SEIU Healthcare Michigan members,
Members have been scoring major contract wins, taking action, speaking out for better jobs and quality care. Here are a few updates about our ongoing campaigns and opportunities to get involved:
Our SEIU Healthcare Michigan nursing home member general assembly was a big success. Detroit-area nursing home workers gathered on June 8 for an assembly to chart the future and build the power we need to make significant changes in the industry — including winning higher pay and improving staffing and retention.
Congrats to SEIU Healthcare Michigan members who voted to approve new contract agreements and reached settlements:
- Service and support workers at Mercy thanks to bargaining team members Lonnie Keech, Tintico Moore, Darla Gallegos, and Marissa Aney.
- Workers at Mission Point Clarkston and Madison Heights thanks to bargaining team members Ramona Faulks (Madison Hts) and Georgia Williams (Clarkston).
McLaren Oakland Hospital workers picket for quality jobs and care. Service and maintenance workers at McLaren Oakland continue to push for equitable pay increases that boost income for veteran workers and new hires.
- On June 22, workers organized a protest outside the hospital to show collective determination to win a contract agreement that improves jobs at the facility.
- Read about their fight in the Oakland Press.
Fighting for permanent $2.35 wage increase through Gov. Whitmer’s nursing home task force. Earlier this year, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed a delegation of SEIU leaders — including nursing home workers Martha Nichols and Nancy Hebert, SEIU Michigan Executive Director Jenn Root, and SEIU Healthcare Michigan Trustee Dian Palmer — to her Nursing Home Stabilization Workforce Council.
- At Council meetings, we are advocating for the $2.35 hourly pay increase that Michigan implemented in Skilled Nursing Facilities during the COVID-19 crisis be made permanent.
- We will continue to use our seat at the table at the Council to demand the improvements all Michigan nursing home workers and residents need.
Healthcare Michigan members joined our union family with SEIU Local 1 for a Juneteenth celebration and janitorial contract campaign kick-off on June 15th in Detroit.
A delegation of seven SEIU Healthcare Michigan members joined the Poor People’s Campaign March in DC on June 18 to demand that all voters have a voice in our democracy and to push elected leaders to eliminate poverty.
- Healthcare Michigan marched alongside thousands of activists from all across the country who are rising up to make sure that Black, Brown, and white working-class voters have an equal voice in our democracy and to fight for an America where all working people can count on the freedom of economic security.
Join the Unions for All Worker summit on July 11. Together in a union, we know working people have the power to win a better future for our communities. That’s why SEIU members, community leaders, and elected officials are coming together for a Unions For All Summit to demand that every job be a good union job. Let’s make sure Healthcare Michigan members turn out in force.
- When: July 11, mobilize at 9:30am, program at 10am
- Where: Durfee Innovation Society, 2470 Collingwood St., Detroit, MI 48206
- Register here to join us!
Welcome Akeem Pack as our new SEIU Healthcare Michigan staff attorney. Akeem will serve as lead counsel for the local union and lead on arbitration, labor board proceedings, and other litigation as well as provide legal support for organizing campaigns. Akeem has worked in the labor movement for 17 years, most recently as the Legislative Coordinator for SEIU Michigan. Welcome Akeem!
I continue to be inspired by all the ways Healthcare Michigan members are building power and making change at the bargaining table, in our industries and in our communities.
We are committed to build an even stronger SEIU Healthcare Michigan that will fight to ensure all workers are protected, respected, paid fairly and all families can thrive.
In Unity,
Dian Palmer, Trustee
SEIU Healthcare Michigan