A recent editorial out of Michigan exposes the attempt by the state’s legislators to again team up with unions and create a “shell” state organization through which to force another group of home health care workers into paying dues to various unions, such as SEIU and AFSCME. We have discussed the ploy by Big Labor and several state governments that has pushed family home-care providers into dues-paying union members, and in Michigan this occurred in 2006, benefiting the UAW and AFSCME. That state’s human services department has yet to adequately explain its role in that development, which has led to a legislative inquiry and a lawsuit. This new law takes a new class of health care providers who work with the elderly and disabled and accomplishes the same thing. According to the article,
The National Federation of Independent Business-Michigan says Rep. Johnson’s House Bill 6195 would continue the flow of $6 million in taxpayer money each year from the state health department to the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) as dues for home care contractors. The suspicion among opponents such as the NFIB, which is raising the alarm, is that SEIU wants to firm-up the arrangement to make it harder for next year’s new governor and legislature to undo it.
