Posted on 12/26/2009 4:23:11 AM PST by radar101
Michelle Berry runs a private day-care service from her home on the outskirts of this city, the birthplace of General Motors. "The Berry Patch," as she calls the service, features overstuffed purple gorillas, giant cartoon murals, and a playroom covered in Astroturf. Her clients are mostly low-income parents who need child care to keep their jobs in a city that now has a 26% unemployment rate.
Ms. Berry owns her own businessyet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazyand it's happening elsewhere in the country.
A year ago in December, Ms. Berry and more than 40,000 other home-based day care providers statewide were suddenly informed they were members of Child Care Providers Together Michigana union created in 2006 by the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union had won a certification election conducted by mail under the auspices of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. In that election only 6,000 day-care providers voted. The pro-labor vote turned out.
Many of the state's other 34,000 day-care providers never even realized what was going on. Ms. Berry tells us she was "shocked" to find out she was suddenly in a union. The real dirty work, however, had been done when the state created an "employer" for the union to "organize" against
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
About 15 years ago my ex wife and I were paying $170 per week for a sitter. That was for 1 child every day all day, one child was split between half days and full days and one child every afternoon.
We both worked and she got child support but we were still eligible for the state aid for child care.
These aren’t subsidies! Government pays the entire bill, the parent makes no contribution whatsoever, at least in the preschool programs here in our area. My wife has been a preschool director for over 30 years and every year she has to fight with the church committees not to accept ANY state or federal funding, period. Accept one penny and the controlling starts.
It’s part of the bastardizing the language to cover the true efforts of government and the unions. These are not subsidies, it’s charity, pure and simple. And it’s just tip of the iceberg. It extends to every aspect of their lives, right down to help getting a cell phone!
Sadly there is probably no way to stop the madness now. Too many are 100 percent dependent on the public teat for their every need in life. Take it away and the civil unrest would be tough to control.
Welfare reform was underway at one point, but once the country’s attention turned to another ‘emergency’ it just turned on its heel and went the other way.
So, here clients are using some state aid to pay here fees. Thus, the state says she's in their union.
If she doesn't want to be in the union, she might want to consider restructuring her prices or moving to a more affluent neighborhood. Government at all levels needs to be redone.
Maybe you should run for your state legislature.
commie bastages!
In detroit the teachers union is trying to get teachers to “donate” $10,000 each to prevent layoffs. The fact that the teachers aren’t doing it is a perfect example of what would happen if unions were forced to send around their own collection plate.
She could just get out of the business.
Then people might have an answer to the question “Why does socialism cause scarcity?”.
We’re all socialists now.
“What kind of statement is that? There are real people who live in Michigan.”
I know, I used to get upset when people here talk like that...my father in law, who is a good, decent, hard working conservative, happens to live outside of New Orleans. I get so fed up with people saying “just destroy New Orleans and the scum that lives there.” I’m proud that he’s a school teacher (history!) down there. I hope he reaches through to his students.
Likewise, while I try not to let my soft skin show through, it does hurt when people make blanket statements about DC as well. Yes, there is scum here, but there are also good families here as well. I have a love/hate relationship with the area, but the fact of the matter is...my hubby is in the Army, we are stationed here...I can’t just up and move. :P
Bring it on. I've got my stash of emergency lead rations.
come on, i live on the border with two business!
Pray for us who have to stay here, my parents are too old to move. I have to stay here.
May God be with you.
There are other southern Michigan school districts that faced 7% layoffs due to tax revenue declines where the union membership found dozens ready for an early-out and had a 95% vote for a 2% pay cut for their membership which combined prevented teacher cuts in the classroom.
Not all union members are destructive toward their community and their workplace.
who *doesn’t* accept or have customers who qualify for some sort of government subsidy?
I’ve been waiting for the feds to draft doctors when we balk about regulations and the threatened 21% Medicare fee cut in 2010 - the one that makes up the bulk of Medicare “savings.”
Doctors, owners of drug stores, grocery stores, section 8 rental houses and apartments. . .
Deserves another bump.
This is one of the most outrageous things I have ever seen.
Not that the state is monkeying with the subsidy payments - what the state giveth, the state can taketh away - but the outright corruption just to funnel government resources to a leech organization that doesn’t actually produce or do anything.
Wow.
I am speechless.
So glad I live in Texas, as opposed to California or Michigan or any of those other states.
Just wow.
You are exactly right.
That’s $8,840 a year. I’d say that’s a pretty substantial burden to bear.
Ha. Thanks much
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