Henry Ford Rochester Hospital will remain open to the community. We have a plan in place to ensure the highest standard of care and safety for our patients and team members. We believe strongly that the offer we’ve made to our nurses is a fair, competitive, and thoughtful investment in our future together.  

Consistent with our commitment to nurses across our health system, our offer includes competitive wages and benefits, while ensuring safe staffing and a sustainable financial future for our hospital.

We remain grateful for our talented nurses and the care and compassion they bring to our patients and our organization every day, and we are steadfast in our commitment to a culture that values their unique, professional expertise. We look forward to welcoming those who have chosen to strike back to work.

Facts about the OPEIU strike at Henry Ford Rochester Hospital:

• Henry Ford Rochester Hospital remains open to the community. With the help of an outside staffing agency, we have a plan in place to properly staff our units and ensure the highest standard of care and safety for our patients and team members.

• There are approximately 350 registered nurses on our team at Henry Ford Rochester Hospital. On May 29, their union notified us that they plan to strike beginning Monday, June 9.  We are giving every Henry Ford Rochester nurse the option to work during the strike and receive their full pay. We are not “locking out” striking nurses.

• The offer on the table reflects our commitment to nurses across our health system and our respect for their unique, professional experience. Our offer includes competitive wages and benefits, while ensuring safe staffing and a sustainable financial future for our hospital. We believe strongly that the offer we’ve made to our nurses is a fair, competitive, and thoughtful investment in our future together.

• We’re committed to safe nurse staffing models that provide the best quality of care for our patients and our communities. We staff our hospitals based on patient volumes and other factors. Mandated staffing ratios hinder our ability to adapt to varying patient conditions. 

• We have negotiated with union representatives in good faith since the Rochester hospital became part of Henry Ford Health on Oct. 1, 2024. Since we received the strike notice from the union on May 29, we’ve communicated several things to our nursing community including reinforcing nurses’ rights to choose whether to participate in the strike and requesting they notify us of their intent so we can continue to care for our patients without disruption during the strike period. Additionally, we continue to communicate transparently – fully disclosing the details of our last, best, final offer so team members can make an informed decision. 

• To our knowledge there has never been a been a strike in Henry Ford Health’s 110-year history.  We’ve historically enjoyed positive and productive relationships with a small number of unions. We are deeply committed to fostering direct relationships with our team members. At the same time, we are proud of the positive relationships we’ve built with our union colleagues for many years and continue to recognize the role they play. 

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