On November 3, 2018, The Hill published an article by Senior Fellow Olivia Grady. The article, “David v. Goliath: Personal care attendants stand up to the unions,” is about how Minnesota home healthcare workers are trying to decertify from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the obstacles they face:

Personal care attendants, or PCAs, in Minnesota are collecting cards for the largest decertification in labor law history. They have less than 30 days to prove that they want a new election on union representation.

This petition for an election comes after the discovery that at least eight states have a scheme in which unions deduct dues from Medicaid reimbursements to PCAs, who are usually family members taking care of individuals with disabilities.

The PCA program allows individuals with disabilities to stay in their homes, rather than live in government institutions at far greater cost. In Minnesota, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, the unions take an estimated $150 million combined each year from these caretakers, totaling $1.4 billion since 2000.

On July 12, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, introduced a proposed rule to end dues-skimming, which will solve some of the problems in these states but could take years to finalize.

Minnesota PCAs, however, need an election to keep the Service Employees International Union from automatically withdrawing union dues from home health care workers. MNPCA, a group of Minnesota PCAs, is working to obtain sufficient new cards to file a petition for an election by Nov. 30.”

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