Hospitals in Pittsburgh are big business. Our city’s largest hospital systems are also its largest landowners and employers. Their revenue is measured in billions, too much of which is spent on a constant war for market share, with dueling ads blaring from our televisions.

All of us have made massive investments in Pittsburgh’s healthcare systems: our working hours, our insurance premiums, and our taxes. These institutions are classified as public charities and receive large government subsidies. But charities have responsibilities.

Charities don’t force frontline workers to turn to food banks, Medicaid and other forms of public assistance while paying million-dollar salaries to dozens of their executives and flying them around on a corporate jet – but UPMC does. Charities don’t charge the highest prices in the region – but UPMC does. And charities don’t threaten hundreds of thousands of seniors with loss of access to their longtime doctors and hospitals because they carry a competitor’s insurance card – but UPMC has.

We have a right to expect decent treatment from the hospitals we’ve built. Pittsburgh cannot be the most livable city unless our largest industry – the healthcare industry – gets focused on quality care and living wage jobs. While hospital executives argue over patients and profits, frontline caregivers – Hospital Workers Rising – have stepped up with a commonsense agenda:  

• Access to care for all, at every hospital, regardless of insurance
• Adequate staffing so workers can provide, and all can receive, quality care
• A minimum $15/hour wage, quality affordable healthcare for workers and the right to form a union without interference.