SEIU Healthcare PA
Media Advisory For: Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025
Contact: Dave Bates, 347-865-8038, dave.bates@hailstonecommunications.com
Recent report reveals Magee had over $345 million in profits last fiscal year and has the resources to negotiate a union contract with groundbreaking improvements in nurse staffing and retention
Who: Community members to express strong support for Magee nurses who just got union election dates
When: Thursday, Aug. 7 at 3 pm
Where: Zulema Parklet across from UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, intersection of Boulevard of the Allies and Zulema St.
Pittsburgh, Penn. – On Aug. 7, community members, patients and elected officials will share their strong support for Magee-Womens Hospital nurses who just got their union election dates and back their efforts to make UPMC invest its massive profits in quality patient care. On Aug. 1, the Labor Board set voting dates of Aug. 19 and 23 for around 1,000 Magee registered nurses. In a victory for nurses, the Labor Board shut down UPMC’s efforts to deny and delay nurses’ freedom to vote by ruling that an election can move forward and “charge nurses” – who have certain responsibilities for coordinating care in their units – will be included in the vote. This is the largest nurse union election in recent Pennsylvania history.
“Magee nurses stand by our community every day and now it’s our turn to stand with them,” said Brooke Lang, a mother whose two children were both born at Magee. “When my daughter was born at just 28 weeks and suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage, nurses were critical in saving her life. Now she is a healthy, active, strong-willed 11 year old, and we are forever grateful to the nurses at Magee. My family and countless others are completely committed to supporting Magee nurses so they can win their election and win a union contract that ensures greater investment in our care. When nurses have a voice in their hospital and how they do their jobs, our entire region benefits.”
A recent report revealed that Magee had over $345 million in profits for fiscal year 2024, the third highest in the Commonwealth. Magee’s profit margin was over 21%, more than three times the state average. The report comes on the heels of recent news that UPMC overall had profits of $237 million in just the first quarter of this year alone.
The eye-popping profits show that, while Magee nurses have been repeatedly told that urgently needed changes are “not in the budget,” more than enough resources are available to negotiate a union contract with groundbreaking improvements in staffing and retention.
Community members say they strongly back Magee nurses, because they want them to have a seat at the decision-making table and a voice in how those resources are prioritized, alongside UPMC insurance executives and the business executives who make up the majority of the UPMC board. Only two out of 24 UPMC board members are physicians, and most are in finance, real estate development or other for-profit sectors.
“Study after study supports that when nurses don’t have enough staff and don’t have enough time with their patients, patient mortality goes up. Hospital nurses having a voice in their profession is a life and death issue for our region, our state and our entire country,” said Nancy Niemczyk, PhD and certified nurse-midwife, who is an assistant professor and coordinator of the Nurse-Midwife Program at the University of Pittsburgh. “Decades of clinical research has also shown that when hospitals support professional nursing practice by involving nurses in decision-making, they have much better patient outcomes. That is why as both a community member and health researcher, I strongly support Magee nurses in their efforts to form a union. I want to know that when my kids, other loved ones, or I go to the hospital, frontline nurses have a voice in how resources are prioritized, how care is delivered and how nurses are treated.”
“A primary tenet in nursing is patient advocacy, and forming our union is about having a voice in a large corporate healthcare system to fulfill that mission,” said Mariah Park, a nurse who works in Labor and Delivery at Magee. “I’m really proud to be a part of the incredible team that delivers 50% of the babies in our region, many of whom have the highest acuity and most complex needs. But too often we aren’t even meeting nationally-recognized staffing standards set by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. When we don’t have adequate time to spend with each patient, we finish our work day feeling like we weren’t able to give them everything they need because we’re stretched so thin. I’ve filled out internal surveys and attended Magee town halls, but the administration just tells us they can’t address our concerns because ‘it’s not in the budget.’ Then when we see resources that should be invested in staffing and retention instead being prioritized for multi-million dollar executive compensation, expansion of the UPMC insurance business and a luxury jet, it’s demoralizing. We want to work with UPMC to prioritize our patients for the success of our hospital, and to build the kind of standards that will support a lifetime in this career.”
Instead of working with nurses, UPMC has hired an expensive corporate law firm and run an anti-union campaign inside the hospital to try to deny and delay nurses’ freedom to have a union voice. Both community members and elected officials have been urging UPMC executives to ensure a free and fair election without any interference or pressure.
On July 10, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato launched a “Right to Organize Incident Report Form”. Executive Innamorato said, “I know first hand that patients have directly benefited from the progress that other Pittsburgh union nurses have made through negotiating with their health systems on our behalf. Magee nurses are by our side in our most vulnerable moments, so we’re by their side 100% as they head toward their union election and will continue to be by their side to win a strong contract. As County Executive, I expect UPMC as our largest employer to be a leader in working with their nurses to address the growing nursing crisis, while respecting nurses’ freedom to have a united voice. Any use of healthcare resources to pay anti-union consultants is unethical. Anti-union communications to nurses from their employer on work time is coercive, creates a toxic work environment, and sows division. I know that nurses will stay focused on providing the best possible care to patients during this period and I expect UPMC to do the same.”
Pennsylvania is facing the worst nursing crisis in the entire nation, with nearly 20,000 empty positions. Magee nurses say they have too often been working without the staff, support and resources that they need to deliver the kind of care, time and education they want to provide their patients. Nurses continue to cycle through the hospital, leaving due to unsustainable working conditions and a lack of the kind of benefits and investments that keep experienced nurses at the bedside.
While Magee nurses have been struggling, UPMC has prioritized expansion of its insurance business, massive executive compensation, the leasing of a $50 million luxury jet, tens of millions in spending on outside consultants, and investment in foreign ventures. Recent news reports revealed that UPMC has paid its former CEO $30 million since he retired. 22 non-clinical executives were compensated over a million dollars each in fiscal year 2024, totaling more than $65 million. UPMC is the largest private employer and healthcare provider in Pennsylvania, and the second largest provider-sponsored health insurance corporation – meaning it provides both services and an insurance plan – in the U.S. after Kaiser. More than half its nearly $30 billion in revenue comes from insurance.
Magee nurses have watched closely as union nurses at Allegheny General, West Penn, UPMC Western Psychiatric, Hershey Medical Center and Geisinger Wyoming Valley have won historic union contracts which have significantly improved staffing, recruitment and retention. Magee nurses say they want to unite with those union nurses, and inspire thousands of others, so that together they can raise standards across the region, take back their profession and transform the broken healthcare system to ensure patients’ needs come first.
A separate election for around a hundred advanced practice professionals at Magee, which include certified nurse midwives, nurse practitioners and others, is expected to be scheduled soon.
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SEIU Healthcare PA is the state’s largest and fastest-growing union of nurses and healthcare workers, uniting tens of thousands of professional and technical employees, direct care workers, and service employees in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home- and community-based services, and state facilities across the Commonwealth. SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania members are committed to improving the lives of healthcare workers and ensuring quality care and healthy communities for all Pennsylvanians.