Regular Freedom@Work readers may recall that National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are duking it out in federal court against government union lawyers over a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.  In order to thank union bosses for their political support, Granholm handed all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions.

Granholm, following the Rod Blagojevich blueprint of forced-union organizing, directed state officials to grease the skids for union organizers to railroad the child-care providers under union boss control.

A courageous group of child-care workers asked National Right to Work for assistance, as some of them didn't even know they were being forced into union dues-paying ranks until it was too late, and they want nothing to do with the union.  This courageous group of workers filed a federal class-action lawsuit to challenge Granholm's scheme as a violation of their Constitutional rights of free speech, free association, and their right to freely petition government for redress of grievances because, in effect, Governor Granholm is picking the lobbyists of Michigan’s child-care providers.

In mid-July, Foundation attorneys appeared in federal court in Grand Rapids and convinced the judge to proceed with the child-care workers’ case — despite state and union lawyers’ multiple attempts to have the case dismissed.  Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Press called on the federal judge to strike down the forced unionism scheme. As the Grand Rapids Press explains:

Covert unionization violates basic constitutional rights of freedom of association. The formation of the union for Michigan child care providers four years ago was downright sneaky and unfair. A lawsuit in federal court, brought by some affected child care providers, objects to their being shoe-horned into unions — and forced to pay dues — against their will. In that suit, and in one brought in state courts, the child care providers have legitimate grievances. They should prevail.

The forced-unionization travesty occurred primarily because Michigan Democrats wanted to help the UAW and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pad their membership rolls.

In 2006, the UAW and AFSCME partnered to form a union called Child Care Providers Together Michigan. The union represents and draws dues from people who care for children from low-income families. The new union members belong either to the UAW or AFSCME, depending on the part of the state in which they live.

Whatever attempts were made to inform child care providers of the pending unionization must have been feeble at best. Only 15 percent of the state’s 40,000 dues-paying providers took part in the vote-by-mail certification election that formed the union. Fully 92 percent of those voting said yes to the union. But they hardly constitute a valid majority of all the now-dues-paying members. Hopefully, the federal lawsuit will uncover how this election was allowed to occur.

The low-income clients provided a rationale — though not a legitimate one — for the forced unionization. The argument is that because providers take public money in state subsidies for those clients, they are therefore public employees. Union dues are taken directly from the state subsidies, money that should go toward child care. The UAW and AFSCME receive 1.15 percent of the subsidies, amounting to more than $1 million a year.

To suggest that government grants make providers public employees is an epic stretch. The child care workers are employed by the parents who hire them. At best, they contract with the government for child care services for low-income clients.

...The suit in federal court, filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, challenges the unionization as a violation of the workers’ constitutional right to free association.

That is the crucial point.

Indeed. And UAW and AFSCME union bosses are funneling millions of dollars to the campaigns of pro-forced unionism politicians (such as Governor Granholm), and now those same politicians are forcing Michigan's home-care providers to pay to the tune of $3.7 million into union boss coffers. If Foundation litigators are successful in federal court, the outcome can have a far reaching, national impact in rolling back Big Labor’s state-by-state push of forcing susceptible, unsuspecting home-care providers under union control.

Gov. Quinn Faces Class-Action Suit for Executive Order Designed to Unionize Home-Care Providers

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys assist home-based personal care providers pushed into union’s forced-dues ranks against their will

Chicago, IL (April 22, 2010) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, a group of home-based personal care providers today filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against Governor Pat Quinn and union officials for their efforts to force Illinois personal care providers under unwanted union boss control.

The suit stems from an executive order issued by disgraced former-Governor Rod Blagojevich shortly after his election, later codified, in which over 20,000 personal care providers who care for individuals with disabilities were designated as “public employees” of the state of Illinois for the purpose of granting Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bosses monopoly “representation” and forced dues privileges over them.

Following the Rod Blagojevich blueprint of forced unionism, Quinn signed an executive order last June that made an additional 4,500 home-based personal care providers susceptible to unwanted union boss bargaining and political “representation.” Not coincidentally, Quinn received the SEIU union bosses’ political endorsement and support during his recent closely-contested primary campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor.

The additional 4,500 home-care providers who are not yet under union control soundly rejected union membership by a two-to-one margin in a mail-in vote. However, per Quinn’s executive order, the home-care providers may again be subject to out-of-state SEIU and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union organizers making “home visits” attempting to organize the home-care providers through coercive “card check” unionization tactics.

Pam Harris, Gordon Stiefel, and several other home-care providers -- with assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation -- filed the federal suit on behalf of all of Illinois’s providers unionized by Blagojevich and on behalf of home-care providers threatened by forced unionism as a result of Quinn’s executive order.

“My primary concern is that someone else will be telling me how to best care for my son,” said Harris, who provides personal care for her adult son and is the lead plaintiff in the suit. “Union dues would be a deduction from what we have available to provide for my son’s needs. And then I would be giving my money to a union to exercise their political muscle on issues I may vehemently disagree with.”

Click here to read the whole release.

A copy of the complaint can be downloaded (pdf) by clicking here.

The alarming trend of politicians forcing workers into union ranks continues in Illinois as Governor Pat Quinn -- in order to win Big Labor's political support -- is resurrecting the sordid legacy of disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich (and Gray Davis of California) subverting workers' rights to benefit forced dues-hungry union bosses.

Quinn recently signed an executive order arbitrarily reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care providers as state employees -- thereby opening them up to forced unionism under state law.  Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union organizers, armed by the state with the addresses of Illinois's nearly 3,500 in-home health-care providers, are competing to corral home health-care providers into compulsory union membership by going door-to-door to solicit support for their respective unions.

Pam Harris, a mother who stays home to take care of her son with special needs, was visited by two aggressive out-of-state SEIU organizers at her front door.  Understandably, Ms. Harris is worried that the Detroit-style labor relations that destroyed America's auto industry could also destroy her right to care for her son as she wants. (To say nothing of the union dues she will be forced to pay for the "privilege.")

Because she does not live in a state with Right to Work protections, if SEIU union bosses are successful in corralling all home health-care providers into forced dues membership, Ms. Harris will be forced to pay tribute to union bosses just to continue to take care of her own son -- even if she refrains from formal union membership.

However, as many Freedom@Work readers may already be aware, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Just last month, National Right to Work President Mark Mix reiterated in the Wall Street Journal NRTW's previous warnings that union bosses are working to unionize the health-care industry and that under Obamacare, the very thing that is happening in Illinois will happen nationwide:

Following [the Davis/Blagojevich] playbook, pending government-run health care bills create a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation on hundreds of thousands of folks like Ms. Harris to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (CLASS)" reimbursement plan.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy...

Last year, Freedom@Work reported on the allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, former boss of the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Freeman spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of rank-and-file workers' forced union dues on his wife's and mother's companies and on a luxurious fat-cat lifestyle. The Los Angeles Times later reported Freeman's SEIU affiliate "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission in two of the four years it has been in existence.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports another SEIU union official corruption scandal, this time executive vice president of the SEIU's Illinois-Indiana health care affiliate and national SEIU union board member Byron Hobbs.

Hobbs is accused of billing the union for $9,000 for personal expenses. The LA Times continues its report by putting the latest scandal in context:

...[former Freeman Chief-of-Staff] Rickman Jackson, was removed as head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local, because he allegedly received improper lease payments for his Bell Gardens house.

Annelle Grajeda, president of both a second L.A. local and the SEIU's state council, has been on leave since August, when the union began investigating whether she had improperly used her influence to keep her ex-boyfriend on the county payroll...

Last month, the union imposed a trusteeship on an Oakland-based local and fired its officers, accusing them of misusing dues money to wage a political battle against SEIU President Andy Stern.

And of course, who can forget that it was a SEIU union boss who was engaged in pay-to-play talks with former [and corrupt] Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich -- to allegedly buy Obama's then-vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Unfortunately, the people most hurt by union boss corruption are the rank-and-file workers, especially in forced unionism states. Right to work laws allow workers to hold union officials more accountable because workers can cut off union dues if they don’t like union officials' so-called “representation,” politics, corruption, or fat-cat lifestyles.

In August, we told you about allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, then head the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times published new allegations against Freeman and his union.

In 2004, Freeman's local launched what they called a "charity" to develop affordable housing for its members. The charity's board is mostly comprised of union officials, and the charity shares office space with the union.

The problem? In at least two years of operation, the "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission.

The charity, launched by a scandal-ridden Los Angeles chapter of the Service Employees International Union, had total expenses of about $165,000 for 2005 and 2006, and all of the money went to consulting fees, insurance costs and other overhead, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings.

Charity watchdogs say that nonprofits should never have zero program expenses in two successive years and that well-performing charities direct at least 70% of their annual spending to their charitable purpose.

"Of the 5,000-plus charities we've looked at, I don't think we've ever seen one that didn't spend anything on its charitable programs," said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, an online rating service.

Running a union-affiliated charity that doesn't actually do any charity -- sounds a bit like the kind of job Rob Blagojevich was asking the SEIU to set up for him.

Today's Washington Post has a good rundown of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's alleged pay-for-play deal with a high-ranking Service Employees International Union boss we've been telling you about. This paragraph is particularly revealing:

[SEIU president Andrew] Stern has emerged as a central player in the labor movement by pressing aggressively to expand union rolls, along the way irritating AFL-CIO leaders, whom he accused of being complacent, and leaders of some SEIU chapters who accuse him of cutting deals with business and government that enhance his profile while undercutting local chapters. Among his victories was Blagojevich's decision to let SEIU, and not the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, organize Illinois' child-care workers.

Stern's personal machinations to secure his own PR are entirely at odds with workers' interests. But more importantly, take a look at that last sentence again: "Among his victories was Blagojevich's decision to let SEIU, and not [AFSCME], organize Illinois' child-care workers."

Far Left magazine The American Prospect summarized the SEIU-AFSCME battle in 2005. In Blagojevich's first race for governor in 2002, the SEIU provided a thousand volunteers in the weeks before the primary election, enough to push the Congressman over his nearest rival by just one percent. As governor, Blagojevich repaid the SEIU by issuing executive orders that effectively ensured that the SEIU (and not AFSCME) would "represent" the 5,000 home-care workers and 48,000 child-care workers in the state.

This potentially unconstitutional scheme to impose monopoly bargaining on home care providers has resulted in many hundreds of thousands of new forced union dues payers across America. It's a huge new cash cow for union bosses.

The fact is, if union bosses spend millions of dollars to get a candidate elected, they expect something in return. Blagojevich was happy to oblige.

Sometimes, that means giving union bosses like Andy Stern and his ilk close access to governors like Blagojevich to let them pick political appointments. Sometimes, it means legislative power grabs like the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (aka the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill). And, of course, union bosses use their political power precisely to gain even more revenue and political power.

And that's the bigger picture in the Blagojevich scandal -- Big Labor's influence wouldn't be possible without forced unionism.

Earlier today, we reported on the developing pay-for-play scandal involving humiliated Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich which allegedly involved offer the SEIU the power to name Barack Obama's replacement as Senator in return for a cushy job with the SEIU's Change to Win coalition or a new SEIU-funded lobby group.

One news source indicated the SEIU official mentioned in the indictment was none other than SEIU president Andrew Stern.  But NPR reports that the official involved was one step down from Stern -- Tom Balanoff, the union's Illinois chief

Our research today indicates that Andy Stern's SEIU has been Blagojevich's biggest financial backer for years. According go the Illinois Sunshine Database, the SEIU Illinois Council PAC was the governor's top contributor in his re-election effort, giving $908,382 in the 2005-2006 cycle. That same cycle, PACs for the Laborers and Teamsters unions, also Change to Win partners, were also among Blagojevich's top 15 contributors.

The relationship between Blagojevich and the SEIU's political fundraising arms go back years. In his first gubernatorial election in 2002, the SEIU PEA International gave his campaign $821,294, making the PAC his second largest contributor that cycle (the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had contributed $900,000 to the then-Congressman).

All told, union PACs poured more than $8 million into Blagojevich's two gubernatorial campaign coffers.

You get what you pay for. But do SEIU members know where their money is going?

[For more on this scandal, see this post: SEIU Bosses Gave Gov. Blagojevich More Than $1.7 Million Already, Not Including Possible Payout for Senate Seat]

By now, many of you have already heard about the pay-for-play scandal enveloping Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Unsurprisingly, Blago's corrupt antics are intimately connected to Big Labor. In return for a cushy appointment at the SEIU's Change to Win coalition, he apparently offered to name SEIU's hand-picked candidate to Barack Obama's newly-vacant senate seat (from the federal complaint .pdf):

Defendants ROD BLAGOJEVICH and [his aide] JOHN HARRIS, together with others, attempted to use ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s authority to appoint a United States Senator for the purpose of obtaining personal benefits for ROD BLAGOJEVICH, including, among other things, appointment as Secretary of Health & Human Services in the President-elect’s administration, and alternatively, a lucrative job which they schemed to induce a union to provide to ROD BLAGOJEVICH in exchange for appointing as senator an individual whom ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS believed to be favored by union officials and their associates.

--

HARRIS said they could work out a three-way deal with SEIU and the President-elect where SEIU could help the President-elect with ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s appointment of Senate Candidate 1 to the vacant Senate seat, ROD BLAGOJEVICH would obtain a position as the National Director of the Change to Win campaign, and SEIU would get something favorable from the President-elect in the future.

The SEIU, of course, is denying any connection to the Blagojevich bribe, which is a bit hard to swallow given the circumstances. Here's another damning excerpt from the charges (emphasis mine):

On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke with SEIU Official, who was in Washington, D.C. Prior intercepted phone conversations indicate that approximately a week before this call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH met with SEIU Official to discuss the vacant Senate seat, and ROD BLAGOJEVICH understood that SEIU Official was an emissary to discuss Senate Candidate 1’s interest in the Senate seat. During the conversation with SEIU Official on November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH informed SEIU Official that he had heard the President-elect wanted persons other than Senate Candidate 1 to be considered for the Senate seat.

SEIU Official stated that he would find out if Senate Candidate 1 wanted SEIU Official to keep pushing her for Senator with ROD BLAGOJEVICH. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that “one thing I’d be interested in” is a 501(c)(4) organization. ROD BLAGOJEVICH explained the 501(c)(4)idea to SEIU Official and said that the 501(c)(4) could help “our new Senator [Senate Candidate 1].” SEIU Official agreed to “put that flag up and see where it goes.”

For those of you wondering, "Senate Candidate 1" is Valerie Jarrett, the SEIU's once-favored choice for the Illinois senate vacancy. As the excerpted segment shows, the feds also have an anonymous SEIU official agreeing on tape to convey Blago's proposed bribe to his superiors.

BREAKING NEWS: Notwithstanding SEIU denials, Politico reports a Democrat source has revealed the unnamed SEIU official is none other than President Andrew Stern himself.

UPDATE: NPR now reports that the SEIU official was actually Tom Balanoff, the union's Illinois chief.

Blago's abortive bargain was a pretty sweet deal. The Illinois governor would have picked up a plum SEIU job funded by forced union dues, while Big Labor would have gotten another bought-and-paid-for senator.

The workers funding Blago's lavish new salary and the SEIU's vast political apparatus may have felt left out of the deal, but that's just the way Big Labor operates.

Just another example of the corruption that goes hand-in-hand with the injustice of forced unionism.