This year, the Center for Labor and Community Studies released a Labor Day Report examining the state of labor in Michigan. This year’s report, led by Dr. Roland Zullo and a team of researchers, combined rigorous data analysis with powerful stories from the field to illuminate both the numbers and the people behind them.
The 2025 report included two primary components:
A quantitative analysis of employment and wage trends using data from the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and
A qualitative exploration of two recent unionizing successes in Michigan: Teamsters 2024 and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 951.
The Numbers Tell a Story
In the quantitative section, researchers examined Michigan’s growing reliance on social support systems such as Medicaid and food assistance, alongside trends in employment and wages for both unionized and non-unionized workers. The data painted a stark picture: while productivity and demand for labor continue to rise, wages for many working-class Michiganders have not kept pace.
One sector that vividly illustrates this growing divide is healthcare. The report highlights nurses as a case study—workers who are essential, predominantly women, and yet significantly underpaid compared to physicians and other providers in the same system. Despite persistent demand for nurses—particularly since the onset of COVID-19—their wages have remained largely stagnant.
To the research team, this contradiction signaled more than just an economic trend; it represented a moment of opportunity. When workers’ contributions increase but their compensation does not, the conditions are ripe for collective action.
From Data to Dialogue: Listening to Organizers
To bring these patterns to life, the team turned to stories from Michigan’s recent wave of union victories. Using National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) data, researchers identified two Michigan unions that successfully won certification in 2025. The certification of International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 2024 was a historic victory: nearly 10,000 nurses at Corewell Health joined the unionized workforce, the largest hospital organizing effort in Michigan history.
Researchers partnered with Teamsters 2024 to conduct focus groups, giving nurses the opportunity to share firsthand how they built unity, resilience, and creativity amid an intense anti-union campaign.
What emerged from those conversations was not only a story of strategic organizing, but one of humor, hope, and community. Nurses described using comedy and social media as tools to counter Corewell Health’s union-busting tactics. They created memes featuring the image of a paid union-buster—who earned over $250 an hour—to warn their colleagues and highlight the irony of a healthcare system spending millions to prevent workers from having a voice.
Through laughter and solidarity, these nurses turned fear into collective power.
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 951 had a historic victory in their own right. Local 951 successfully unionized High Profile, a cannabis retailer managed by C3 Industries. Labor organizing in this industry was of interest to the team, as adult-use cannabis is significant to Michigan’s economy, unlike most other Midwest states. A six-year-old industry, Michigan cannabis is both a fledgling sector of the economy and a significant one, with sales higher than every state but California.
The UFCW focus groups provided similar stories of inspiring organizing strategies as well as the challenges of their work environment that led them to organizing> “I think the big one [grievance by Tenders] was we knew our labor was short. They extended our store hours, and they cut our labor back all the while not hiring new people when old people were leaving.”
Cannabis workers and nurses alike are facing unfair wages for increased work expectations. Both took action and chose to organize, leveraging power through unionization drives. These focus groups highlighted how organizers build and spread solidarity, among workers and with their communities. Participants shared the sense of accomplishment and camaraderie developed through collective action.
Bringing Research to Life
The stories and experiences of these newly organized workers transformed the abstract data into lived experience. Illustrating that the “state of labor” is not only measured in numbers or charts, these stories centered courage, creativity, and connection among workers.
The blending of quantitative and qualitative methods offered a fuller picture—one that shows why labor statistics matter. Behind every data point is a worker striving for dignity, fairness, and a voice on the job.
As one researcher reflected, “Data can show us the trend, but stories show us the movement.”
