A strike and rally planned for Nov. 18 against UPMC in Pittsburgh will feature a few registered nurses from Altoona as speakers, but will not affect operations at UPMC’s hospitals in Altoona or Bedford, according to a spokeswoman for SEIU Healthcare PA.

The job action at UPMC headquarters in the Steel Tower are part of a several yearslong effort by SEIU to unionize UPMC’s dietary and environmental service workers in the Pittsburgh area, according to Jenn Wood.

The planned strike and rally will be a call for “$20/hour, safe staffing, affordable health care without medical debt & the right to form their union without intervention,” according to a tweet from Hospital Workers Rising, identified on Twitter as a “project of SEIU Healthcare PA.”

UPMC has no comment on the planned job action, according to UPMC spokeswoman Danielle Sampsell.

The participation of the Altoona nurses will show solidarity with the effort in Pittsburgh, Wood said.

“UPMC hospital workers have spent day and night seeing the community through the pandemic, only to drive by signs advertising jobs at Amazon, McDonald’s or the coffee shop offering better wages than they’re making to take care of our loved ones,” stated a Facebook post about the event.

The registered nurses at UPMC Altoona are represented by SEIU Healthcare PA, but the licensed practical nurses, dietary workers, environmental workers and techs in Altoona are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.