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Hospital Campaign

Frontline hospital workers in all of Michigan are essential to caring for our communities.

After more than two years of working in grueling pandemic conditions, hospital workers across Michigan are calling for the changes our community needs to thrive. Nurses, techs, cleaners, dietary, and ALL support staff are crucial for providing quality patient care and keeping our hospitals up and running. 

During the pandemic, hospital workers persevered through mental and physical exhaustion, stress, and trauma to protect and care for our patients, but the toll of the past two years has pushed many of us to the limit. These have been some of the most challenging years of our lives and the pandemic isn’t over. Workers across Michigan are already worn thin as our state battles surge after surge. We are proud of how hard we continue to work to care for our community. Now, it’s time for our elected leaders to take action and ensure healthcare workers like us have what we need to be successful. 

We cannot care for our community alone. We need community leaders to respect, protect, and support our work by investing in: quality healthcare for patients; healthcare workers; and our community. We’re calling on our elected officials and other community leaders in our state to recognize the sacrifices we made and fix broken policies that fail to respect and protect workers.

  • The hospital industry is in crisis - we are sounding the alarm in order to raise standards across our industry. Our mission is for every member of our community to have access to the highest quality of healthcare available. Short staffing and challenging working conditions make it difficult to live up to our goals. We need the community to stand with healthcare workers and support our demands for higher pay, better working conditions, and more staffing.
  • Our community deserves the highest quality of patient care. As hospital workers, we are responsible for the safety and well-being of our communities. Michigan families deserve to feel safe, confident, and satisfied with the quality of patient care when they enter a healthcare facility.
  • Hospital workers deserve elected leaders who listen to workers and give them a seat at the table in creating solutions. Whether it’s PPE shortages, the staffing crisis, or poor working conditions, COVID-19 has made it even harder for frontline hospital workers to do our jobs safely. We put our lives on the line. But we didn’t have a voice in decisions that impacted our patients, our families, and our co-workers. We want a seat at the table to make sure that patient and worker safety always comes first. That starts with electing leaders who are willing and able to pass policies that support workers.

How do SEIU Members advocate for safe hospitals?

  • Negotiating specific provisions in our union contracts around hazard pay and improved base pay, fair paid time off and sick leave, PPE, safe staffing, supplies, and training.
  • Having union members, who are paid for their time, sit on labor-management committees so we’re included in decisions about working conditions and patient care.
  • A fair grievance procedure guaranteed by contract to solve problems on the job, with a neutral arbitrator to make final decisions. Speaking directly to our elected representatives, with SEIU staff support, at the local, state and national level.

SEIU Victories in Hospitals