2,300 Univ. of Michigan Health Workers Unionize As Part of Growing Labor Movement

Detroit Free Press, March 27, 2024.

More than 2,300 University of Michigan Health employees have joined the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Michigan, part of a growing labor union-represented workforce at the Ann Arbor-based health system.

The newly organized workers include patient care techs, along with phlebotomists and phlebotomist specialists, unit clerks and patient services employees. They join a group of 283 Michigan Medicine respiratory therapists and technicians who unionized in July and now are bargaining their first contract, the union said in a statement.

Willie Griggs, who has worked as a patient service associate at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital for the last five years, said the work he and his colleagues do is vital to the patient experience.

We make sure patients have a positive first interaction with the University of Michigan health system," Griggs said in a statement. "I grew up in a union family in the auto industry and I saw the benefits and protections it provided them. A union at the University of Michigan gives us a voice to express our concerns and be heard in the workplace."...

https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2024/03/27/2300-workers-university-michigan-health-unionize-organized-labor/73110218007/