NLPC: In Minnesota, the Service Employees International Union might qualify as a separate branch of government. Governor Mark Dayton, for one, wouldn’t object. Three years ago the State of Minnesota enacted a law opening the door to unionizing private home care providers for the disabled. The law would seem destined for the history bin. In June 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Harris v. Quinn, ruled that an Illinois law forcing home care workers to pay union dues violated their free speech. That these employees received a portion of their salaries from state Medicaid funds, concluded the Court, does not subject them to a public-sector bargaining agreement. Yet the Minnesota law’s supporters have sidestepped the ruling, enriching union coffers in the process. Opponents are fighting back.
The Service Employees gambit in Minnesota goes back nearly five years. In November 2011, Governor Dayton, a Democrat, issued an executive order authorizing union elections for private child care providers. The initiative soon hit a roadblock. In April 2012, Ramsey County District Court Judge Dale Lindman struck down the governor’s order as unconstitutional. The executive order wasn’t popular either. Personal care providers voted against unionization by an almost three-to-one margin. And in the legislature, Republican State Rep. Kathy Lohmer later that year sponsored a bill to prevent unions from deducting dues payments from child care providers who were paid in part or in full with state funds. Lawmakers passed the measure, but Gov. Dayton vetoed it. Rep. Lohmer responded this way: “Simply put, the governor could attempt to exert his authority in other ways over the next two years he is in office, and my legislation would have created protections should that happen. Looking ahead, Minnesotans need to send a clear, resounding message that we need to protect our private business owners from a union takeover.”
Governor Dayton, an heir to the Target discount store fortune, did send a clear, resounding message – on behalf of the Service Employees International Union. He pushed for legislation, the Minnesota Public Employee Labor Relations Act, or PERLA (S.F. 778), a section of which would subject home care providers subsidized under the state’s Child Care Assistance Program to collective bargaining agreements. MORE
SEIU…the George Soros funded and backed Predatory needless union. I do believe that unions still have a place in America, but those are ONLY skilled trade unions that maintain a high level of standards of safety that ultimately protect not only the worker but the consumer as well. I don’t think this should include unskilled workers who make beds in hotels or even public employees that couldn’t hold a job without some sort of protection.
Sounds like the Gov needs the full attention of the Politician Realignment Kit: politician, rope, tall tree or lamppost. Some assembly required.
The SEIU did something similar in Michigan. They lost in court after a number of years of wrangling and in the end, the SEIU got to keep the 34 million in dues they had collected. Yes, that’s right, 34 million.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/26/michigan-seiu-branch-allowed-to-keep-millions-in-dues-skimmed-from-stealth.html
How disgraceful that these workers were forced to be unionized against their wishes.
I’d lose my union in a heartbeat if I could. I pay $500+ per year in dues, and for what? We’ve had no contract since 2011, and my state’s Taylor Law prohibits us from striking.
BTW the grapevine says that the sticking point in the negotiations is the health insurance. There is a very delicate balance between the raises the state can offer and the health coverage it can offer. Apparently the state is saying that for reasonable raises, the health plan is going to have to offer $50 doctors’ visit copays.
Meanwhile, the Medicaid sheeple worry not about such trivialities……