SEIU Healthcare Michigan lost more than 44,000 members in 2014 when the Supreme Court ruled that their dues scheme was over. Sadly, it appears that wasn’t the only scheme SEIU had up its sleeve. All it took was $76.67 for home-care worker Patricia Johansen to realize SEIU was attempting to pull one over on her. The organization claimed they’d received an organizing card and approval for dues deduction from Johansen with her signature. Johansen says she never saw or signed any such card. She requested a copy of the card be sent to her. When Johansen received it, she says it was clear the signature was forged. “I’m left-handed, the letters are all formed differently. So they didn’t have my signature. Somebody else just signed my name to it.” An SEIU Healthcare Michigan executive told Johansen that their investigation into the matter was “inconclusive;” however, they would go ahead and refund the money. Bill Messenger, an attorney with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, is challenging the union’s constitutionality saying the card controversy points to a larger issue. “I think that this just shows why the SEIU cannot be entrusted with personal information about all PCAs (personal care assistants) in the state, which the state agreed to hand over to the SEIU without any safeguards on how SEIU uses that information.” In other SEIU news, Dave Regan announced last month that he’s moved $3 million of his members’ dues money into a political fund. The fund is for a ballot initiative that would, in Regan’s dreams, pressure the California Hospital Association back into their failed sweetheart deal.
