Thousands of nurses in the Corewell Health system are voting on whether to unionize and become part of the Teamsters Union.
“I think many are feeling like it’s becoming untenable, and what options do they have to fight back against the organization or systems,” said Dean and professor of Wayne State University’s College of Nursing Dean and professor, Ramona Benkert.
Benkert says she believes it all stems from nurses being overworked.
“I think there’s many nurses who are unfortunately leaving the profession, particularly those under the age of 35 who are leaving sooner than they had anticipated, and that’s leaving the nurses who are remaining in an understaffed position,” Benkert said.
If the nurses do vote to join the Teamsters union, this will be one of the biggest groups to unionize, not to mention the largest healthcare systems in the state.
At the end of the day, we’re told the nurses don’t want it to affect the well-being of the patients.
“I think what’s happening and why you’re seeing the shift towards unionizing is that nurses are really putting in mentally and emotionally and physically, 150% effort, and so they are working extra hard to ensure that that doesn’t happen, that the risks and the safety issues are protected,” Benkert said.
According to surveys, It appears the problems, however, will not go away with this issue.
“The thing that the challenge in Michigan in particular is that, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, we’re sort of in the top 10 of states that are going to have a potential nursing shortage in the next few years. So it’s just going to be a growing challenge,” Benkert said.
Although voting hasn’t closed yet, some believe nurses will actually vote to join Teamsters.
“I do know that in speaking with other nurses or even some of our alum that, there is a really intense sense of patient safety worries. And so again, I don’t know if I’m betting, but I would suspect that there may be movement towards unionizing,” Benkert said.
Corewell Health sent the following statement on the vote:
“We respect unions. However, we believe the majority of our nurses do not want a union. We also believe our ability to provide high-quality care to our patients and maintain a positive work environment is best achieved through a direct working relationship with our nurses.”
Corewell Health