Embedding the unionization of Michigan's so-called home health care workers into the state constitution is the goal of a prospective ballot proposal called “Keep Home Care Safe.”

Those who support the proposal have made it clear how they plan to get it passed. First and foremost, they are counting on well-meaning voters who don't know that the federal Home Help Program exists. Under that program, elderly patients and others suffering from various dysfunctions can be cared for at home instead of being placed in nursing homes or other institutions.

In roughly 75 percent of the cases, those providing the care are relatives or friends of the patient.

In 2005, the Service Employees International Union targeted Michigan's Home Help Program as a potential dues-producing source.

Michigan's Home Help Program was well-established before Jennifer Granholm was elected governor. While Granholm was governor, the SEIU held a little-known election that forced Michigan's 44,000 Home Help Program participants into the union. Dues have been taken from the Medicaid checks of the Home Help Program participants and sent to the SEIU ever since. This flow of dues to the union is called the “home health care dues skim." The SEIU has taken more than $31 million from disabled residents in Michigan.

Faced with a new law that would eventually end the “skim,” the SEIU is resorting to a ballot proposal. If passed, the proposal would lock the “skim” into the state constitution.

Those who oppose the proposal predict that to sell it to Michigan voters, the SEIU will pretend that the proposal creates the Home Help Program despite the fact the program already exists and has been around for years.

The union is already using this strategy as evidenced by how the proposal is described on the ballot proposal's website.

“Senior and disability rights groups across Michigan are working to put a proposal on the November ballot that would give all Michiganders — including seniors and persons with disabilities — the choice to direct their own care in their own homes, instead of forcing them into expensive nursing homes or institutions."

In addition to the website, there have been dozens of reports that the signatures gathered to put the proposal on the ballot were collected by the use of this same claim. A Michigan Capitol Confidential staffer was approached by a signature gatherer in Oakland County who claimed signing the petition would help "ensure elderly and disabled residents would not be forced into nursing homes."

When informed about the SEIU's taking of millions for dues, she walked away.

"Let's make one thing abundantly clear, this ballot proposal has nothing to do with creating a home help care program to keep people out of nursing homes," said Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-Dewitt. "That program is already in existence, and gives many people an option to stay in familiar surroundings with loved ones. What this ballot proposal is instead about is the SEIU trying to hijack the federal Home Help Program, twisting it for its own purposes, and then milking it for everything it can."

A second argument that will be used for the proposal is that the Home Help Program is somehow in danger of being blocked and the proposal is needed to save it. Virtually no one opposes the Home Help Program.

This "threatened program" tactic has been used previously. In April, when legislation to end the "dues skim" was in the Michigan House, opponents of the bill told those who depend on the program that the legislation would cut them off.

A third tactic the union can be expected to use is to mix in rhetoric about a registry to do criminal background checks of professional caregivers in the Home Help Program. If the state decides to run the registry that now exists, it could do so with one or two employees. In seven years, only 933 names have been collected for the registry, despite 61,000 providers being forced to join the union. Such a registry requires neither the proposal nor the union.

Finally, voters should not be surprised that they'll likely not be hearing anything about the SEIU's role in this ballot proposal nor the existing scheme to keep taking dues money. Instead, spokespeople for this union-backed plan will include social service agency workers, lobbyists and some government officials.

At a time when the National Education Association is calling for teachers to take more responsibility for improving their profession, the "Protect Our Jobs" ballot proposal would wipe out teacher reform laws, some of which were supported by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan Education Association.

For example, for years school districts determined which teachers would be laid off by seniority alone. The Ann Arbor Public Schools went so far as to use the randomness of Social Security numbers as a tie breaker if teachers had the same qualifications.

Teacher reform laws forced school districts to use a teacher's effectiveness when determining which teachers stay and which ones are let go.

Yet, if the "Protect Our Jobs" initiative is passed, union contracts would have higher authority than state laws. Some contracts are filled with cumbersome provisions that make it difficult to get rid of bad teachers.

One school district, for example, had a contract that required a 13-step process to remove ineffective tenured teachers. Even then-MEA President Iris Salters acknowledged changes needed to be made.

"No one wants or can afford ineffective teachers. That's why the MEA's plan calls for streamlining the process for fair dismissal of ineffective tenured teachers, making it less costly and less time-consuming," Salters said in January 2011.

Patrick Wright, senior legal counsel for the Mackinac Center, said teacher reform laws would be made irrelevant.

"Union contracts would take precedence over the laws," Wright said.

Earlier this month, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said, "It's not enough to say that most teachers are good. If there is even one classroom with a teacher who isn’t prepared or qualified, we can’t accept that."

The MEA released a statement in 2011 saying it supported some of the GOP's attempts at education reform.

Some of the teacher reform was completed under Democrat Gov. Granholm, who passed laws that, for example, required teachers to have an annual performance review and created categories for which teachers were rated. Under most union contracts, the teacher reviews were once every three years and if they were not completed, the default was a "satisfactory evaluation."

Dan Lijana, spokesman for "Protect Our Jobs" ballot initiative, and Doug Pratt of the MEA didn't return emails seeking comment.