Butler hospital techs plan picket March 18, allege unfair labor practices
For the second time in six months, Butler Memorial Hospital technicians are planning a demonstration.
A group of technicians are planning an “informational picket” to be held outside the hospital on Wednesday, March 18, between 3 and 6 p.m. to raise public awareness about what they describe as deteriorating work conditions.
“Years ago, we used to make more than places in Pittsburgh,” said Don Geibel, a nuclear medicine technologist who has worked with the hospital for 20 years. “Over the years, the other hospitals have offered more and Butler hasn’t moved.”
The technicians — numbering about 230 according to Geibel — are in the midst of negotiating for their first official union contract with management.
In May 2025, 235 technicians at BMH voted to align themselves with the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals. The union also represents the nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital.
Negotiations began in earnest in August, according to ultrasound technologist Lori Daniel, but she said little progress has been made.
“It’s been slow going. It seems like they don't really want to work with us,” Daniel said. “Things that we agree upon during negotiations, they come back and completely change, so it’s kind of bad faith bargaining. It just seems like it stalls a lot.”
According to Geibel, technicians have spent more time during the bargaining process talking to the hospital’s lawyers than the hospital’s management.
“At the negotiations, we’re kinda getting stonewalled,” Geibel said. “There’s a number of people from administration that come to those meetings, but it’s basically facilitated by two corporate Pittsburgh lawyers and the head of HR … We’re basically trying to bargain against high-priced lawyers instead of the people that we work for.”
Both Geibel and Daniel said their experience working at the hospital deteriorated after the creation of Independence Health System in 2023.
“I feel like back then, techs as a whole were appreciated. We were given yearly raises. We were given merit raises with evaluations and our benefits seemed better,” said Daniel. “When Excela took over, we didn’t get any raises, our benefits seemed to decrease and we’d have to pay more in deductibles. Without any cost of living raises, it just went downhill from there.”
According to Geibel, shortly before the technicians voted to join PA SNAP in early 2025, they were offered a raise.
“That's a tactic that places do. They say, ‘Oh, well, how (about) if we give you a raise? Then there’s no reason for you to unionize,’” Geibel said.
After the technicians voted to unionize, according to Geibel, raises were eventually given during the summer of 2025, but only to nonunionized members of hospital staff, such as hospitality workers.
A search of the National Labor Relations Board’s online database brings up 14 complaints brought against either “Butler Healthcare Partners” or “Independence Health d/b/a Butler Healthcare Providers” since April 2025, mostly for communication and contract-related issues.
“I think a few of those are from the nurses, but the vast majority of those are the techs,” Geibel said.
On Aug. 8, 2025, a group of the technicians delivered a petition to hospital management outlining their main concerns in the bargaining process.
“Since it’s our first contract, it’s … everything,” Daniel said. “It’s staffing, it’s wages, it’s benefits … basically, everything that goes into a contract.”
The first public picket by the technicians since they joined PA SNAP took place in October 2025, when a group of about 70 technicians from Butler Memorial Hospital held a news conference at Diamond Park in Butler to express their grievances.
According to Geibel, a full-on strike by technicians is not out of the question, but he said he doesn’t want the situation to come to that.
“It’s getting there,” Geibel said. “We’re trying to do all these other things so that they work with us, so we don’t have to strike. We don’t want to do that … I don’t want people to not get taken care of.”
“I feel like we’re willing to do what we have to do in order to get management to see that we’re serious about just wanting things to get better and wanting them to work with us and stop the bad faith bargaining,” Daniel said. “We’re tired of basically rolling over.”
The hospital, meanwhile, claims negotiations have been in good faith.
“BMH has negotiated, and will continue to negotiate, in good faith with the union to reach a fair and mutually beneficial contract,” said a statement from an Independence Health System representative. “BMH has fully complied with all legal obligations and has not retaliated against union members. We remain committed to a respectful process focused on the best outcomes for our staff and patients.”
Independence is currently in the process of merging with the West Virginia University Health System.
Both Geibel and Daniel hope a merger with WVUMedicine will be a win for the hospital technicians at Butler.
“I’ve heard basically good things about WVU,” Geibel said. “I know they took over Uniontown Hospital a couple of years ago, and they have done much better and they’ve expanded services.”
“I'm hopeful that it’ll get better because they’re taking the initiative to put money into Butler to better the facility,” Daniel said. “I'm hoping that, not only do they care about the facility, but they care about the people that work there.”
