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Cherry Picking Again
November 13, 2011 Voluntary Society

And folks wonder why I am less charitable to folks today than I used to be:

Robert and Patricia Haynes live in Michigan with their two adult children, who have cerebral palsy. The state government provides the family with insurance through Medicaid, but also treats them as caregivers. For the SEIU, this makes them public employees and thus members of the union, which receives $30 out of the family’s monthly Medicaid subsidy. The Michigan Quality Community Care Council (MQC3) deducts union dues on behalf of SEIU.

Michigan Department of Community Health Director Olga Dazzo explained the process in to her members of her staff.  “MQC3 basically runs the program for SEIU and passes the union dues from the state to the union,” she wrote in an emailobtained by the Mackinac Center. Initiated in 2006 under then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., the plan reportedly provides the SEIU with $6 million annually in union dues deducted from those Medicaid subsidies.

“We’re not even home health care workers. We’re just parents taking care of our kids,” Robert Haynes, a retired Detroit police officer, told the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “Our daughter is 34 and our son is 30. They have cerebral palsy. They are basically like 6-month-olds in adult bodies. They need to be fed and they wear diapers. We could sure use that $30 a month that’s being sent to the union.”

Keep that in mind when you see those union signs telling us the world would fall apart without them. Way to go. (HT to Chris M.)

"3" Comments
  1. I’ve read that story three times and I still can’t believe they get away with it. I’m curious what % of that money ends of in Democratic campaign fund?

  2. Do nurses in Rochester hospitals have to join the SEIU?

    I sold Good Humor ice cream once, and had to join the Teamsters; one of the benefits was an “I Am a Friend of Jimmy Hoffa” button. We got 25% of what we sold, thanks to the Teamsters who negotiated the contract. Sort of. We young whippersnappers got the less lucrative routes. The best route was in the ghetto in north Hartford where the old-timers would gross the most.

    To management’s credit, I got a great training day with their top-selling salesman, who ran a truck that you did not have to dismount and go to the door in the back. He showed me how to handle paper and solid currency, an important detail. He had the North End, and Travelers downtown. After subbing for the pros in the Connecticut tobacco fields selling strawberry sundaes to migrant workers, I got my own route in the worst truck (had to double-clutch, which was no problem) that had around $150 per day gross, the lowest of all routes. I was happy because I got my own truck, and figured that whatever may happen, it was not the end of my world.

    Through all of this, I had not felt any gratitude to nor animosity toward the Teamsters, and I have no feelings about them today. That was something I could not change: the price of doing business. My life was not affected, but then I did not have other mouths to feed.

    As it turned out, my foolish enterprise did not leave me with much, if any, discretionary money to spend on entertainment during the following semester, but I did develop my route, got threatened by people with bodily harm in one ghetto, got a following to protect me in another ghetto, and met the president of the Connecticut Company, which ran the buses in Hartford, where I sold ice cream. We had a ten-minute conversation, which I remember today.

    Therefore, a union extracting whatever amount usually does not play in the big picture for most people, and as a result few people are concerned with it, especially since many people move up. Even if you sell ice cream for a living, don’t you have further ambitions beyond what Jimmy Hoffa (senior or junior) can get for you? If you are among the ruling class, is this the best you can offer your subjects?

    The story above invites our full compassion, unfortunate in every way. I am hesitant to speculate what one should do.

  3. Pingback: Unions Picking Pockets – Cerebral Palsy Edition | The Pretense of Knowledge

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