Washington, D.C. — In response to news that the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has filed a statement of interest supporting healthcare workers in a class-action antitrust lawsuit against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) — which alleges that UPMC weaponizes its monopsony power to suppress wages, illegally fight unionization, and trap employees with “do not hire” blacklists — the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“The DOJ supporting workers who are fighting back against UPMC’s monopsony abuses, as it pursues its own investigation into the healthcare giant, is yet another reminder that antitrust law is explicitly meant to protect workers from corporate abuses,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “For far too long, UPMC has deployed its market power to harm workers across Western Pennsylvania: lowering wages, degrading working conditions, and illegally preventing workers from unionizing or switching jobs. The DOJ’s statement underscores the agency’s by-the-book commitment to applying antitrust law in labor markets. We look forward to seeing the results that this class action suit and intensifying DOJ scrutiny will yield for Pennsylvania’s healthcare workers.”

In February 2024, the Capitol Forum reported that the DOJ Antitrust Division is investigating the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for abusing its market power to hurt workers—behavior Economic Liberties, Congresswoman Summer Lee, and then-Pennsylvania State Rep. Sara Innamorato detailed in a January 2023 white paper.

The DOJ’s reported investigation into UPMC is part of a larger effort by the Biden-Harris DOJ and FTC to fulfill antitrust enforcement’s statutory responsibilities in labor markets. In late 2022, the DOJ successfully blocked Penguin Random House’s proposed $2.2 billion acquisition of Simon & Schuster, which would have reduced competition for book manuscripts—the first merger blocked on grounds of labor harm in decades. Since then, the FTC has finalized a rule banning noncompete agreements that trap workers in their jobs, and sued to block the Kroger-Albertsons supermarket mega-merger partially on the grounds that it would reduce worker bargaining power.

Read “Critical Condition: How UPMC’s Monopoly Power Harms Workers and Patients,” here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.