UPMC hired powerful anti-union law firm to thwart Magee Women’s Hospital elections

Ogletree Deakins, known for representing the textile manufacturer at the center of the real life Norma Rae story, had been hired to break UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital nurses and nurse practitioners. 

Nurses at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh are blowing the whistle as the hospital system spent money on one of the country’s most prolific union-busting law firms. 

Earlier this year, close to 1,000 nurses and nurse practitioners at Magee became the first in their field to successfully unionize a UPMC owned hospital even though the hospital giant hired Ogletree Deakins to prevent the union from forming.

In the 1970’s, Ogletree Deakins represented J.P. Stevens, a southern textile manufacturer, in its anti-union efforts, which eventually became the real life inspiration for the 1979 movie, Norma Rae. 

“ The amount of money that was spent trying to stop us from doing something that is our right as Americans to do was highly offensive,” Jean Stone, an 11-year UPMC nurse, told The Keystone in an interview. 

“ UPMC is a nonprofit that’s heavily subsidized by public funds, and they could have been using that money to invest in bedside care, invest in the nursing profession and do some of the things that we were asking for. Instead, they preferred to spend this money with Ogletree Deakins, who exist solely to stop unions from forming.”

UPMC is Pennsylvania’s largest non-governmental employer, and thanks to its non-profit status, the center skips out on paying millions of dollars in property taxes to the City of Pittsburgh each year. 

A spokesperson for UPMC said in a statement that UPMC retains a variety of consultants to advise on various matters. Ogletree Deakins has worked with UPMC for more than a decade.

WESA reported in 2023 that nonprofit organizations take up close to 20% of the land in Pittsburgh, and UPMC owns roughly a quarter of that land owned by nonprofit groups. If UPMC was required to pay its property taxes, the cost would be $13.9 million to the city. 

“ It was very disheartening to know that the company that you work for that provides most of the care in this area… that they were willing to take money away to give to an expensive corporate law firm,” Elizabeth Jardini, a UPMC nurse, said in an interview. “ We understand what your priority is and that it’s not us or the community that you serve.”

It is not known how much money UPMC is spending on Ogletree Deakins’ representation, but it is likely a substantial amount. 

“It could be in the millions, and that’s not an exaggeration,” John Logan, Chair of the Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University, said in an interview. “If it’s a large unit, and it’s a campaign that goes on for months or even years, but certainly months, they can easily be paying millions in legal [expenses].”

In 2024, Ogletree Deakins charged US Sugar over $310,000 for two months of legal bills to prevent the company’s Savannah plant from unionizing. Workers at the plant gathered enough signatures for an election in January 2024, but voted against the union by a 112 to 41 margin. 

That election was much smaller and much shorter than the election at Magee.

Magee nurses filed their petition to join the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania (SEIU HCPA) last May, but didn’t have an election until August, because UPMC was able to delay it with frivolous challenges in front of the Pittsburgh branch of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

UPMC challenged the number of nurses who were allowed in the bargaining unit and argued that the election should be delayed due to the lack of a quorum at the NLRB after President Donald Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox when he took office in January. 

According to Logan, these delay tactics come straight from an anti-union playbook.

“Delay can be a killer for union organizing campaigns just because of the dynamics of organizing,” Logan said. “It’s very difficult to stop and start all of the time, and if the employer files charges with the NLRB or appeals everything that the union files, the outcome almost doesn’t matter. It’s a process. It’s the delay that matters. It gives the employer longer to [time], mount an anti-union campaign.”

Magee is one of the largest research institutes in the country dedicated to women’s health with the country’s largest neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and this delay proved stressful for the nurses. 

 ”We are chronically understaffed and it’s a stressful job,” Lucy Rose, a nurse practitioner with UPMC, said in an interview. “ We were getting pulled away from our patients. It caused anxiety. There were a lot of tensions on the unit. I personally was discouraged from communicating with any of my coworkers as if there were something wrong with it.”

Now that the nurses have formed their union, they still have to negotiate their contract, which could drag on for years if UPMC continues with their anti-union tactics. 

“Companies encourage employers to fight, to do everything they can to fight a campaign,” Logan said.

“A few of them have said explicitly in the past, but they all sort of say it, is that you haven’t lost until you sign a contract. Of course you don’t wanna have an election, because if you don’t have [an election], you can’t lose it. But even if you lose an election, that’s only part one of part two. You haven’t actually lost until you sign a contract.”