When Ravina Turner first joined Michigan’s Home Help Program in 2015, she was simply relieved to earn a paycheck for the unpaid care she’d been providing to her daughter, Davina, who suffers from Crohn’s disease and colitis. For years, Turner, now 53, had juggled her responsibilities as a nursing assistant with her role as a caregiver—often missing work and stretching every dollar. The program, administered by Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services, initially paid her about $300 a month. It was never enough, but it was something.
Fast forward to last year, and Turner had become a full-time caregiver for her daughter, earning $15.88 an hour. Yet, as she pointed out, that’s still far below the $35.59 per hour considered a living wage for a single parent in Dearborn Heights, outside Detroit, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. "This is a job and we deserve benefits. We deserve health insurance as well as life insurance. We deserve vacation... because if I was punching a clock, I would get all those perks," Turner told Capital & Main.
Turner’s story is one shared by thousands of home care workers across Michigan—predominantly women, often older, and racially diverse—who have long faced stagnant wages, no benefits, and limited access to training. For years, many accepted these conditions as an unfortunate reality, until a new wave of organizing swept the state.
In March 2024, Michigan Home Care Workers United launched with a mission: to secure union recognition for home care workers paid through Medicaid. The campaign, spearheaded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), quickly gained traction. Turner’s own involvement began after a canvasser knocked on her door and revealed that home health aides in states like Washington were earning significantly higher starting rates—$21 per hour in 2023. The message was clear: change was possible.
By October 2024, the movement had scored a major victory. Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill granting Home Help workers state employee status for the purposes of collective bargaining, opening the door for unionization. Just a year later, in October 2025, 32,000 Michigan home care aides became union members after an overwhelming 73% voted to join SEIU. As of December 22, 2025, the union is negotiating its first contract with the state.
The significance of this win can’t be overstated. According to Capital & Main, it’s only the second time such a large-scale unionization has succeeded in a state that twice voted for President Donald Trump. Kevin Reuning, a political science professor at Miami University of Ohio and creator of UnionElections.org, called the Michigan home care worker win a “rare” victory, citing the sheer difficulty of organizing workers spread across a state as vast and politically divided as Michigan. "It is statewide... that poses such an incredible difficulty because you don’t have all your workers in a single location. It just makes the actual organizing hard," Reuning explained.
Indeed, the campaign’s strength lay in its ability to build bridges across Michigan’s diverse political landscape. The union’s membership spans urban centers and suburbs—home to the state’s Black and brown workers and Democratic voters—as well as rural areas, which are predominantly white and heavily Republican. Gabriella Jones-Casey, executive vice president of home care and staff development for SEIU Healthcare Michigan, highlighted this unity: "We represent workers all across the state from the UP [Upper Peninsula] down. The challenges that arise might be different across the urban areas versus the rural versus suburban, but that’s kind of the beauty of this unit. They are representative of the entirety of Michigan."
Workers like Erika LaFountain, who lives in conservative Jackson County, about an hour west of Detroit, found themselves at the heart of this coalition. Jackson County is 82% white and Trump won it by more than 20 points in 2024. LaFountain never saw herself as an activist. "I’m like, I don’t think that’s me. I think you’re talking about nurses and, like, people with degrees," she recalled. Yet her journey into home health care began when she helped her wheelchair-bound neighbor, Ricky Johnson, get into his home without a ramp. What started as a neighborly gesture became a job—albeit one that didn’t pay enough to live on.
LaFountain’s experiences echo those of many caregivers: “I started just telling Ricky’s struggles, our story and our struggles, and how if there was health insurance, that I wouldn’t have to be on Medicaid.” For Turner, who lives in deep-blue Wayne County (where Kamala Harris won by nearly 30 points in 2024), the message resonated just as strongly. “I learned that there’s power in numbers… strength in numbers,” she said. While she considers herself fortunate—her daughter has good days that allow her to leave the house for a few hours—Turner is acutely aware of caregivers who can’t step away. “The ones that can’t leave… those are the ones that I was really fighting for.”
The union’s demands are straightforward: higher wages, benefits like health and life insurance, paid time off, access to training, and a registry to connect workers with clients in need of care. These issues are not just about economics—they’re about dignity and respect for a workforce that is essential and growing. According to Capital & Main, long-term home health care is expected to grow by 17% over the next decade. Yet, the field is plagued by high turnover, with nearly 75% of workers leaving their jobs in 2024 alone.
Compounding these challenges are policy headwinds at both the state and federal levels. In July 2024, the Trump administration proposed rolling back federal minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers. Catherine Ruckelshaus, legal director at the National Employment Law Project, didn’t mince words: “This is a serious rollback, and it’s going to exacerbate shortages. It’s pretty much a disaster.” At the same time, local cuts to Medicaid—the primary funder of Michigan’s Home Help Program—threaten to undermine the very system that supports caregivers and their clients.
Despite these hurdles, the unionization effort has already demonstrated the power of collective action. Hundreds of home care workers have pounded the pavement, sharing their stories and rallying colleagues from Detroit to the Upper Peninsula. As Jones-Casey put it, “Hundreds of home care workers have had boots on the ground for a very long time.”
For politicians and advocates alike, the Michigan victory offers a blueprint for building coalitions across America’s political divides by focusing on material concerns that cut across party lines. The success of Michigan’s home care workers shows that, even in an era of polarization, there is still room for solidarity—and for hope.
