Lamberton Law Blog

In the ongoing battle between healthcare giant UPMC and workers seeking to unionize, an Administrative Law Judge recently found that UPMC engaged in unfair labor practices in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act by:

1. Denying non-employee organizers access to its cafeteria by causing the police to remove them while permitting other visitors and guests of hospital personnel to use the cafeteria, 

2. Engaging in the surveillance of conversations and meetings between employees and union organizers,

3. Engaging in the surveillance of employees meeting with union organizers by requiring employees to produce identification,

4. Discriminatorily prohibiting employees from wearing union insignia in patient care areas while permitting employees to wear insignia regarding other entities not related to the hospital in patient care areas,

5. Prohibiting employees from wearing union insignia in non-patient care areas,

6. Discriminatorily prohibiting employees from posting union materials on its bulletin boards while allowing the ESS employee council to post materials on its bulletin boards,

7. Coercively interrogating employees regarding their union activities,

8. Threatening to discipline employees for refusing to participate in an unlawful interrogation,

9. Impliedly threatening an employee with a poor evaluation because of her union activities,

10. Instructing employees they were not allowed to post any union materials on bulletin boards,

11. Coercively requiring employees to write a statement regarding their union activities, and,

12. Demanding employees’ consent to be photographed and photographing employees engaged in union activity without proper justification.