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Beaumont Health faced challenges when the unpopular CEO John Fox made staff cuts and changed hospital policies, negatively impacting the quality of care at its eight-hospitals. Then in 2022, Fox successfully merged Beaumont with Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids.
Fox left with a generous $10 million exit package, and the merged system was renamed Corewell.
While the name changed, the issues facing nurses did not. They complained about working conditions. And after failed attempts in the past, they are once again moving forward with an attempt to unionize and will vote on the issue next momth.
Crain's Detroit Business reports:
Now Corewell faces the third-largest union organizing effort in the nation since at least 2019, behind the organizing of 40,000 workers at Disney World in 2021 and the organizing of 15,500 workers at AT&T Mobility in Ohio, according to an analysis of data from the National Labor Relations Board.
Beaumont nurses claim diminishing working conditions before and since Corewell was formed out of the merger, while the Grand Rapids- and Southfield-based health system is contending with rising costs and large payroll from the legacy Beaumont operations.
The result of the vote by 9,168 nurses across eight former Beaumont hospitals next month could trigger one of the nation’s most powerful union takeovers of health care and create a further ripple across the sector in the state.
