Right to Work Blog

Illinois Gov. Quinn’s and the SEIU’s embarrassing defeat in their effort to unionize home health care workers has emboldened Maryland health care workers who face the same fate, thanks to Gov. Martin O’Malley.

A government bargaining order O’Malley signed with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 500 last week gives union officials broad access to the names, addresses – and ultimately the checkbooks of family child care providers who participate in the state’s child care subsidy program.

Marta Mossburg of the Washington Examiner takes note: “it will likely force those not affiliated with the Local 500 to join the union, pay dues – and cost Maryland taxpayers millions at a time when they are least able to afford more subsidies and when private sector employers are cutting wages and benefits.”

If health care workers beat the power play, it may force the SEIU and their political cronies to think twice before going down this road again. In the meantime, workers in Maryland are holding their breath waiting for the outcome.

Michelle Malkin has more the effort of the SEIU home invasion in Illinois — made possible by their political cronies in the government.   And remember, it is ALL about forcing these folks to pay union dues – that is it!

The intrepid Michelle Malkin writes about a parental revolt against the SEIU’s attempt to unionize home health care workers.  Of course, this power grab was facilitated by the Illinois Gov. and big union tool Pat Quinn:

Last month, I noted the appalling story about the SEIU’s power grab in Illinois to unionize home health care workers.

But you haven’t heard the half of it. It’s an ongoing nightmare you should know about — because it may be coming to your own front door if Big Labor gets its way.

Roughly 3,500 people in Illinois receive state funding to assist someone, usually a family member, at home with a developmental disability. In June, Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn signed an executive order approving collective bargaining by “individual providers of home-based support services” — effectively busting open the doors of private homes for the Purple Shirts of the SEIU and other union competitors hungry for new dues-paying members.

The home-based workers weren’t seeking a collective bargaining agent.

But unions were targeting them.

Over the last month, home-based providers started have been receiving unexpected visits from out-of-state union lackeys trying to recruit them with the promise of health care benefits and more money. Last week, providers began receiving ballots to elect the SEIU or the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to represent them. Yes, Illinois provided both the SEIU and AFSCME with the names and home addresses of all 3,500 in-home care providers for the purposes of increasing their membership rolls and political clout.

Home-based providers have the right to vote for no union representation at all. But the unions and their water-carriers in political office have done their best to obscure that fact.

Pam Harris of Western Springs, Illinois, the mother of a 20-year-old son with severe developmental disabilities who receives in-home care stipends, questioned the state’s failure to make a no-representation option clear. She and other parents dared to criticize the union effort publicly in a piece published September 3 in the Chicago Tribune. (”I am not an employee of the state,” Harris said. “I work from my home. I don’t want the union in my home. I can Norma Rae with the rest of them.”) Harris and other parents scraped together their own money (no match for Big Labor coffers) and put together an informational flyer to counter-balance the pro-union propaganda and inform home-based providers that they could opt for no union representation.

The union-pandering state government responded by trying to gag parental critics — yet another stark illustration of SEIU president Andy Stern’s “persuasion of power.”

On September 11, home-based providers received this warning from the Department of Human Services informing them that “it is the position of the State of Illinois that service facilitation providers within the Home-Based Support Services Program remain neutral as it pertains to the election covering Personal Support Workers. Your compliance is greatly appreciated:”

If the Illinois Governorship is for sale, big labor is buying.  In return for signing a $31 billion capital bill, big labor bosses have wrapped their arms around incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn.

Chicago’s Fran Eaton calls the effects of forced unionism as she sees it:

Just when that house begins to teeter is when the bullies really get mean and desperate. We’re seeing that now at the federal level. Unions want to strip away workers’ right to privacy when they vote on unionizing. The federal “Card Check” legislation will strip away secret balloting for workers.  

“OK, everyone who wants me to be in charge, raise your hands,” imagine the bully shouting on the playground with his trusted goons standing on either side.

Instead, union thugs hike demands and press taxpayers for more under the guise of better education for the kids and compassionate welfare for the state’s helpless. The Illinois Education Association and the Service Employees International Union then have the guts to use those confiscated tax dollars to run radio ads and demand more tax increases.

It gets worse.

In Illinois, only union workers can build bridges, schools or roads. While only 43 percent of Illinois construction workers are in unions, impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Executive Order 13 made it impossible for non-union crews to bid on state-funded construction projects.

Recently, President Barack Obama signed a similar order for federally-funded plans.

It’s simply a choice between freedom and coercion, National Right to Work’s Mark Mix said Monday during a private meeting in Chicago. “We’re not against unions, we’re just for people being given the choice whether or not they want to belong,” Mix said. “Freedom always works best.”

Mix is an average-sized guy, and one who would surprise you for being gutsy enough to stir up the idea that union bullies should be challenged in Illinois. Mix is the type of guy you always admired for his backbone but who also made you feel a little ashamed you weren’t quite as brave.

Mix, though, has been part of several statewide victories over the past few years and thinks Illinois needs to challenge statewide union tyranny. Twenty-two states are now “Right to Work” states, including nearby Ohio and neighboring Iowa. Indiana is right on the verge of joining their ranks.

“When the cost of government is less, the cost of living is less, and companies find those states more desirable to build new businesses and bring in more jobs,” Mix said.

Another day, another SEIU (Service Employees International Union) scandal.

A high-ranking Midwest officer of the Service Employees International Union [SEIU], who had been serving as trustee of a financially troubled local, has resigned after being accused of billing the labor organization for $9,000 in personal expenses.

The Chicago-based Byron Hobbs, who also sat on the union’s national board, is the latest of several SEIU officials to lose their positions or otherwise come under scrutiny for alleged financial improprieties. Among them is Tyrone Freeman, former president of the union’s largest California local, who is the target of a federal criminal investigation.

None of these scandals have diminished the SEIU’s power in Washington, where their deep pockets trump their ethical lapses.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was preparing to issue an executive order prior to his arrest last week [December 9, 2008] that would have allowed union organizing of home-care workers that could have benefited a labor union with close ties to the governor.

The existence of this executive order, though never signed, illustrates the close ties between the embattled governor and the powerful Service Employees Internation union [SEIU], the nation’s fastest growing labor organization. Last week [December 2] , Gov. Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges, including that his office suggested a deal in which he would be given a job with an SEIU-affiliated group in exchange for naming a labor-friendly senator to fill the vacancy left by President-elect Barack Obama.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has released a new video. According to the Foundation’s release:

The Fox affiliate in Chicago investigated disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s corrupt relationship with the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU). We’ve got the video, which includes a clip from Foundation VP Stefan Gleason.

Click here to watch the entire report.

The website Pro Publica that offers “Journalism in the Public Interest” peeks behind the curtain and reveals a long co-dependent relationship between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.