Labor News & Commentary November 22, nurses in Michigan vote to unionize and a hotel workers strike continues in Vegas

https://onlabor.org/november-22-2024/

By Esther Ritchin Esther Ritchin is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s news and commentary, nurses in Michigan vote to unionize and a hotel workers strike continues in Las Vegas.

Nurses at Corewell Health in Michigan voted to unionize after a year-long campaign. This election resulted in one of the largest union election victories in nearly 20 years, according to the NLRB, with this election representing nearly 10,000 workers. The vote was 4,958 for the union to 2,957 against, representing a 62% approval vote. The Teamsters president described an aggressive anti-union campaign by Corewell Health. Due to the large size of the bargaining unit, the nurses will have their own local chapter of the Teamsters union.

Hotel workers at a casino in Las Vegas have been on strike since Friday, asking for a new five-year contract and rejecting the hotel’s proposal of $0.30 per year raises. The hotel has hired scabs to maintain operations, citing almost 650 applications for the vacant positions. The strike is set to continue during the heavily-attended Formula One weekend, which began yesterday. Some have criticized the Laborers Union Pension Fund of Eastern and Central Canada, upon discovering that they, among other investors, own the hotel in question. Workers report being ignored and dismissed by the pension fund when they attempted to contact them, including by going to their offices in person.