Department of Justice Supports Employees in Antitrust Case Against UPMC

The Department of Justice has filed a declaration of interest, siding with UPMC employees in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit alleging that the Pittsburgh-based health care system prevents employees from leaving their jobs or improving working conditions, limits their wages and benefits, and increases their workload .

The department’s antitrust division responded on September 30 to UPMC’s motion to dismiss the proposed class action, stating that the motion “raises important questions of concern to the United States regarding the continued application of antitrust laws to labor markets.”

The original lawsuit, filed in January, alleges that UPMC implemented an anticompetitive program to gain monopoly power over hospital services and monopsony power over hospital workers (including skilled health care workers).

Between 1996 and 2018, UPMC made approximately 28 acquisitions of competing health care providers, but the deals were intended to increase the market power of the health care system and “at the same time that UPMC was acquiring these facilities, it was also reducing the availability of health care services at the appropriate level.” market,” the lawsuit states.

It alleges that between 1996 and 2019, UPMC closed four hospitals and downsized three others, eliminating 353 beds and 1,367 full-time and 433 part-time health care jobs.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleged that UPMC used anti-competitive restrictions, such as non-compete clauses and anti-rehire blacklists, to prevent employees from leaving their jobs; reducing wages to sub-competitive levels while reducing staff and increasing workload; and suppressing workers’ rights to prevent them from forming unions.

The allegations, if true, “suggest a breakdown in the competitive process to the detriment of tens of thousands of health care workers and hundreds of thousands of patients,” the Justice Department said.

The Justice Department filing said UPMC’s request to dismiss “misstatements and misapplication” of legal standards for antitrust claims alleging labor market monopsonization and “fails to address” appropriate standards for assessing relevant markets and the strength of monopsony.

A UPMC spokesperson shared the following statement Becker: “UPMC is one of the best places to work in all of the regions we serve in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland due to industry-leading wages and employee benefits that are designed to support the 100,000 people employed across the UPMC health system and As we explained in our motion to dismiss, plaintiffs’ allegations are factually incorrect and legally without merit.”

According to its website, UPMC is a 40-hospital system with a total of 100,000 employees.