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By Holly Wetzel
Michigan is once again allowing unions to siphon money meant for homecare providers. New laws that will take effect next year reinstate the dues skim by classifying homecare providers as public employees and allowing them to be unionized. Under this practice, some of the state’s most vulnerable workers — most of whom care for family members — will be pressured into union membership.
Many may join because they believe a union is able to help increase their pay and provide benefits, as the United Auto Workers aims to do in contract negotiations with Ford or General Motors. But this is not true. The union has no negotiating power. The Legislature sets the funding and pay rates, and no union can collectively bargain with the Legislature.
Patrick Wright, vice president for legal affairs, highlighted this point and others during his testimony before the Michigan House Appropriations Committee. “These two bills would take necessary resources from our most vulnerable citizens and their family member providers and divert a windfall to the SEIU, for the union to use as it sees fit, including spending on partisan politics,” Wright noted.
While the door to this exploitative practice has been reopened, the Mackinac Center is forcefully challenging the union’s narrative. At the committee meeting, one Democratic lawmaker questioned Wright about pay and benefits. Wright pointed out that if the Legislature felt that homecare workers are underpaid or wanted to add benefits, it could change that right now, no union necessary.
The state and national coverage on this issue has turned what might have been a quiet policy change into a public debate. The Mackinac Center has been interviewed and quoted in multiple articles, including a Wall Street Journal editorial that highlighted the egregiousness of the new laws.
Unlike the last time the dues skim was in place, public employees now have a constitutional right to opt out of union membership. But unions will have an easier time recruiting, as the new laws require all caregivers to attend a mandatory training where unions will have 30 minutes to distribute information and materials. Lawmakers struck down an amendment that would have made caregivers aware of their First Amendment right to opt out.
The Mackinac Center has stepped up to inform these individuals of their rights and will continue to do so in the coming months. By arming homecare workers with this critical information, the Mackinac Center is working to equip Michigan’s most vulnerable with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about union membership.
