Olivia Grady, Research Fellow at the Center for Worker Freedom, was published in Labor Watch on January 5, 2017, about the decertification effort in Minnesota:

It’s much easier to get a union certified than decertified. Under the rules, the homecare providers seeking decertification need to persuade at least 30 percent of the bargaining unit (over 9,000 PCAs in Minnesota) to sign authorization cards. The deadline is in early December. (The card can be obtained at the MNPCA.org website.)

If the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services confirms these cards, another vote will be held to determine whether the SEIU Healthcare union should continue to represent these workers. A majority of those who vote will decide whether the SEIU will continue to be their exclusive representative and be authorized to deduct up to $948 per year in dues from PCA members’ benefits.

The outcome of this effort will reverberate across the country. In the event the homecare providers do not succeed, unions will continue to support the election of politicians who will use this playbook to pay the unions back. In addition, in Minnesota, up to 3 percent of the Medicaid subsidy that PCAs receive will go to the unions (that is, 3 percent of the payments that should go to care providers who are stuck as union members). The program will also become more complicated and less effective. And the SEIU will use the dues paid by PCAs to support politicians with whom the PCAs may not agree.

On the other hand, if Greene and the other personal care assistants are successful, this will be the largest decertification in the history of U.S. labor law and will deal an expensive and embarrassing blow to this union.

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