Corewell Health nurses seeking to join Teamsters union
(CBS DETROIT) - More than 9,000 nurses who work for nine Corewell East hospitals could soon be part of Teamsters, which would make the third-largest unionization effort in the United States in the past five years.
This comes after the nurses submitted enough cards of interest to the National Labor Relations Board, who then approved the right to hold a formal vote.
"Based on the number of cards we got for union authorization with Teamsters, the percentages are very good," said Katrina Wallace, who works at the Corewell Hospital in Troy. "We're doing this for the patients."
Wallace, who has been organizing the effort, said that the hospital's staffing has been lacking for some time. According to her, this has led to decreased quality of patient care and overworked nurses who have no protection if exhaustion leads to a malpractice case.
"We could lose our licenses," Wallace said. "Nobody wants to have a mistake happen, but when you're exhausted, things can go wrong. This is why we need to have a fully-staffed hospital, but instead, we have corporate greed."
Wallace said there is still an uphill battle to fight, and getting the 50 plus one vote needed to fully unionize, which is required by the NLRB, will be difficult because of the timing of the vote.
"We asked for mail-in ballots, but they denied us, even after hundreds of nurses sent letters explaining why," Wallace told CBS News Detroit. "Now, each of the 9 hospitals at Corewell have different dates and times to do it, but they all coincide with shift changes."
In a statement to CBS News Detroit, Corewell said:
"We respect our team members' rights to explore joining a union, however, we 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."
Wallace said she and her fellow nurses tried the way that Corewell executives suggested works best, but they are still overworked and understaffed. That's why, she said, this vote has to work in their favor.
"The union would give us a power to be able to advocate for our patients and give us a voice in our profession," said Wallace. "We would have 9700 nurses behind the negotiation table. That's a pretty powerful force."
