Late last week, a curious event took place involving nurses at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, MI. There, a Teamsters strike reached the one-year mark on Sept. 1, but the long-winded nature of this strike isn’t the news here. The Teamsters notoriously love exerting maximum financial pressure upon employers, and last year, the union threw a barbecue to mark the one-year anniversary of a Bigfoot Beverages strike in Oregon, where union members were only guaranteed $200 per week strike pay.
That barbecue was a weird flex that makes one wonder if the Teamsters ever read the room and acknowledge when their members grow frustrated during indefinite strikes with no signs of ending. Well, that brings us to Henry Ford Genesys, where a group of 80 acute-care Registered Nurses (RNs) filed a decertification petition for an election to boot the Teamsters.
A petition without an explanation
These nurses haven’t made a statement to the press, so admittedly, we cannot know precisely why they want to remove the Teamsters as their bargaining representative. However, it’s not a stretch to say that they’re disappointed in Local 332’s handling of contract talks, which began in April 2025 and have since stalemated while the union sets its sights on other organizing targets. Back when the strike reached the six-month mark, Local 332 President Kevin Moore boasted to reporters, “You think we’re just done with Henry Ford? ... You think there’s not more hospitals in the State of Michigan that want Teamster help? We’re not backing up from any hospital.”
The Teamsters’ dirty ULP tactics came back to them
Naturally, the union has filed numerous ULPs, mainly alleging refusal to bargain, against Henry Ford Genesys since 2024, and they’ve openly bragged about these filings. What isn’t receiving attention, however, is that Genesys workers–although we don’t know how many of them hail from the decertification petition’s unit of 80–have filed just as many ULPs against the Teamsters since 2024. Those workers accused the union of coercion, harassment, and unfairness regarding dues and strike actions.
The Teamsters’ attendance contract clause backfired
As we’ve previously discussed, the union’s fact vs. fiction game included making false claims about nurse-to-patient ratios while Henry Ford countered that they’ve stayed fully staffed before and during the strike. In fact, says Henry Ford, the Teamsters themselves encouraged staffing shortages by directing nurses to “take turns calling off scheduled shifts.” This resulted in union members staying home “5,872 times between January and August 2025, averaging 25 absences per day at Genesys compared to just 4 at Henry Ford Rochester and 11 at West Bloomfield.”
These shenanigans were part of the Teamsters’ manipulation of a contract clause that “incentivize[d] coordinated call-outs” by boosting pay for nurses who come to work during heightened absenteeism. This tactic was waged so aggressively, according to the hospital, that 25 nurse call outs per day is “the equivalent of an entire unit of staff.”
Fighting words on the picket line
While putting in face time during the Henry Ford Genesys strike, Sean O’Brien complained, “Management needs to prioritize the experience of Teamsters nurses over temporary workers.” Since then, picket lines involving around 750 nurses and case workers have been ongoing at the addresses provided in the decertification petition. Also, a Henry Ford spokesperson called the union's agenda “simply an economic strike.”
Henry Ford has also clarified that they must use temporary nurses to fill staffing gaps to properly serve the hospital’s community. That sounds like common sense, but unfortunately, Henry Ford found itself in the position of needing to counter union fiction by pointing out how temporary workers are, by nature, temporary, and that if the Teamsters ended their strike, then striking nurses would return to their jobs.
Wages and more on the bargaining table
Henry Ford has already implemented their most current offer by increasing RN wages by up to 13%, which bumps up the hospital systems’ annual RN salaries to around $100,000. That’s higher than the Michigan statistics of RNs with 5+ years experience falling into the “$85,000 – $95,000” range. Henry Ford raised these wages despite Genesys' financial hardship with “average annual losses of about $50 million.” Meanwhile, the Teamsters haven’t publicly disclosed what salaries they’re pushing for, but they appear to erroneously believe that hospitals have an unlimited supply of money.
Where the process goes from here
Sadly, the Henry Ford Genesys strike is a PR tactic by the Teamsters as part of their plan to mass-organize Michigan nurses despite the union’s questionable expertise in this industry. This is, after all, a union traditionally representing freight, logistics, and Hollywood workers.
At least some Henry Ford Genesys nurses have seen through the Teamsters’ tactics, and we’ll be watching to see when the decertification petition leads to a scheduled election by the NLRB. At that point, 80 RNs will decide whether they’re done with the Teamsters, and we’ll be watching to see whether the rest of the striking nurses follow suit. Until then, this strike isn’t good for workers, patients, or the community served.
