NEW: Mike Duggan’s Disastrous Union-Busting, Anti-Labor Record Against Nurses Revealed

NEW: Mike Duggan's Disastrous Union-Busting, Anti-Labor Record Against Nurses Revealed

A new report from Michigan Advance reveals that Mike Duggan led a "vicious" campaign of union-busting and anti-labor tactics against nurses and health care workers who wanted safer conditions and better pay as head of the Detroit Medical Center.

As Michigan Advance reports, Duggan stonewalled and dismissed nurses and health care workers who sought equal pay and attempted to unionize under poor working conditions "through surveillance, retaliation, interrogations, banning pro-union literature, and attempts to reclassify nurses as supervisors to disqualify them from the union vote."

Duggan is now hiding and refusing to answer for his anti-labor record - "his campaign did not make him available" for questions. This comes after a recent story uncovered the vast network of far right Republicans, MAGA loyalists, and "conservative power brokers" funding his campaign. Duggan has also recently defended Donald Trump's health care cuts, saying "These Medicaid cuts are not as bad as they look."

"Mike Duggan's record of silencing, dismissing, and intimidating nurses and health care workers is the latest proof he can't be trusted to stand up for working Michiganders," said DGA Communications Director Sam Newton.

Read more from Michigan Advance on Duggan's disastrous record on labor:

• Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has positioned himself as a friend of labor as he seeks the office of governor in 2026, but his past dealings with unions when he headed up the Detroit Medical Center shows he had fraught relationships with workers attempting to organize and seeking equal pay.

• Among them: Nurses who worked at the medical center and tried to organize a new bargaining unit against pushback from Duggan's administration; and Teamsters representing medical lab workers, who waged legal battles against Duggan to equalize pay rates for women and minorities during contract negotiations.

• The Advance also interviewed nurses, their advocates and other union members who say Duggan's efforts blocked health system nurses from forming a new bargaining unit.

• Michigan Advance also attempted to interview Duggan for this story. His campaign did not make him available.

• Although the Detroit Medical Center allegations were not new, taken together, they paint a picture of Duggan's early career reluctance to accept or support union activity.

• Several former employees or those working with them on the effort told the Advance that Duggan's administration at the hospital system suppressed organizing activity through surveillance, retaliation, interrogations, banning pro-union literature, and attempts to reclassify nurses as supervisors to disqualify them from the union vote.

• Archived stories in the now-defunct Michigan Citizen, a weekly, Black-owned progressive newspaper in Detroit, reported that nurses testified that employees suspected of organizing were subject to intimidation and disciplinary action, including being written up for handing out organizing materials or interrogated about organizing activity.

• Merenda said some nurses leading the drive were brought up on disciplinary charges for what she claimed were insignificant things; solely as an attempt to quell the effort or harass union-curious nurses.

• Copies of some of the flyers nurses said the medical center used to deter them from organizing were also obtained by the Advance. One with a DMC Children's Hospital of Michigan letterhead asked nurses to "know your facts" about "daily life under a contract." It warned that last minute requests for time off due to family needs or schedule changes could be compromised, and predicted mandated overtime and seniority job bidding quirks.

• Perlmutter and the Sugar Law Center distributed an open letter, signed by more than 30 Detroit area faith letters, to Duggan and the hospital system's board asking them to respect the nurses' wishes to build a union and to sign a fair election agreement.

• It wasn't just the nurses who had issues with Duggan. Teamsters Local 283 represents the Detroit Medical Center's lab assistants, and continued to fight against the health system over its contracts after Duggan left. Steve Hicks, president of Teamsters Local 283, said Duggan's relationship with the local was fraught, especially when it came to equalizing the pay for a Black lab assistant who was making less than her peers.

• "I don't know how any bona fide trade unionist could support Mike Duggan for any office in lieu of the vicious anti-union campaign that was conducted at DMC while he was CEO," Armelagos said.

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