Thug Tactic Fails: 9 cited in during protest over UPMC wages

02/28/2014

James Knox | Tribune-Review

The Rev. Rodney Lyde raises his hand-cuffed hands after being arrested on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014, on the steps of the USX Tower, Downtown. Lyde, pastor of the Baptist Temple Church in Homewood, was protesting UPMC, which has offices in the tower.

 Protest outside UPMC's Downtown headquarters over how much the city's largest employer pays its service workers ended on Thursday with Pittsburgh police citing nine people for trespassing and the protesters vowing to return.

“Our encouragement to UPMC is to move people up to help them get into the middle class so they're not working 50 to 60 hours a week just to sustain their families,” said the Rev. John Welch of Bidwell Presbyterian Church in the North Side, who was among those cited for refusing to move from the lobby to the sidewalk outside the U.S. Steel Tower. “For us, we think that's morally reprehensible.”

UPMC spokeswoman Gloria Kreps said the health-care giant starts its service workers at $11 an hour, and the average service worker at UPMC is paid $12.81 an hour. Service workers include technicians, orderlies and food-service workers. With health care, retirement and pension benefits — including a savings plan with employer-matching contributions — service workers' compensation is valued at nearly $22 an hour, or $42,000 a year, Kreps said.

“This is considerably more than what is offered to service workers by the vast majority of the region's employers,”she said.

Welch, an organizer for the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, which organized the protest, said the group plans to return on Monday.

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