The movement to unionize workers at one of the region’s few abortion care providers took a dark turn last week when managers at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center in East Liberty fired one of the employees involved in the organizing effort and issued written reprimands to several others.
Workers announced two weeks ago that more than 80% of the center’s nonmanagement employees had voted to join the Office and Professional Employees International Union as Local 98. The workers gave management a deadline of Friday, May 23, to respond. That deadline passed with no response. Colby Bell, a counselor at the center and one of the union organizers, was fired the following Tuesday.
The reason given for the firing? Mismanagement of grant funds and harassment, Bell said. Bell explained that this charge is the result of a disagreement over whether to track hours worked on a state grant to provide outreach to the trans community – work organized by Bell and Nikkole Terney, director of abortion care.
Managers asked the two workers to track their hours, which Bell said proved difficult, because much of it was accomplished in five- and ten-minute breaks between patients. Bell checked the grant wording and found nothing mandating the tracking of work hours, and he pushed back against management’s request. Managers fired Terney, a supporter of the organizing workers, a few weeks ago.
Harassment charges, Bell said, were leveled at a number of center employees who had included in their emails a signature supporting the unionizing effort.
The organizing effort “will not be deterred” by management’s latest moves, Bell said. “If anything, this just further galvanizes the movement and everybody’s commitment.”
Still, the job loss has “thrown a lot into the air,” Bell said. “I’m trans, and I’d planned on getting top surgery later this year, but I’ve lost my health care, so now that’s been interrupted.” In addition, Bell was completing 900 hours of field experience at the center in order to earn a master’s degree in social work. “Without my ability to get these client hours, I won’t be able to graduate unless I find a new field site,” Bell said.
PUP again reached out to managers at the center and left a message. We’ll update this story if and when they respond.
Steve is a photojournalist and writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he is currently on strike and working as a Union Progress co-editor. Reach him at smellon@unionprogress.com.