Families of Disabled Children Reportedly Forced to Unionize

I have never been in a union, having worked non-union jobs my whole life. That doesn't mean, though, that I have lived my life as an anti-union advocate; there have been many times where I would not cross a picket line, or buy a product, because I happened to support those who were striking.

Long story short, I have always looked at individual situations when choosing to support or oppose actions by particular unions. Having said that, I now find myself in total opposition of one of the fastest-growing unions in the country. The Service Employees International Union, better known as the SEIU, have made me cringe recently with its aggressive tactics when demonstrating during the health care debate, but they went way over the line of human decency long before that, and we are just now finding out about it.

Starting in 2006, the SEIU has been manipulating the system so that it can profit from automatic deductions taken out of the Medicaid checks from families caring for their disabled children. In this disgusting scheme that happened under Gov. Jennifer Granholm, the state, with the help of the SEIU, created an entity called the Michigan Quality Community Care Council (MQ3C), and parents who were doing nothing more then taking care of their disabled children, were reclassified as homecare workers, thus making them state employees, which allowed the SEIU to swoop in and involuntarily make them union members.

The MQ3C then involuntarily deducts $30 per month in union dues out of their Medicaid checks, and disburses it to the SEIU coffers. This is the worst kind of greed imaginable. Taking money from good people who already have a hard road in taking care of their disabled children. Parents who could ship their children to state funded nursing homes, costing the state way more money than the aid they get from Medicaid checks. Parents who do the right and decent thing, and care for their disabled children no matter the hardships, are now suffering more financial hardship to feed the SEIU political machine. This is not government acting stupidly, but rather, government acting corruptly, in partnership with the SEIU, and it's all about power, money, and greed.

The idea of an SEIU, state enforced union dues deduction reeks of corruption, but to do it to families who are already disadvantaged by the hardship of caring for disabled children goes beyond civility. This is the mission statement of the SEIU as taken from their official website:

We are the Service Employees International Union, an organization of 2.1 million members united by the belief in the dignity and worth of workers and the services they provide and dedicated to improving the lives of workers and their families and creating a more just and humane society

  —SEIU Mission Statement

Is extorting a fee from families whose situation is hard to say the least, and downright heartbreaking in most other cases somehow "creating a more just and humane society?" These families get zero benefits from the SEIU for their dues. If they do get some sort of benefit, I couldn't find anyone at SEIU Michigan who could tell me what it was.  All I got from the calls made to SEIU Michigan was the runaround, and unanswered messages.  I'll accept that as a "no comment" from the SEIU on this abomination.  If I was a "voluntary" SEIU union member, I would hang my head in shame for what my union has done to these families.

I will leave you with the link to a Fox 2 news report on just one of the thousands of families affected by this shameful act as I search for more answers on what is being done about it, how much money is involved, and who the players are, and they come from both sides of the aisle.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/forced-to-join-a-union%3A-seiu-taking-money-from-michigan-medicaid-checks