Forty Years on the Job at UPMC

ByJames Threatt

I am a patient care technician (PCT) at UPMC Shadyside, and I’ve worked for UPMC for forty years. Four decades of my life I’ve spent here, first at Montefiore, then at Shadyside. I don’t think there are many who have been here as long as me. Most of them stay for five to six years and then they move on to other things.

I work nights, the graveyard shift. It’s a tedious job, you’re trying to help people get through their problems and get through their days. You just help them out in as many ways as possible — keeping their beds clean, distributing water, clean ups if they need changed, checking their vital signs, keeping them having everything they need.

Helping people is rewarding. Especially the days you go home and you know you really made a difference for someone. That makes it worth it. You’re helping patients, and they talk about their families and things going on in their life. You feel like you’ve benefited from helping them out and helping their families.

It’s like they say about the Peace Corps: it’s a job you love to hate and hate to love.

One of my biggest problems is staffing. When you’re working short-staffed, that means you don’t have enough people to cover all the work, so the people who are there have to pick up the slack. There is a lot of heavy duty work even on a regular basis. Sometimes people leave because of it. So when you’re servicing a patient and someone else needs you, you’re just running back and forth. There are times it can be so overwhelming and frustrating.

UPMC needs to hire more qualified people and pay them for that work so they stay. I’d like to see people making beyond $15. It would really help people take care of themselves on one job. A lot of people have families, and it would help a lot of families get out of debt. When you’re working short staffed and the work is piling up, a lot of people say it’s not worth being at this facility for low wages, especially when there are other facilities with better pay and benefits.

It would help people end up doing the work they want as well. I’ve been here for forty years, so my pay grade is pretty good. But you get raises with time at the job. Years ago, I went back to school for medical assistant training. It was on-the-job training, so I was still working. It took about two years, but when I finished, I realized if I would have gone into that new field I would have had to start over in my pay grade. I had already been through that once.

When I first started at UPMC, I worked in dietary, then as a utility clerk. After a few years, I decided to switch over to PCT. I took a pay cut, but at the time I thought it was worth it. But by the time I went to school, I realized it wasn’t worth it anymore. I would have been cut back to minimum wage, I would have been losing $6 to $7 an hour. So I stayed as a PCT. These days, pay is so hard to come by.

Now after forty years, I reached the top pay grade. Last year I got a raise and that brought me up to $20 an hour. But it shouldn’t take that long. You shouldn’t have to put in forty years to make $20 an hour. People should be able to take care of their families with these jobs.

That’s why I support the union, and that’s why I’m supporting Ed Gainey for mayor. I support Gainey 100%. When we’ve had rallies he’s been there for us, which is more than I can say for the current mayor. Gainey would be better for the workers, no question. He’s been speaking on behalf of the workers every time we need, he’s been there. Every labor day and every time we have a rally, he’s there. If we’re working together, we can make UPMC a place people are proud to work at.