An Erie nurse is suing UPMC alleging that the medical system’s monopoly on health care in the region has led to depressed wages, unfair working conditions and chronic under-staffing.

The lawsuit, which closely mirrors a complaint filed by two unions asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate potential antitrust claims in May, is seeking class-action status. It could include as plaintiffs thousands of skilled health care providers who currently or previously worked for UPMC.

They include registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, nurse assistants and orderlies.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff, Victoria Ross, previously worked as a nurse at UPMC Hamot.

The lawsuit accuses UPMC of anti-competitive conduct and said that the health system prevents workers from leaving their positions or improving their working conditions.

UPMC has more than 95,000 employees and includes 40 hospitals. It has annual revenue of $26 billion.

Although UPMC acquired 28 competitor health care service providers between 1996 and 2018, the lawsuit accuses it of reducing health care services.

It claims the company closed four hospitals and downsized three others, which eliminated 353 beds, more than 1,300 full-time and 433 part-time health care service jobs.

Among the ways the lawsuit said UPMC exercised its power over employees, it used noncompete clauses and “do-not-rehire” blacklists to keep workers from leaving. It also claims that UPMC suppressed their workers’ rights by keeping them from forming unions.

“Each of these restraints alone is anticompetitive, but combined, their effects are magnified,” the lawsuit said. “UPMC wielded these restraints together as a systemic strategy to suppress worker bargaining power and wages. As a result, UPMC’s skilled healthcare workers were required to do more while earning less — while they were also subjected to increasingly unfair and coercive workplace conditions.”

UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said on Friday afternoon that comments he made regarding the complaint filed by SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania and the Strategic Organizing Center with DOJ in May still apply.

At the time, Wood told TribLive that there is no policy prohibiting a UPMC employee from being hired by another, and that staffing levels are based on the acuity and needs of patients, not staffing ratios.

Attorneys Dan Levin and Austin Cohen, who represent Ross, said that they don’t know the status of the unions’ complaint or whether the Justice Department is investigating.

“While we would welcome that, our case is not dependent on it,” Levin said. “We feel confident we can prove our allegations.”

Further, they said that a Justice Department complaint would not seek compensation for affected employees like the lawsuit does.

A message left with the Justice Department was not immediately returned.

According to the complaint, UPMC has faced 133 unfair labor practice charges since 2012 and 159 separate allegations. About 74% of the violations, the lawsuit said, related to workers’ efforts to unionize.

The complaint alleges antitrust violations and seeks damages and asks that UPMC be enjoined from continuing those practices.

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