Your Medicaid dollars at Work: SEIU asks Personal Care Attendants for political donations

A group of Personal Care Attendants (PCAs) in Minnesota announced last week that they want out of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bargaining unit formed in 2014. They say they are not “state employees” and do not want anyone getting between them and the people they care for. Nor do they think PCAs should be paying 3 percent of their wages, funded by taxpayers under Medicaid, to SEIU or any union., for that matter.

They have called for an election, and this time they want a real election that ALL PCAs get to vote in, not just the 13 percent that voted YES for all home-based PCAs in 2014.  The vote in 2014 was staged by SEIU, specially crafted to win under Minnesota’s hyper-union biased law.

You can read more about it here at MNPCA.org

The Center will do its best to help PCAs make their case. To stay in close touch with the union, I signed up for emails from SEIU’s Health Care MN Local 113. No doubt I will be unsubscribed very soon but I got my first email today from a “Home Care Worker.”

This SEIU enthusiast wrote to me about blatantly partisan matters, gushing over the Democratic presumptive nominee and her choice of a running mate, while attacking the GOP.

“After four days of listening to Republicans attempt to use divisive and hateful rhetoric to win the White House, we got good news when Hillary Clinton selected Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate…. Tim Kaine has a proven track record on progressive issues from raising wages to immigration reform and racial justice.”

And twice, SEIU asked for money to fund the “Fight for $15 Voter Agenda.” This amalgamated agenda calls for a $15 an hour minimum wage (gee, why not $25 or $50?) for child and elder care, addressing racism and “immigration reform.” Something for everyone.

PCAs in Minnesota are being asked to fund the endorsed SEIU presidential ticket, both with union dues and additional donations, and no doubt support other policy and partisan issues ranging from Obamacare to Planned Parenthood.  So what, you say. Unions do that all the time. Maybe, and we should debate whether that is good public policy.

But here you have SEIU skimming 3 percent off the top from low-wage PCAs who are being compensated with a Medicaid benefit intended to help disabled Minnesotans.

Is that how Minnesotans want that Medicaid benefit spent?

The PCAs who want out of SEIU have to get 10,000 Election Cards gathered before Thanksgiving. Let’s help them.

If you are a PCA or know someone who is a PCA, ask them to fill out the Election Card today. Go to MNPCA.org or Decertify.org

If you don’t know a PCA but want to help, use your social media contacts to get the word out.

Thanks!