Rep. Darrell Issa Confronts Forced Unionism
Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has held a hearing and released a new report detailing stories of new union whistleblowers forced into becoming dues-paying members.
Sally Coomer, a home health-care worker from Duvall, Washington, owns a home health-care agency and also cares for her disabled 21-year-old daughter Becky. Coomer receives Medicaid funding as Becky’s health-care provider. Due to the lack of union presence in the state prior to 2009, she was able to do so as an employee of a non-union home care agency.
Then, the Service Employees International Union arrived in Washington and lobbied for legislation — since passed — requiring all home health-care workers to join a union.
Prior to 2001, home care workers caring for Medicaid clients did so as either agency workers or independent providers. SEIU arrived in Washington in 2001, however, and immediately advocated for the Long-Term In-Home Care Services Act, by which all “independent providers” would become subject to compelled union membership. Later, in 2009, the state also passed House Bill 2361, stating that a family member caring for an adult disabled child is to be considered an “independent provider.”
As a consequence, Coomer said she was no longer able to simply care for Becky privately as a non-union agency employee, but had to resign her agency position and sign up with the state as an independent provider. In order to receive Medicaid funding, and as a condition of this new employment status, she was forced to join SEIU and to pay dues within 30 days or else to risk termination, as were other parent-providers across the state.
Also, Coomer is now unable — as a unionized independent provider — to pay into Social Security, something she was able to do before the forced unionization.
Further, Coomer says her union dues are going to support political causes with which she does not agree, and she is faced with a constant barrage of what she considers propaganda supporting a slate of candidates she does not support. She also receives notices about increases in dues for the union’s “political accountability fund,” which she likewise does not support but is forced to pay for.
The prototype for this legislation was signed into law by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, as National Review Online reported:
Theresa Riffey provides help around the home for her brother, a quadriplegic, and receives a small stipend from Illinois’s Medicaid program for her efforts, saving the state the cost of providing full-time care. Illinois law requires her to pay a portion of her check every month to an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear her case that asks on what basis, besides raw political power, a state may compel independent home-care workers and other similarly situated self-employed persons to support and associate with a labor union against their will. For the sake of workers’ First Amendment rights, it should take the case.
It is unclear at this point if the court will take Riffey’s case, but according to NRO at least one justice, Anthony Kennedy, is less than pleased with the Illinois law:
“First Amendment values are at serious risk,” Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has written, “if the government can compel a particular citizen, or a discrete group of citizens, to pay special subsidies for speech on the side that it favors.” Only an “overriding” and legitimate purpose, he continued, “allows any compelled subsidy for speech in the first place.” Here, Governor Blagojevich and the Illinois legislature’s sole purpose was the height of illegitimacy: appropriating spoils for their strongest political backers.
According to a Jan. 17, 2012, story at Californiahealthline.org, bill SB 411 — backed heavily by SEIU and sponsored by Rep. Curren Price — will likely come up for a vote and will likely force unionization in California.
According to Jordan Lindsey, director of policy and public affairs for the California Association for Health Services at Home, the bill will be expensive — not just for the state, but for home health-care workers as well:
Last year’s estimate from appropriations was that the program would cost about $1 million to start up, and $8 million every year to run the background checks. But new analysis points to a cost of as much as $25 million a year, Lindsey said.
The bill passes some of the cost of the program on to home health care agencies and individuals in the form of licensing fees. “What it breaks down to is about $4,000 a year in licensing fees,” Lindsey said. “I think most of the agencies can do that. But then for every home health aide, it would be another $165 per aide per year.”
And if that turns out to be the cost, he said, that’s a significant burden to agencies. “Basically you’re paying $20,000 a year just to stay in business,” Lindsey said.
Moreover, the bill would require background checks and care instruction for all home health-care workers. Many home workers are parents who have literally been with the patient for his or her entire life and need no care instruction.
Riffey’s case, if the court takes it and decides in her favor, could be a massive blow to unions across the nation, which currently spend massive amounts of member dues to support political causes, primarily those of Democratic representatives.
The author has a valid cause here but I do wonder at the title.
“Rep. Darrell Issa Confronts Forced Unionism”.
Exactly where in the article does it discuss Rep. Issa? Or Rep. Issa confronting forced unionism? There were a number of stories about forced unionism, but to tell the truth, I didn’t see Rep. Issa’s name even mentioned in this article.
‘agreed and how is he confronting this effectively…and if confronting..what results…why are we not hearing more of this.
It seems fairly vague, but I believe the stories listed were all part of Rep. Issa’s hearing. There’s no confrontation from Issa in that, but perhaps the author was trying to claim that indirectly by showing what was in the hearing.
We’ve been dealing with this in Michigan since 2007. Just under $30,000,000 of state aid paid to people with disabilities to hire care, in many instances family members, has been siphoned off to the SEIU at our former Gov. Granholm’s facilitation. Over $4,000,000 since our House passed a bill and sent it to the Senate in July, 2011 to overturn the practice. BTW, the Senate is controlled by Republicans. So much for small-government conservatives. No such animal. Bastards!
We need a wise latina’s take on this….I sure can’t figure it out myself.
I didn’t write the headline guys and it is perhaps a little vague I agree. However, read the linked report. Issa has indeed begun to confront this. Knowing that particular bulldog, don’t bet this is all that will come out.
Unfortunately, the report overlooks the primary reason employees don’t exercise their rights under Beck or Hudson; if they become fee payers, the union won’t let them vote in contract ratifications or modifications. I’m not troubled by a union refusing to let an objector vote for officers, by-laws and the like, but the essence of being an objecting fee payer is that you are being compelled to support collective bargaining activities such as contract negotiation and ratification elections or negotiating contract modifications and their ratification, but the union won’t let you vote for or against the instrument that you will live under and have to pay for. It is unfortunately the state of the law but the state of the law needs to change and if there were one Republican governor or AG in the Country who paid any attention to this stuff and had a little courage, it could be changed. Ironically, probably the worst state in terms of objectors’ rights is CA, but the 9th Circuit is probably a good court in which to visit compelled dues cases because so much of their precedent puts individual employee rights before all else, and then if they just made a blatantly political decision, which they have done on this issue, you just take them up – at least as long as we maintain 5 Justices with any sense.
“SEIU arrived in Washington in 2001, however, and immediately advocated for the Long-Term In-Home Care Services Act, by which all “independent providers” would become subject to compelled union membership. Later, in 2009, the state also passed House Bill 2361, stating that a family member caring for an adult disabled child is to be considered an “independent provider.”
So now the Federal Government is actually forcing you to join a union, even if you are caring for your own disabled child. This is why unions are hated so much. This is why union “officials” are nothing but a bunch of thugs and this is why unions in general are nothing better than organized crime, only these people do it with the complete support of government officials. I don’t know how much longer this country can take this. Either the unions take over and all government officials have to bow to the unions so as to get their money come election time, or we start electing government representatives that will stop this.
We need the Tea Parties and their members now more than ever. They seem to be the only people left with a little bit of common sense in this country. And that is good, because “Common Sense” was written by another American who, in his day, tried to stop a tyrranical form of government that was trying to turn its citizens into slaves. Time to stand up to these bums, time to spread some common sense to the rest of the country as well.
Florida legislature required you to join a union and pay for a two week course in house painting if you painted your neighbor’s house — for argument’s sake, let’s just say the neighbor is elderly or handicapped as well.
By the narrowest of margins the slimy toads in the legislature declined to force you to join the union and take the course if you wanted to paint your OWN house.
Rewiring a baseboard outlet in your livingroom, however, can still get you arrested.
We deserve the overlords we elect.
Issa sure gets things out there.. but I’m not seeing any results.. and it’s been more than 3 years since we took the house.. all I see and hear is a lot of blah blah blah.. I want results..
Actually, we’ve had the House back less than two years, since January of ’11. And what results would you expect? The House has no law enforcement authority. The Democrats control the Senate so there’s no point in trying to impeach a Democrat when the Senate won’t convict. The one thing they can do is begin to defund specific agencies and actions, but they haven’t shown much ability to stand up to the Admiinistration’s mau-mau tactics. Issa’s just shining some light and giving some candidates talking points and that’s about all that can be done.
Good for you, hog. Vote for conservative Republican Senators.
Republican Senators in our Michigan Legislature are the ones blocking overturning of stealh-unionization and facilitating the SEIU’s siphoning off of benefits to people with disabilities. There is no difference between the parties. There are only union puppets.
Also consider how much the administration can’t get done because they’re busy trying to fend off Issa’s pitbulls.
Your memory is pretty fuzzy. The U.S. House of Representatives switched from Democratic to Republican control only 13 months ago, just over 1 year, not the 3 years you’re claiming. And of course, Congress is a bicameral body, and the Senate is still controlled by Democrats. Without the majority in that body, good “tea-party” bills that HAVE passed through the House cannot get through the Senate because of Harry Reid and his party. That idiot won’t even present a budget bill.
Until the Senate flips from Democratic to Republican control, you are stuck with this reality where most things that pass in one chamber will die in the other chamber, and be useful only as electioneering material. And even if we flip the Senate, we need a Republican President who will sign those bills, or a super majority to override Obama’s vetoes.
Our country is set up to move very slowly, when it comes to passing bills into law. Generally that’s a good thing. The hopeful idiots who ignored Obama’s radicalism, and who voted for hope and change in 2008 and gave us all three branches of government controlled by the party of tax and spend, big government, now are getting what they wanted, a country mired in economic recession, debt, and spending with no end in sight. If you don’t like that, then continue to agitate, and vote Republican (and do NOT vote for 3rd party candidates or Libertarians).
Sorry, misstatement. Three bodies were under Democratic control (both Houses of Congress and the White House) but of course this makes up only two of the three branches of the Fed. Gov.
This is how most public employees become unionizd; the unions can’t organize the employees, so they organize the governor. To Libertyship46′s point, this isn’t a federal government action; it is state governments and in some cases governors alone using executive authority. The federal hook is that the state and local gavernments are making unionization a condition of receiving federal funds. They wrap it in a flag of assuring better and more consitent care but really it is just amother money laundry for moving federal taxpayer and borrowed dollars to the union, which, especially in SEIU’s case, will never do a thing for the “employees” forced to pay dues. You may rest assured that if Obamacare stays on the books, everyone providing services under it will be union.
Not too many years ago, the healthcare industry was one of the most resistent to unionization and there were some pretty good fights in Congress over special provisions for healthcare employees in the federal Labor Management Relations Act. I knew somehow the ground had shifted when I was at an Association of Labor Relations Agencies meeting in Seattle in about ’05 and one of the presentations was a joint spiel from an SEIU Organizer and the VP for Labor Relations of a big CA healthcare company extolling the virtue of their partnership to secure better healthcare for all Californians. First, the SEIU guy was an arrogant communist punk that no sane employer representative would breathe the same air with, yet here they were all smiles together. The whole thing was about how the company had entered into a mutual recognition agreement to give the employees of all their facilities to SEIU in exchange for SEIU “partnering” with them on healthcare issues. That’s simply code for using SEIU’s political power to funnel more taxpayer money to this company and thus to SEIU.
Now mutual recognition deals are weak; there hasn’t been an election or a board determination of a community of interest in the bargaining unit, so they are easily challenged by an agressive employer should this company return to sanity or in the case of these state governments should a responisble, read Republican, governor be elected. The truly insiduous part is that private companies are allying with the unions, mostly SEIU and AFSCME, and doing this on there own both because of the promise of union help to secure more government funding and the union threat of political violence – if they can get you more money, they can take money away from you – from the unions.
Everything has become political.It’s sad so few other than tea party pats and other conservative pubbies actually care about the future of the country.
Its now a game of gotcha. This union gets this governor in a week moment and zap freedom is gone for millions. Whether we reverse the course or not may well spell the future of our delicate republic.
This was a resulting ‘story’ from a hearing held by Issa is my understanding. Interestingly, there was subltle legislation introduced in LA relating to child care that would have required providers to be licensed, tested (of course for the ‘safety’ and ‘well being’ of the children, who could argue THAT) and a requriement for them to (in very confusing small print/legalese) become a memeber of SEIU. This government sponsorship of unions via the unionization of goverment employees is absoulutely wrong, and coercive. Its’ ‘cover’ usually comes packaged in health and safety….has been for years. I applaud Congressman Issa for ALL of the work he is involved in regarding the ‘founding’ nature our Nation. Semper Fi.
Unions are no longer necessary and their collective barganining power should be taken away. Further it is outrageous that a union can force a person to belong to it as a condition of employment.
“Further it is outrageous that a union can force a person to belong to it as a condition of employment.” The frogs have been in the kettle for decades on that one.
The Democrat party is officially the Euro Communism Party. If you think this is an extreme analogy I would suggest googling the term. The objective of euro-communism is promoting middle class public service employee unions, and the social strategy is to liberate gays and feminist.
Patrick Richardson’s article is worthy of being passed on to every and any person on our lists, especially those who endorse or support unions.
I was not a GWB fan; however, in retrospect I give him all the credit in the world for keeping these now out-of-control unions in check for the entire time he was in office.
Except that he didn’t. First, GWB like every Republican in my 62 years applied only a thin veneer of Republican appointees over the federal government. Below the highest levels, all of the goverment remained firmly in the hands of the Clinton Administration. Decisions and enforcement actions in vital areas that effect union power remained firmly in the hands of union vetted employees and appointees.
But more importantly, once Clinton had his sails trimmed by a Republican Congress in ’94, Clinton and then a sucession of Democrat leaders in Congress all through GWB’s administration used the federal budget as a money laundry to funnel money to Democrat fronts and unions. Republicans won the battle but lost the war of out-sourcing; many federal, state, and local agencies now freely out-source even in union states. Trouble is; they’re out-sourcing to some company run by a bunch of Democrats who then funnel those funds straight to Democrat constituencies. Any program in DHHS, Education, Labor, EPA, etc. is going to a Democrat constituency and often being administered by a Democrat contractor. Every old union rep worth his Vegas showgirl and numbered account is running some training or manpower development program that doesn’t train or develope anything except the well-being of old union reps, unions, and Democrats.
Of course, actually doing something about this stuff would require actually know something about how a government works and having to do some of that boring government work; Republicans, especially the “true conservative” variety would rather have circular firing squads and long philosophical conversations about how many RINOs can stand on the head of a pin.
Here is how you sound-bite the political efforts to defeat this left-wing garbage:
“If you stop forced unionism in American Health Care, health care costs will decrease by 2 billion dollars [or whatever the figure is]. That’s two billion dollars more to help sick people get well.”
or
“Why do unions insist on taking billions of dollars from poor people’s health care? Medicaid is already stretched on now unions want to take vaccinations and sterile bandages from the poor, have they no shame?”
It time to bare-knuckle this stuff.
Is he only going to let male union members testify before Congress when it comes time to discuss women’s union benefits?
PitchingDoc,
If that was a reference to the contraception hearings, you’re way off. The Fluke who testified (google it) was a Dem plant, and it was NOT held before a legitimate Congressional subcommitte hearing. There were NO Republicans present. Fluke’s testimoney(?) was a staged video-op, or didn’t you get the memo?
I wonder if Rep. Issa is looking at the Unions (SEIU) and there involvement with the OWS protesters and the other organizations that The Daily Caller has identified. They have come out and said they will use violence to get their way. Is this not Racketeering. This is Mafia organization. The Unions have got to be shut down!
Interestingly, no one brings up one salient point…what is the difference in the pay the home care workers get now versus what their benefits were before the union “forced” them to pay dues.
Remember Jefferson’s Dictum: It is better than ten illegal democrat votes to be counted than for a single legal democrat vote to be wrongly denied.
Santorum the Union loving piece of sh*t Liberal, that voted in favor of the Unions more then a few times..
Conservatives wanted to make Penn. a Right To Work State but santorum voted in favor of the Unions..
He also voted in favor of other Liberal causes..
Santorum and Ginrich are both loose canons, accidents waiting to happen.
Just think if they were to debate Obama the master, no way.. Even Ron Paul said the same thing, he said out of the three, Mitt Romney was the best…
Get this damn primary over so Mitt Romney can save his money to fight Obama instead of these other two creeps, Santorum and Ginrich..(Obama will have almost one billion dollars to work with)
Even though I don’t agree with Ron Paul on some issues, I still like him as a person. Cant’s stand and I mean can’t stand Santorum and Ginrich..
Reagan won because he was likable, these two creeps are not likable..
Allen West would make a good VP for Mitt Romney..
He served his country with honors and loves this country..
.
Not only forced unionization, but government interference, taxation and determination as to whether you’re fit (and not a dangerous “rightwing extremist” veteran, old phoagie, Rush Limbuagh listener, Ron Paul-supporter, etc.) to care for your own kin.
Caring for a seriously handicapped person or invalid id difficult enough without complicating the situation. Unions were dying out until the reign of the current administration.
Returning handicapped veterans will need a lot of care and, as medical care “saves” more people, numbers of people who need care will grow by leaps and bounds. Unions seem to reap fiscal benefits but offer no support. Non-union support should be developed for them in the form of some kind of respite as well as pay. Possibly this could include federal, state, and church donations of some kind. Whatever is offered should be reliable, dependable and not degrading to patient or care-giver.
AFSCME has a provision in their constitution(article IX Section 14) that states if you don’t support their politics you can apply for a rebate. I’m applying for mine. to do so you have to send a written request postmarked between Apr 1 and Apr 16, 2012 send to International council and local with which the council is affiliated. Send certified or registered mail to both with the members name, Soc sec #,home address e mail address and if availavle the AFSCME local and councilto the in ternational sec’t and the councilmember is affilaited during the preceding year. It must be typed or legibly printed. The individual request must be signed Send to Lee A Saunders, Internatinal Sec’t-Treasurer,AFSCME 1625 L St NW, washington DC 20036-5687 and to your local council.Only one request per envelope and must be sent yarly.They are to send you a form about your application and you must fill out and return in 30 days. You must state what you object to. You may appeal what they say you amt is.Hope some of you can use this info. It appeared in AFSCME Works I’m applying for mine even though my local woulsn’t even call me back to state they didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked about this rebate. Good luck
WITHOUT FORCED AND MONOPOLY UNIONS THERE WOULD BE NO DEMOCRATIC PARTY. AND IT ISN’T THE “WORKERS” SINCE THEY HAVE LITTLE SAY IN UNION BUSINESS OR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS IT IS THE BOSSES. THE VERY FEW — LESS THAN 80 BOSSES — CONTROL MOST OF THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS THAT GO TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND GIVE IT ITS LIFE.
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I hate SEIU, and let me tell you why. It’s not because of this political stuff I read, I actually have experience with them.
Some years ago I was doing temp work in offices, typically administrative stuff. Filing, answering the phone, bill reconciliation, minor accounting stuff. The temp agency called and told me they had an unusual assignment, a one-day thing that involved supposedly typing and filing at this SEIU building in downtown LA. I’d never heard of them before, so I wasn’t that suspicious; so I went on the appointed day at the requested time, and was met by a young woman. After introducing herself briefly, she said “We’ve decided to have you do something different today…please come with me…” or something very close to that, and she led me down some stairs into what was immediately apparent was a boiler room. She gave me what she called a “script” (never heard that term before, used this way anyway) and had me sit down to read it. At the time, here in California, we were in the run-up to a referendum election, and one of the issues on the ballot was a proposal limiting the ability of people to sue you in an automobile accident. There was at the time a flourishing industry in California involving people who would run their car into yours, and then sue you for faked injuries, typically whiplash and back spasms. Some liberal groups were complaining that the law was going to keep someone, somewhere, from legitimately suing someone who’d caused an accident, but no one other than a true ideologue was taking them seriously. Anyway, this “script” didn’t reference that. I was supposed to introduce myself as working at the “Law Offices of…” even though I was in a boiler room under a Union headquarters, and the “script” had me calling other law offices, and essentially telling them that their revenue stream was in danger, or that the revenue stream of a fellow bottom feeder…oops I mean lawyer…was in danger, so in solidarity or self-preservation these lawyers I was calling should contribute to the cause of defeating this evil law, which was devised to keep some money out of the hands of lawyers.
I read the script, sat and thought about it for 3 minutes (I needed the money I was going to earn) and walked out. I can still remember her yelling at me from across the street, asking if I wanted to come back and do office work instead. I said no, and kept going. I don’t like people who try and get me to lie to others, especially in a cause I don’t support.