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DHHS employees to picket in Marquette

MARQUETTE, MI--   A union local is planning to picket the Marquette Department of Health and Human Services office to protest employee treatment by management.  

Steve Schmitt is the District 1DN Representative for UAW Local 6000.  He says the Marquette DHHS has lost about half of its staff since 2013, not through discipline but because of a lack of support from, and bullying by, management. 

Schmitt says the process of safeguarding children and vulnerable adults and passing out benefits to needy families is threatened by the constant change of staff, so the picket aims to make people—and DHHS management—aware of the problem.

“So, we would like to get individuals to understand that if management would work cooperatively with us—and it is their responsibility to make workers successful—that we would have much better outcomes for the citizens of the state of Michigan,” he says.

Schmitt notes the union has tried all other conventional methods to effect change, but nothing has been successful.

“We’re hoping that if we put it out to the public and the public can see clearly that it is a huge waste of taxpayer money to hire in new individuals, train them, provide for their needs to get them on the job, only to have them flee in a year—a huge waste of taxpayer funding.” 

The picket will be held Wednesday, July 20 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in front of the Marquette DHHS office at 234 W. Baraga Avenue.  

Nicole was born near Detroit but has lived in the U.P. most of her life. She graduated from Marquette Senior High School and attended Michigan State and Northern Michigan Universities, graduating from NMU in 1993 with a degree in English.