Several years ago, Michigan corrected a labor wrong by removing a requirement that home care givers under Michigan’s Medicaid program be in a union. Many of these workers who had to pay union dues were family members receiving a stipend for providing those care services to people in their own family.

Senate Bills 790 and 791 creates a Home Help Care Council. It also classifies home caregivers as employees of the state rather than an employee of the person they care for under this program. By making these individual caregivers employees of the state, in turn, this permits the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to collect dues from these home care workers that would otherwise be used to pay for that family member’s food and other expenses.

Fortunately, because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision in 2018 these home care workers may legally opt out of the union. If anyone knows one of the estimated 30,000 independent health care providers in Michigan, be sure to mention that to them as they may have to start paying up to 2 -3 hours of their pay every month to the SEIU. When this program was in place before being eliminated back in 2013, the state’s then “health care provider employer” took over $34 million in union dues from those providers’ paychecks.

Last month, as these bills were being considered by Michigan’s Legislature, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) pushed to have the bills amended to exempt individual family members that provided care to a son, daughter, mother, father, or sibling under the Medicaid funded program.  That amendment push was ignored by the Michigan State Democrat Legislators pushing the union friendly bill to passage. The current version of the bill keeps those people covered by the law and will subject them to loss of income that will go to supporting the SEIU and their continued support of the union friendly Democratic majority in Michigan’s legislature.

Governor Whitmer will sign these bills putting these employees in a union they never voted for so the SEIU can get back that lost revenue – some of which likely will go back to the Democratic Party as contributions by the SEIU to that party in this state.

Source: Whitmer to Sign Bills Unionizing Family Caregivers in Michigan The Center Square (10/3/2024)