Dear members,

We have been fighting to ensure that frontline workers like you receive respect, protection, and pay in your workplaces. That work includes making sure our elected leaders champion workers’ priorities, including passing legislation and policies that center you and your needs. SEIU Healthcare Michigan will always hold elected officials accountable for that. 

This month, the legislature passed a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. While the increases in education funding and support for local governments are long-overdue steps in the right direction, the budget ultimately fails to provide essential workers with the support they have demanded for the past 2 years. 

In fact, Republican leadership has outright refused to include ANY Hero Pay in their budget. While the current $2.35 wage pass-through for nursing home workers will continue, they have refused to expand the $2.35/hour wage pass-through for all nursing home workers. They refused to prioritize essential workers in any way.

Instead, Republicans are holding the $7 billion funding hostage, shamelessly trying to score political victories as they head into election season. They could have used this money for Hero Pay, they could have used it to expand the $2.35–but instead they are playing politics. The Republicans’ ultimate goals are to win the Governor’s seat in November and hand out massive tax cuts to corporations and wealthy individuals in 2023. 

As healthcare workers, you are still dealing with an urgent staffing crisis, 2+ years of COVID waves, employers with unprecedented profits, which are really your unpaid wages, etc. These political tactics from the Republican majorities are completely unacceptable. We are angry and disappointed that Republican leaders put politics over the needs of essential workers. We now need leaders who will go the extra mile to support workers, not bail out corporations or billionaires. We have a real opportunity to make a difference this fall by flipping the state senate, and that starts this November with voting for candidates that support a pro-worker agenda. If you are as angry about this as I am–please reach out to Kevin Lignell at kevin.lignell@seiuheatlhcaremi.org – the work of making sure workers win in November starts TODAY.

We have vehicles in place such as the Governor’s Nursing Home Workforce Stabilization Council where 3 of our members and Trustee Dian Palmer will serve to put pressure on the industry and government to make the changes we need for essential workers and the people you care for. The state budget is frustrating, we must continue to organize and keep fighting for what every worker in this state truly deserves.

In Unity,

Dian Palmer, Trustee

SEIU Healthcare Michigan