Teamsters Mobilize to Demand a Fair Contract for DMC Workers

(DETROIT, Mich.) – On Friday, Detroit Medical Center (DMC) workers rallied outside of Harper University Hospital to demand a fair contract. Teamsters Local 283 represents DMC’s lab assistants and customer service representatives.

“For far too long, our departments have been understaffed and workers have been overworked and unappreciated,” said Valerie Dodson, lab assistant at DMC and Local 283 steward. “It is even more demeaning to know that we are not valued after working through one of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history. During the height of the COVID-19 crisis, we were lauded as heroes, but now we are being treated as zeroes.”

“We have been bargaining with DMC since last November,” said Steve Hicks, President of Local 283. “In the time since we started negotiations, DMC has offered workers pennies in wage increases while giving their CEO an $8 million wage increase. Pennies don’t put food on the table, pennies don’t pay rent, and pennies don’t even cover a tank of gas. Enough is enough.”

DMC Teamsters have been working under an expired contract since December 2022. To date, DMC has offered miniscule wage increases and refuses to bargain on health care.

“I have been with this company for 25 years and we’re asking for wages that keep up with inflation and an increased cost of living. We are asking for dollars, not cents,” said Crystal Haywood, lab assistant at DMC and Local 283 steward.

Workers were joined by fellow Teamsters from across the state from Locals 243, 299, 332, 337, 406, 614, and 1038.

“We have your back statewide,” said Kevin Moore, President of Joint Council 43. “With 240,000 active and retired members, we will stay with you in this fight until the end.”

Teamsters Local 283 represents more than 800 workers in a variety of industries in the Detroit region.

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