Union Targets Pittsburgh Hospital Fighting City on Tax Break

A hospital workers’ union is trying to organize at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and backing municipal leaders’ bid to strip the nonprofit health network of its $20-million-a-year tax exemption, The New York Times reports.

With 22 hospitals and 62,000 workers, UPMC, as it is known, is Pittsburgh’s biggest employer but has drawn fire over its closure of two suburban hospitals, seven-figure executive salaries, and business practices critics say make it more like a corporation than a nonprofit—the contention at the heart of the city’s lawsuit challenging UPMC’s tax break.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 10,000 cafeteria workers, janitors, and other service staff at UPMC, has echoed this criticisms in the labor campaign and is calling on organization to raise its wage floor from $11 to $15 an hour.

UPMC has responded assertively to the union drive and defended its tax break and compensation of service workers, which is well above the minimum wage and includes health, pension, and tuition benefits.