they were screaming at me and my children.”
Despite this, former employee Raven Kirksey says, the clinic meets the needs of the community. She knows this first-hand — as she was introduced to Allegheny Reproductive Health Center as a patient in 2017. “I remember walking out and being like, wow, I want to be just like those people,” she tells CP. Years later, she saw a job opening and applied.
On union election day, Kirksey was a poll observer. “It was held in our break room lounge. I stayed to watch the election official count the votes,” she says.
The next day, Kirksey was fired. She echoes Terney, Bell, and Bailey when she remarks, “I miss my patients; I miss my coworkers. I miss doing what we did there.”
“And the reason why we’re unionizing is because the people who work there and the patients who seek care there deserve to have it be a stable environment,” Quinn shares. “They deserve to know that there can be longevity in that workplace.”
She knows the community will continue to rally around staff. “We’ve had incredible support from the abortion worker community and from the unionized abortion worker community [at] Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania. We’ve even received support from the public libraries in Pittsburgh,” she shares.
She anticipates a lengthy bargaining process before a contract is negotiated, “probably at least a year,” she estimates. “It could be longer, it could be shorter, and we’re here for the whole deal. Pittsburgh is a union town. This is Pittsburgh’s only independent abortion clinic. We are going to fight for ourselves. It’s what we do.”
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2025.
