New legislation allows union to take percentage of Home Help worker pay

November 11, 2024

Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Democrats just gave the Service Employees International Union a huge source of revenue. They are going to have the Department of Health and Human Services take a percentage of the Medicaid payments to 35,000 Home Help workers and give it to the union. We don't yet know the percentage, but last time they did this, it was 2.75%. (The last time they did this was during the Granholm administration. I wrote a story about it in 2012.)

The problem with unionizing Home Help workers is that there is no single employer. The employer of a Home Help worker is the elderly or disabled person who needs the help, so there are 35,000 of them and a good share of them are adult children taking care of elderly parents or parents taking care of disabled children. (Here is the Home Help Program Handbook.) How does a union conduct collective bargaining with 35,000 employers????

The solution is to come up with a pretend employer. Legislation passed in September (Public Act 144) makes the director of the Department of Health and Human Services that employer, but "solely for purposes of collective bargaining". The director of the Department of Health and Human Services is Elizabeth Hertel, wife of former state senator Curtis Hertel Jr. The senator who introduced the bill is Kevin Hertel, Curtis' brother. This means the "employer" the union will be bargaining with is the sister-in-law of the guy who wrote the legislation.

The next step is to have the Home Help workers vote to be represented by SEIU. In the last Home Help representation election in in the spring of 2005, 8,545 of 43,000 home help workers voted, 6,949 of them in favor, 1,007 against, with 589 spoiled ballots.

Once the SEIU is in, it has little to do but sit back and rake in the money. MDHHS will deduct the

Elizabeth Hertel

dues from the home help workers' paychecks. SEIU can't negotiate the home help wage; it is set by the legislature. The MDHHS media person explained it to me as follows:

Home Help wages are limited by legislative appropriations today. The wages paid have historically been minimum wage + the Direct Care Worker increase appropriated in a given FY ($3.40/hr in FY25).

Due to the availability of HCBS ARPA funding, the Department was able to increase those wages early- starting 10/1/24- to reflect the February 21, 2025 minimum wage increase required pursuant to the State Supreme Court decision in the Mothering Justice v. Attorney General case. The new rates can be found here.

The last time the Democrats enabled the SEIU to collect union dues from Home Help workers, SEIU took in over $32 million over a period of seven years (2005-2012).

Things are a little different this time around, however. Back in 2005-2012, home help workers had no say about belonging to the union. Since then, a U.S. Supreme Court decision said that public sector workers cannot be forced to join a union. Once the caregiver is a member, however, it won't be easy to get out. Public Act 144 says

An individual home help caregiver’s request to cancel or change deductions for bargaining representatives must be directed to the labor organization and not to the department. The labor organization is responsible for processing the request to cancel or change deductions. The department shall rely on information provided by the bargaining representative regarding whether deductions for a labor organization were properly canceled or changed, and the labor organization shall indemnify the council for any claims made by the individual home help caregiver for deductions made in reliance on that information.

Home help workers cheer Governor Whitmer's signing of bill
allowing union to take a percentage of their meager wages.

For a more neutral take on the new legislation, see Michigan Advance story Whitmer clears path to union for 35,000 care workers.

Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.

A reminder that you can find detailed payroll reports for the City of Lansing, the Board of Water & Light, Capital Area Transportation Authority and Capital Area District Libraries here.

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