Allegheny Health Network has announced it will raise its minimum wage for full-time employees to $15 an hour by 2021. The move comes two years after UPMC said it would do the same.
Dan Laurent, a spokesperson for AHN, said the similar timelines are a coincidence.
"The action we're taking really has nothing to do with any one specific competitor," Laurent said. "It's a reflection of our ongoing assessment of the market as a whole and a determination of what we need to do to remain highly competitive and viable as an employer of choice."
In a statement, Allegheny General Hospital nursing aide Chevonne Mott applauded the announcement. Mott, a leader of the SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania union said this will affect more than 1,600 workers at AGH alone.
"As AHN moves forward, we in our union are standing up to make sure technicians, nursing aides, housekeepers, cooks and other critical frontline staff at the network's flagship hospital share in the same burgeoning success," she wrote.
Allegheny Health Network operates eight hospitals across western Pennsylvania.
Efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour have been supported by Mayor Bill Peduto and City Council. In 2015, Peduto signed an executive order to incrementally raise the starting wage of city employees to $15 by 2021.
