SEIU starts recruiting members from home health helpers

A government employees union is recruiting people who provide home health care through Medicaid before the state’s dues skim law is enacted.

The Legislature last month passed legislation classifying home health providers as public employees, a move the Mackinac Center for Public Policy calls unconstitutional. This opens the door for the union to organize these providers — most of whom are family members who receive a government subsidy while caring for disabled loved ones.

Steve Harry received a flyer from Michigan Home Care Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Harry contacted Michigan Capitol Confidential after reading a story on the unionization effort.

It is unclear how the union obtained Harry’s contact information. The Tri-County Council on Aging provides respite care for Harry and his wife. He suggested the council may have provided his information to union officials.

“I don't remember giving them permission to give our information to the union,” he wrote.

CapCon filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking emails between then Tri-County Office on Aging and the Service Employees International Union as well as between the aging office and Michigan Home Care Workers United since Jan. 1, 2024. The request yielded no responses.

The flyer encourages Harry to sign a form letter to his legislators asking them to support Senate Bills 790 and 791. This legislation, as CapCon previously reported, paves the way for the union to skim dues from providers’ paychecks.

Home health care providers do not get collective bargaining representation from the union, and legislators can increase the paychecks of those who care for people through Medicaid, whether or not a union for those workers exists. In fact, spending on the Home Help program has increased 85% since the original dues skim was repealed in 2012.

“Michigan has a proud history of unionization, and it’s unacceptable that home care workers are denied that right,” the flyer states, though in fact there is no state law preventing home health care workers from joining a union.

Gov. Whitmer has said she will sign the dues skim bills. In addition to designating providers as public employees, the pending law will require home health care workers to attend an orientation on basic home healthcare. These basics include activities that workers already perform, such as bathing someone.

Under the unionization law, union officials could use the mandatory orientation session to pressure care providers to join.

Home health care workers who feel pressured to join a union can email CapCon. Despite claims by union advocates and public officials, state law does not require people to join a union if they receive a government subsidy to care for a disabled or ill person at home.