4,500 Professional Workers Authorize Strike Against Michigan Medicine

More than 4,500 professional hospital workers voted to authorize a strike against Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to win their first-ever contract, higher wages and benefits, an end to overwork and other improvements to working conditions.

Michigan Medicine workers picket July 29 to demand better wages and working conditions.

Rehabilitation and Behavioral Health Specialists; laboratory assistants and paramedics; and hospital services and advanced diagnostic and procedural technologists are members of the United Michigan Medicine Allied Professionals (UMMAP), which is Local 6739 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

The union announced the strike authorization vote on Instagram, posting a message saying 86 percent of members voted in favor of action against the hospital system, which is run by the University of Michigan, and 97 percent. The union has not announced a strike date.

UMMAP has been negotiating with the hospital since February, and the union said it has set a target date of Oct. 16 for a contract. Union officials told local media that Michigan Medicine refused to respond to a counterproposal that was presented to hospital officials in July.

Michigan Medicine issued a self-serving statement to local media, calling the workers’ strike vote “disappointing” but adding, “We remain confident that we can reach an agreement without a work stoppage” and “no work stoppages are planned.” »

Meanwhile, hospital management has made clear its intransigence and hostility towards workers’ struggles, saying: “We are currently planning to ensure safe staffing levels in the event of a work stoppage.”

UMMAP has not posted an update on its website regarding negotiations with the hospital since Aug. 31. The union said at the time that “significant steps” had been taken in negotiations with Michigan Medicine. UMMAP also said the negotiating team “offered a package of 14 contract items, including attendance, bereavement, management rights and more.”

Pointing out that the AFT-led UMMAP does not have a plan to fight the fight needed to achieve workers’ demands, the union said: “Package proposals typically include some wins for the union, some items management wants, and compromises in other areas in an attempt to settle a few questions at the same time.”

These facts, and the fact that UMMAP officials have not set a strike deadline or explained what the workers are demanding, should be taken as a warning to union members.

The announcement of the UMMAP strike authorization vote comes less than a week after Michigan Medicine’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced a tentative bargaining agreement ahead of a planned one-day strike by 2,700 workers who are also fighting for their first contract.

SEIU did not tell workers exactly what was in the agreement, a clear signal that the union has completely betrayed the workers’ demands by entering into a sell-out agreement that gives the hospital virtually everything it wants. The union’s U-turn came after other hospital unions ordered their members to go to work and cross SEIU picket lines.

There can be no doubt that the same betrayal is now being committed by UMMAP-AFL officials.

The expanding movement of Michigan Medicine workers is part of a growing working-class uprising against decades of attacks on jobs, living standards and basic rights by corporations and governments around the world.

The movement is also in direct conflict with the trade union apparatus of highly paid bureaucrats linked to employers and ruling class political parties. In the US, this takes the form of integration of unions such as SEIU and UMMAP, as well as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the University of Michigan Professional Nursing Council (UMPNC), and the United Physician Assistants. Michigan Medicine (UPAMM) and the House of Representatives Association (HOA) are with the Democratic Party.

With Election Day less than two weeks away, unions are participating in Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and doing everything they can to prevent a labor strike from breaking out. Union bureaucrats are busy promoting the false claim that Harris is a friend of workers, when in fact she is a member of the billionaire power elite.

Meanwhile, the union apparatus is concerned that outbreaks of strikes and mass worker protests will merge with deeply felt working-class resistance to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, waged by both Democrats and Republicans.

Michigan Medicine employees should pay attention to the six-week strike by 33,000 Boeing workers. Workers who are members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) have now voted against two contractual agreements negotiated by the union that do not represent their interests.

UMMAP workers must begin now to reverse the isolation of various groups of hospital employees by Michigan Medicine’s many unions. It is necessary to create rank-and-file committees of technical and professional staff, other hospital workers, nurses and doctors. They must start by taking the fight for hospital workers’ demands out of the hands of the union bureaucracy and uniting the entire workforce in the fight, starting with a system-wide open-ended strike.

All contract negotiations must be broadcast live to workers. No back room offers!

The rank-and-file committees will draw up a list of tough demands for all parts of the staff, set a strike deadline, and begin the mass action against hospital management and the University of Michigan Board of Regents necessary to win. .

Michigan Medicine’s rank-and-file committees must also unite health care workers throughout the industry against all employers, whether nominally nonprofit or private, in the fight to take profits out of the health care industry in the fight for socialist policies.