Planned Parenthood Keystone Workers Unionize With Local 32

Today more than 75% of the roughly 40 non-professional employees of Planned Parenthood Keystone submitted a petition to President and CEO Melissa Reed to announce their formation of a union with OPEIU Local 32 and to demand voluntary recognition.

These employees include all non-managerial staff who do not hold advanced medical degrees (excluding contracted physicians and nurses). This includes medical center staff from Planned Parenthood Keystone’s eight centers, floating medical staff, office staff, telehealth staff, gender affirming care specialists, as well as educators and community health workers. The Planned Parenthood Keystone affiliate includes eight centers in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania located in Warminster, Allentown, Bensalem, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Reading, Wilkes-Barre, and York. These centers serve both Central and Eastern Pennsylvania communities as well as out-of-state patients seeking reproductive healthcare from states with severe abortion restrictions.

Planned Parenthood staff are organizing over issues of job security, fair wages, and healthcare. Their campaign comes in the wake of mass layoffs in the summer of 2023 despite a $7.5 million dollar donation from Billionaire MacKenzie Scott in March 2022. Floating Medical Center Assistant Alice Wehner says, “I want to continue to serve my community without fear of being fired for no reason at all. Over the years I’ve seen many valuable employees terminated without notice or good reason, and their absence is felt deeply. By unionizing at Planned Parenthood Keystone we can achieve greater job stability and employee retention. This will not only benefit me and my coworkers, but also our patients who will benefit from having long-term staff with experience providing the essential care that we do.”

And despite the importance of Planned Parenthood staff to increasing access to reproductive healthcare in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022, staff wages have not kept up with rising inflation and is further burdened by the affiliate’s decision to reduce hours for much of the staff despite rampant understaffing. Staff also say that rising healthcare costs and poor coverage has become a financial strain. Medical Center Assistant Madison Prasol says, “​​I’m unionizing because of the strain I’ve felt emotionally, physically and financially while trying to provide the best care possible to my patients. It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair for us. We deserve better because that’s what this organization champions. Planned Parenthood workers should serve as a good example, not a cautionary tale. We do essential work so we deserve fair wages that keep up with inflation. We provide health services so we deserve Healthcare coverage that is affordable. We ‘Care No Matter What’ so we deserve safe staffing ratios and job security.”

The organizing Planned Parenthood workers join a movement of unionizing Planned Parenthood affiliates including in Western Pennsylvania, Washington DC, North Central States, Rocky Mountains, Northern New England, and Great Northwest, Hawai'i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky.