Lucy Ruccio has worked as a nurse practitioner at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital for the last 3½ years.
Ruccio, 35, of Squirrel Hill, said she finds meaning in her work and loves the hospital, where she gave birth to her own children.
But she’s frustrated that she and other nurses feel they don’t have a voice. Ruccio claimed her employer has instituted a salary cap.
She wants better staff-to-patient ratios, higher pay and more transparency from UPMC.
That’s why she’s hoping her roughly 1,000 colleagues will join her in supporting a union. The nurses have called for a union election — which has yet to be scheduled — to join the Service Employees International Union.
Ruccio on Thursday joined roughly 50 nurses, union leaders and elected officials for a rally at Zulema Parklet in the city’s Oakland neighborhood, near the hospital, to urge UPMC to allow a fair union election without interference.
Ruccio, who works in the neonatal intensive care unit, said she and other Magee nurses have been working for the last couple of years to push for a union.
This week they filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board
“We’ve seen over the last year that even once UPMC has known we’ve been working on this, their response to our concerns has not been to take us seriously,” Ruccio said. “We’ve been given more pizza parties, but not more nurses.”
Paul Wood, a UPMC spokesman, did not comment specifically on the pro-union rally but pushed back in an email to TribLive on several of the union organizers’ key talking points.
Nursing turnover at UPMC Magee is 4.8%, compared to 16.7% at unionized UPMC hospitals, Wood said. That’s well below the national average of 16%, according to Wood.
Wood said entry-level UPMC nurses can earn over $50 per hour within four years. He denied there is a salary cap for nurses working at Magee.
“To provide high quality, safe patient care, and ensure safe patient assignments UPMC Magee uses flexible scheduling for each shift, based on patient acuity, to make real-time, evidence-based decisions on staffing,” Wood said, adding that the nursing vacancy rate at Magee is around 1%.
Ruccio wasn’t impressed with the claims.
“I think it’s easy to claim zero vacancy rates when you’re in charge of how many positions are posted,” she said, reiterating her belief that the hospital should have mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios.
Darrin Kelly, president of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council, said he was not familiar with the data points UPMC shared.
“That’s kind of surprising to hear,” Kelly said. “I’d have to see more.”
Jean Stone, a nurse at Magee, said she spent 16 years in information technology before making the jump to her current career.
“I wanted to do work I know matters,” Stone said. “And what we do at Magee absolutely matters.”
But she said she’s watched co-workers leave because of burnout. Stone also said the health care giant hasn’t provided meaningful responses to staff feedback.
Instead, she said, UPMC has informed workers that additional staff and supplies are “not in the budget.”
Paige Wingard said she’s felt burned out while working in Magee’s intensive care unit.
“I’ve contemplated walking away entirely,” Wingard said.
Nurses at Magee, she said, “witness the entire circle of life,” from babies taking their first breaths to patients breathing their last.
It’s “dehumanizing and heartbreaking” to have to rush through those moments, Wingard said, because they’re too understaffed to take extra time with patients who are welcoming new babies, experiencing major health scares or mourning loved ones.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato pledged her support for the nurses.
“These are the people who provide care to us, to our families and to our communities,” she said.
Innamorato said UPMC has a “moral obligation” to allow for a fair union election without interference.
“We want a real say in how care gets delivered,” said Melissa Deicas, who has been a nurse and midwife at the women’s hospital for more than eight years.