Special report: A parental revolt against the SEIU’s home invasion robbery
The SEIU Purple Army: Coming to a home near you?
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.
Note: Quinn received the enthused gubernatorial endorsement of the SEIU last month. Quoth Quinn: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell to organize!” Watch:
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.
First, here’s the text of Quinn’s Big Labor home invasion executive order:
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING BY INDIVIDUAL PROVIDERS
OF HOME-BASED SUPPORT SERVICESWHEREAS, individual providers of home-based support services (“individual providers”) provide services to persons with disabilities (“consumers”) in their own homes as part of the Home-Based Support Services Program under 405 ILCS 80/2-1 et seq., and 59 Ill.Admin.Code part 117; and
WHEREAS, individual providers are employees of the consumers whom they serve or the consumer’s parents or guardian, but are not employees of the State or any other person or entity; and
WHEREAS, it is important to preserve the relationship between consumers’ control over the hiring, in-home supervision, and termination of individual providers and, simultaneously, preserve the State’s ability to ensure efficient and effective delivery of services and control the economic terms of compensation provided under the Home-Based Support Services Program; and
WHEREAS, each consumer employs only one or two individual providers and does not control the economic terms of their employment under the Home-Based Support Services Program and therefore cannot effectively address concerns commons to all individual providers; and
WHEREAS, the individual providers work in the homes of consumers throughout Illinois and therefore cannot effectively voice their concerns about the organization of the Home-Based Support Services Program, their role in the Program, or the terms and conditions of their provision of services under the Program without representation; and
WHEREAS, it is essential for the State to receive feedback from the individual providers in order to effectively and efficiently deliver home-based support services; and
WHEREAS, individual providers are not State employees, and are not eligible to receive statutory benefits, including but not limited to those provided under Illinois Pension Code, State Employee Group Insurance Act and Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act, as the State does not hire, supervise, or terminate individual providers; and
WHEREAS, the State has productively dealt for many years with a representative of personal assistants in the Home Services Program, who are similarly situated as individual providers as they provide services to vulnerable persons in their homes, are employees of those consumers, but the State controls the economic terms of their provision of services.
THEREFORE, I hereby order the following:
1. The State shall recognize a representative designated by a majority of the individual providers in the Home-Based Support Services Program as the exclusive representative of all such individual providers; accord said representative all the rights and duties granted to such representatives by the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, 5 ILCS 315/1 et seq.; and engage in collective bargaining with said representative concerning all terms and conditions of the provision of services under the Home-Based Support Services Program that are within the State’s control, including the setting of minimum rates of payment to individual providers.
2. A representative may be designated either by submission of authorization cards from a majority of individual providers or by a majority of individual providers voting in a mail ballot election. Any organization that can show that at least 30% of individual providers wish to be represented by it may participate in any election held under this order. In order to facilitate this process, the Department of Human Services shall provide to an organization interested in representing individual providers access to the names and addresses of current individual providers. The expenses of all proceedings should be borne by any participating organization(s).
3. This Executive Order is not intended to and will not in any way alter 1) the fact that individual providers are not state employees, 2) the employment arrangement of individual providers and consumers, or 3) the consumers’ control over the hiring, in-home supervision, and termination of individual providers within the limits established by the Home-Based Support Services Program.
4. In according individual providers and their selected representative these rights, the State intends that the “State action exemption” to application of the federal antitrust laws be fully available to the State, individual providers, and their selected representative to the extent that their activities are authorized pursuant to this Executive Order.
This Executive Order 2009-15 shall take effect upon filing with the Secretary of State.
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:”
On September 14, another government bureaucrat — Robb Craddock of the Central Management Services, Deputy Director of Labor Relations — sent a memo to every personal support worker with a thinly-veiled threat against union critics (PDF of letter is here):
It is important to note that any literature or other communication that Personal Support Workers have received advocating a vote for no representation, or a vote for SEIU or AFSCME, has not been sent or endorsed by any governmental entity. This includes literature and communications from service facilitation providers within the Home-Based Support Services Program. Again, the State of Illinois does not endorse any particular choice in this election; the choice is one for each individual Personal Support Worker to make. I assure you that your participation or non-participation in the election process will not affect your ability to remain a Personal Support Worker. If you have received any communications from service facilitation providers urging you to vote a particular way in the election, please contact us at (217) 782-9712. We have notified all service facilitation providers that it is the State’s position that they remain neutral as it pertains to the election.
And on September 21, the state sent yet another memo out to home-based providers threatening to cut off funding for making “anti-union” statements:
Parent Pam Harris summed it up for me last week: “Our governor receives money and support from a union. He signs an Executive Order allowing that union to organize a unique group of workers who provide personal supports to people with substantial functioning limitations in the privacy of their home. Most of who[m] are parents. In the Executive Order, the Governor states that this group of workers are NOT employees of the State of Illinois but he acts like our boss when he says that “the state will recognize a representative designated by a majority” of the workers. Then neither the state or the unions inform the unique group that they have a right to vote for NO union representation until 2 weeks prior to the election. The state also successfully quashes any legitimate avenues for the flow of information about the option for NO union representation by sending a thinly veiled “cease and desist memo” to every personal support worker and every service facilitation provider. Our adult children have substantial functional limitations. We are just trying to get accurate information about a very important decision that will affect their lives. Maybe someone thinks we are too overwhelmed caring for our children to pay attention. Well, they are mistaken.”
Here is the flyer Harris and other parents have sent out. Ballots for the election are due October 19:
SEIU is turning up the heat. Home-based providers have been targeted by Access Living, a left-wing advocacy group that is partners with SEIU Local 880 and ACORN. Access Living’s letter to Illinois home-based providers, signed by the President/CEO Marca Bristo, brags that since they “united with SEIU, we have worked closely with them to win expanded services, better funding and healthcare benefits for providers.”
Despite the state’s gag order on politicking, the SEIU-tied Access Living advocacy letter was exempted from the gag order.
Could a union-Democrat Party-sponsored home invasion attempt be coming to your state?
Illinois is not alone.
The SEIU also has its eye on Kansas:
In August, the state, on behalf of the Service Employees International Union, sent out letters to retrieve contact information of in-home health care workers. SEIU, which actively works on behalf of Democrats, asked for the information under the Kansas Open Records Act.
SEIU Healthcare Kansas made the request for contact information so it could “communicate with providers of consumer directed care in the state, and convey essential information about issues affecting the providers and their families as well as the quality of care for consumers in Kansas,” the SEIU letter said.
Then in September, after a storm of criticism from Republicans and some representatives of in-home health employees, the state sent out a second letter saying it had reconsidered and would not be collecting the information for the SEIU.
SEIU actually made two requests under the Kansas Open Records Act — one for the contact information of providers of consumer directed care and one for contact information for a list of vendors used to fulfill the first Open Records request.
According to memos from the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, the state was going to charge SEIU about $4,500 to collect this information.
But Michelle Ponce, spokeswoman for SRS, said since the decision was made not to fulfill the records requests, SEIU would not get charged. That leaves the state having to pay for the initial letters to providers and the follow up letters that the state would not seek the information. That printing and postage will be about $1,000, Ponce said.
Background docs here.
Who will fight the SEIU and its power-hungry union competitors?
With a few exceptions, Republican officeholders have been asleep at the wheel — or worse, on the union dole themselves:
Today conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft joined families with disabled children to protest Gov. Pat Quinn’s Executive Order 09-15 which provides public sector unions SEIU and AFSCME the ability to unionize providers of services to the disabled under the Home-based Support Services Program administered by the Illinois Department of Human Services. In many instances, the persons who have qualified for assistance as home-based service providers are the parents of the disabled children.
“This is appeasement of the public sector unions by Gov. Quinn at the expense of quality service and service providers to disabled people in Illinois,” said Proft. “Quinn is at the mercy of the public sector unions and, as a result, he has green-lighted the despicable, coercive efforts of SEIU and AFSCME. They seek to impose themselves on families and increase the costs of service provision on those who already struggle to provide quality care to their disabled children.”
“This is par for the course in state government,” Proft continued. “Systems are fixed in favor of the public sector unions and the politicians they support and against people who play by the rules, including the most vulnerable among us.”
“If Gov. Quinn truly cares about families with disabled children, he will rescind Executive Order 09-15 and call off the SEIU and AFSCME attack dogs,” said Proft.
Proft also called on fellow Republicans to stop accepting campaign cash from SEIU and AFSCME.
“For too long, Republicans in Illinois have gone along to get along,” said Proft. “They have been complicit with public sector unions who have had the run of this state at taxpayer expense while people who play by the rules have been fleeced to finance the status quo.”
“We, as Republicans, need to take the fight to the public sector unions and speak with moral clarity,” Proft continued. “We cannot do this if we’re on their dole. Republicans and Republican campaign committees from the State Party on down should cease accepting campaign contributions from SEIU and AFSCME if we desire to present a comprehensive reform agenda for Illinois with clean hands.”
Proft noted that last week the Illinois State Republican Party Chairman called on a Democrat U.S. Senate candidate to renounce his ties to SEIU and SEIU-backed candidates.
“If we’re going to call on others to cut ties from SEIU, then we should begin by doing so ourselves,” Proft added.
State Senator Kirk Dillard, one of Proft’s opponents, has taken more than $3600 in contributions from SEIU and AFSCME. The House Republican Organization has accepted more than $83,000 from SEIU and AFSCME.
Parent Pam Harris didn’t choose to lead a revolt against Big Labor. “We’re not boat-rockers. We struggle to keep it together. There’s little time to deal with union organizing and gag orders and privacy invasions of the state. Do you know how blown away I am that a bureaucrat is phoning me and sending me e-mail?”
But, she says, “I don’t want my money to be used to help SEIU exercise their political muscle. They have issues I don’t want to support and I don’t agree with. I’ll jeopardize what little support I do have. Somebody has to speak up!”
The Culture of Corruption has never hit so close to home.
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Sure would be nice if progressive busybodies could leave the rest of us alone.
Of course, if they had real jobs, they wouldn’t have time to run other peoples’ lives.
BINGO!!
I would normally say “you have got to be kidding” but I know you aren’t kidding.
So the state can now give out information to unions that contains the private, domestic residental information of anyone in Illinois.
Didn’t the leftists used to claim the were concerned about “privacy rights?” I guess they are less concerned about that than we thought.
If some union thug shows up a my door he will be told to beat a hasty retreat or else!
The moral of the story is NEVER accept a penny from the state. The costs of government “help” are simply too high.
Like somebody said (sorry I don’t remember who) “Purple! It’s the new brown!
The Nanny State knoweth and taketh all!
3500 in-home providers.
Let me have their phone numbers and I can personally call each and every one inside of 140 days.
It is too late for CA and they already did it here. The SEIU claimed the program would only cost $100 million and it has ballooned to over $5.5 billion in just a few years and one of the causes of CA budget crisis. Why? Well the SEIU signed up everyone they could and now there are over 300,000 SEIU home health care workers in CA.
This is an article talking about it back in June from the Sacbee because they were trying to do a cut to the program.
Budget cuts squeeze home health care workers
The Home Health Workers could form LLPs and co-ops of their own and thus avoid SEIU nicely. They could even be self contained unions if they wanted and still avoid SEIU and the Teamsters who are also getting into the service industries.
These problems can be solved with a little research and work. It is the big companies with the lucrative government contracts who give in to the political unions.
Oh and the rest of the states thinking about doing this just needs to point to CA to show what a disaster this idea is.
Let me get this straight…Listening in on conversations between suspected terrorists in other countries and someone here in the US is bad.
Giving the unions the names and phone numbers of private citizens who happen to care for their adult children who have disabilities is good?
Common sense has left the country!
another example of how it is so much easier to bribe politicians to institute your goals than it is to actually sell the program to those peons, the people. this is why employers collect the gubmint’s taxes and carry on all kinds of gubmint programs for free. it’s too complicated for charlie rangel, let the employers do it.
is it not possible to sue the state for lying? (mmm…pipe dreams…*drool*) The State claims neutrality while pushing the unions and suppressing (oppressing?) those against unionization. Conflict of interest, lying, whatever it’s called it needs to be thrown out in to the sunshine or better yet thrown out all together.
I wonder if stay at home moms are next.
I figure it will be the Teachers Unions going after the parents of home schoolers.
The simple and undeniable fact is that government at all levels has become corrupt beyond belief. The power of government needs to be reined in at the Federal, State and local level. Yet, every year we keep voting people into office that want to run our lives because the claim to “know better.”
California is the perfect example of this nonsense but Northern Virginia is doing its best to emulate the lunacy of California. I don’t think there is a real conservative on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at this point.
The budget is bloated beyond belief and has grown and they just can’t stop spending like drunken sailors.
http://www.fcta.org/GIFSFC04ADV/FC04CoTwo.html
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The Illinois politicians sell out the people quite cheaply–a few thousand dollars is enough to do the trick.
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With Blago / Obama / Acorn / SEIU “organizing” the state it will probably go the way of the people’s republic of Kalifornia soon.
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Keep the “community organizers” out of Texas–and out of my wallet! Remember the Alamo!
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John Bibb
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It is in their DNA–be careful of people who talk of “our children”–parents are but breeding stock to such scum.
I figure if the unions fail in that CA court case against home schooling their next step will be to get with the state legislatures to impose mandatory teaching credentials on all parents who want to home school in an attempt to force children back into the public school system (to fill the coffers of the teachers unions).
Whatever happened to privacy laws? Aren’t private citizens entitled to any? State officials now provide addresses to unions? Corruption in almost all levels of government has become a way of life!
Thank you, Michelle for holding the light on this. Let’s swamp Quinn’s office with protests againt Executive Order 2009-15! Enough is enough!
Out here in Cal, it is not a question of unionizing those home health care workers, but it is instead a requirement of joining the union to qualify for such a job. In fact, it is UP TO THE UNION to decide who is qualified to be a home healthcare worker. This nicely eliminates having the state do those pesky criminal or illegal alien checks.
The UNION decides who is a PAYING member of THEIR standards!
When the pendulum swings we need to crush the unions like an egg.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this crap was already happening here in PA, a political-machine state. Gov Ed Rendell would probably like the idea. The only thing slowing it down would be the Repubs controlling the Senate.
The problem is that government has coopted unions and management. Look at how many CEOs caved to Obama knowing that Obama would screw them! If a bunch of CEOs would simply stand up to this clown this would start to change. But they won’t even though they know it means the end of their companies! It is insanity.
What is truly depressing to me is how few on the right will protest this. We can all think of about a half dozen names (MM being among them, of course) who will speak out for these people but from the bulk of what passes for the right these days, nothing or an afterthought at best. The pretend right we know could not care less (the David Brooks and Kathleen Parker types), but even among establishment conservatives I expect to hear little or nothing. George Will? I wouldn’t hold my breath. Peggy Noonan? Not terribly likely. The entire NRO staff? Wouldn’t get my hopes up. It’s not that these people don’t get it, it’s that they will never get, seem utterly incapable of getting it. Like the republicans who go to congress to make deals with democrats, the establishment conservatives long for the day that they will be invited to lunch by the liberal powers that be — and won’t have to pick up the tab. Not going to happen.
Socialists
Engaging in
Industry
Usurpation
I used to love the color purple, now I hate it.
I used to be open-minded, but these social engineers have altered that concept
I used to judge people by their good deeds, and the content of their character, but our president has shown the short-comings of giving the benefit of the doubt to strangers.
In nine shorts months, I have gone from a caring, compassionate conservative, to a citizen who is suspicious of ALL politicans, especially any with connections to organizations bearing the colors purple or red. I have also discovered a particular distain for hateful, loudmouthed, inner-city entitlement thugs. Particularly, those of color, and those who appear to be recruited from the lines at the Welfare Office (You know…the ‘Gimme’s?).
Thank you, Mr. President. You’ve given this American, a greater appreciation for truth, justice, and freedom…things I find myself compelled to fight for, but things that you seem compelled to fight against.
MOLON LABE
Der Obamaführer ist die Mobilisierung aller seiner nationalen Sozialistischen Arbeiterpartei (dh, “lila T-shirts”) zu bedrohen und zu zerschlagen allen Meinungs-und Versammlungsfreiheit der Bürger, die sich gegen seinen Masterplan für den Nationalsozialismus in Amerika.
Or, in English:
The leader Obama is mobilizing all his National Socialist Workers (i.e., “purpleshirts”) to threaten and smash any and all freedom of speech and assembly of the people who oppose his master plan for National Socialism in America.
At first reading this seems to give some power to the family. Granted, the cost will go up and the provider will be forced to fund the union, and the union and the state can expand their cozy relationship, but hiring, supervision, and termination still (I think?) reside in the home, right?
But then, who is the “consumer”? The developmentally disabled or physically challenged person, or the parent? If it is the child (or dependent) how do they hire, supervise, and terminate? If it is the parent (or guardian), do they hire, supervise and terminate themselves?
This is reprehensible.
So, naturally, we here of this happening in Illinois. Land of the Executive Order.
Gee, when will that state’s voters wake up and clean house (both of them)? Soon?
At all?
My prediction, people will vote to reduce thier own wages.
Just saying…
S.C.A.R.Y.!!!!!
question for you guys. We were recently informed that there is a bill in the house mandating that ALL states allow unions to go after EMS workers. If we don’t want to join we may still have to pay “dues” because the union will automatically become our wage bargaining representative?! Do any of you know anything about it? Valid? Is there an easy way to find out and if it is true how does one fight it?
My family received death threats from unions when I was a kid because my dad was in management and dared to cross the picket line. No love lost here for unions.
Do Americans just have some kind of golden memories of the early days of unions, fighting for the lowly worker? Why can’t anyone see that they’ve simply turned into money-grubbing thugs. Last year my family paid caretakers to help us with our mom after she had a stroke and was diagnosed with metastatic brain tumors and needed 24-hour care until her death. She wanted to be at home, not a nursing facility. We found a group of angels of mercy, and paid them with the money my mom had saved for when she needed to be taken care of. They did it because they have hearts and truly want to take care of the sick and dying. Being part of a union doesn’t give people like this more compassion – it just further lines the pockets of CEO executives.
Something tells me with “mail-in” ballots, this is a done SEIU deal. I see tons of stuffed ballot boxes, in true Chicago union tradition. “Vote Early, Vote Often” still applies.
I’d write the governor and tell him to go to hell if I lived there. AND for him to take the Ph.D twit who’s signing threatening letters to anyone against unionization.
The Land of Obama extends its fingers once again.
I’ll no doubt get a royal flaming for this, but the caregivers crawled into bed with the government when they started taking “the state’s” money.
They shouldn’t be so surprised to find out they’re picking up diseases.
I hear all the time that the price of healthcare needs to come down. So, exactly how does that happen when there is a push to unionize healthcare workers? These people will have get increases in pay to afford the union dues. In addition, I don’t see healthcare costs coming down by taxing those with plans because they are expensive plans and taxing those without plans all in an effort to pay for those without plans. My only conclusion is that it’s all about votes; specifically votes for dems.
It happened in WA State and not just the EMS workers, but all government employees. They went as far as firing those who refused to pay the partial dues for representation they did not want.
yikes! guess I may be getting fired from my $1/hr volunteer position then. This was the US house of reps and we are a right to work state. Somebody tell me it can’t happen in the US.
Supposedly, so is WA State.
I’m on a campaign to stamp out the use of this analogy when discussing government politicians and bureaucrats wasteful spending habits. After all, drunken sailors are spending their money; said government pukes are spending our money.
The Mob-Controlled State of Illinois — it’s a RICO operation.
The definition of privacy rights under Dems must be looser.
Reading all of that made my head ache – and my heart. As though the parents and other family members who are the primary caregivers don’t have enough to deal with already…!
Back when we were still actively homeschooling, one of the great debates was whether it would be a good thing to have ‘tax credits’ or any sort of government voucher for homeschoolers.
Some argued that to accept any government money would give the government even more say in how we educated our children, while others argued that any money we might get was simply a refund of our own tax money that would have been spent on our children in the public school system (btw, the local schools did get matching federal funds for each of our children even though they never set foot in any public school – but that’s another issue)
Bottom line is, after reading this mess, I’m more convinced than ever that those who simply wanted the government to keep the money and leave us alone were right.
So if the union calls a strike, you walk out on your family member? Not sure how this would work but then, the union is after power- the devil is in the details.
Personal experience tells me no – nothing much you can do. I dealt with this as a member of the NYCPBA during the mid-70′s and NYC financial crisis. Many of us withdrew from the PBA in protest to our union caving in to city demands and giving up our long negotiated contracts. It wasn’t long before the PBA noticed the dues hit they took and went to court to declare a Union Shop, because they were the city recognized bargaining agent for the cops. Bingo – we were a Union Shop and dues were taken whether we were PBA members or not. It was still that way when I retired in the mid 90′s. We tried many times to prevail on the courts to overturn the deal without success.
Short answer … you’re screwed.
Hate to say it, peeps, but getting the government to foot your bills means you have to play by their rules. If you want to be free of government tyranny, ya gotta stop taking the government’s money.
What a bunch of thugs in Illinois politics. Take money from union thugs, then sign an EO hugely favoring their union buddies, then send threatening letters to citizens while claiming to be neutral.
Oh…I’m sure if these providers are being paid (a pittance I’m sure) by the state, the state essentially took action for them (the state) to pay more money to these employee’s (I refuse to call them “workers”, sounds so communist) with more tax dollars, to be siphoned from the providers back to the union thugs.
…so the union can donate more to the politicians helping them out.
What a racket.
In Nevada, we refer to this as a fatal mistake.
ACORN showed up at my door one day, and I’m SURE they won’t again…
SEIU, bring it.
Fight on, decent people of IL.
“If a purple shirt shows up at my house(which is unlikely, (I’m in a gated community) I will blow them off my dooorstep. (not with a gun or bazooka, but a leafblower.) I mean this isn’t al capone/obama days in chicago. And I do respect the law. This is the most corrupt Gov.I have ever, ever! seen in my lifetime and I have been following closely since 1974 and that was 2 years before I graduated High School.
Time to step up and get these losers out! I mean OUT! of their positions. NOW! 2010 start the process, for the love of GOD.
That is DISGUSTING!!!!!!
The government, and unions, are using coerson, fear tactics, misinformation, intimidation, deception, ommission, and more, to manipulate the citizenry and to censor free speech!
Are US citizens mice, or are they men?
If they are men, and women, with a head on their shoulders, and if they have a bit of vim and vigor in them, these thugs will not long prevail!
Just a note…the republicans are not asleep at the wheel…they just know in their hearts that their good friends in the democratic party would NEVER use ACORN or SEIU to promote liberal causes at the expense of the rest of America, they know this and nothing will change their minds.