Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Unions minus Coercion Equal Nothing

A recent piece in the WSJ is a classic illustration of the fact that the legendary political power of the vaunted labor unions is based at this point only on government-sanctioned coercion.
One of the biggest supporters of Democrat politicians is the ultra-leftist Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  In 2005, the Democratic governor of blue-state Michigan, a socialist named Jennifer Granholm, gave the SEIU the power to unionize the 40,000 or so home health care workers in the state.  These estimable folk are usually independent contractors – i.e., small business owners – or just family members caring for disabled people, often elderly people.  Of course, the SEIU – like all unions – is desperately scrambling for more members to shore up its ranks.  Union-tool Granholm held that because these workers get Medicaid subsidies, they were to be considered “public employees.”

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