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Don't Look Now But You're a State Employee
Townhall.com ^ | March 3, 2010 | Marybeth Hicks

Posted on 03/03/2010 8:40:07 AM PST by Kaslin

They operate under names like Granny’s Junction. Inside, among cubbies for winter coats, boxes of Legos and kitchen tables surrounded by booster seats, they offer a lifeline to millions of working mothers and fathers.

The nation’s home-based child care providers represent millions of single business owners –women, mostly – whose entrepreneurial spirit and operating ingenuity are surpassed only by their willingness to clean the noses and backsides of other people’s children.

In Michigan, roughly 40,000 of the state's 70,000 day care owners were perhaps too busy changing diapers, reading stories and making lunches to notice a random piece of mail in which they were invited to declare themselves unionized state employees. (See www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/12223.)

Obviously, a private business owner is not an employee of the government. But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) couldn’t resist the lure of so many potential dues-paying members.

So AFSCME hatched a grand scheme. Suppose you declare that any child care provider whose clients receive state subsidies for daycare are considered employees of the state? You’d instantly have 40,000 new state employees to add to the rolls of union membership.

Follow the union’s logic: Say you own and operate Granny’s Junction Daycare. A few of your clients attend job-retraining programs that qualify them for subsidized child care benefits. Along with the money that is paid directly to you from these clients, you receive a check each month from the state to pay some of their expenses.

This makes you… wait for it… a State employee. “Close enough for government work” never rang so true.

To accomplish this surreptitious unionization effort, Michigan’s Department of Human Services (DHS) formed an agency called the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council (MHBCCC). This agency does exactly nothing. In fact, they aren’t even funded by the Michigan Legislature. But MHBCCC is an entity against which a union may organize.

Enter AFSCME’s new “faux” union, Child Care Providers Together Michigan (CCPTM) .The new union sends election ballots to those 40,000 potential members (formerly known as small business owners), encouraging them to unionize. About 6,000 ballots are returned. Interestingly, more than 5,000 favor joining the union, while only 475 oppose it. The other 34,000 threw the thing away, assuming they couldn’t possibly need a union – or be eligible to join one – since they own and operate private businesses.

But wouldn’t you know, those business owners now are paying “union dues,” assessed at 1.15 percent of their monthly subsidies. The annual total withheld and diverted directly to CCPTM (read: AFSCME): $3.7 million. Dollars.

Meanwhile, the “employer” doesn’t provide healthcare benefits, training, insurance, a cup of coffee, a company picnic or any other conceivable attribute of employment, least of all, a full-time paycheck. And the union doesn’t negotiate a contract. It simply lobbies the state to set more preferable subsidy rates.

Suffice to say, the independent child care providers could have hired a lobbyist for a lot less than $3.7 million per year.

Three women are suing the DHS for diverting their child care payments as “union dues,” since they say, “the DHS does not have the constitutional authority to reclassify home-based day care providers, who are business owners and independent contractors, as government employees.”

Their attorney, Patrick Wright of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation (www.mackinac.org), says the implications of the case are broad. “If unions can declare private business owners, such as child care providers, as public employees, simply because they receive secondary payments in the form of subsidies, who is next?”

And what other ramifications might there be? Suppose Granny’s Junction is a Christian daycare center, where children learn about Jesus while playing in Granny’s sandbox? If she’s now a state employee, is she barred from promoting a religious preference, even if her beliefs are a reason her clients chose her for child care services?

Thank you, AFSCME, for opening a door the ACLU can walk through.

There’s a reason why unions are on the decline. Most workers don’t need one and they don’t want one. Least of all a fake union that takes money from honest business owners.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: corruption; fraud; takingyourmoney; theft; unions; youpaidforthis; youwillpayforthis
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Unions might be on the decline, but more government workers have joined unions
1 posted on 03/03/2010 8:40:07 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

“Suppose Granny’s Junction is a Christian daycare center, where children learn about Jesus while playing in Granny’s sandbox? If she’s now a state employee, is she barred from promoting a religious preference, even if her beliefs are a reason her clients chose her for child care services?”

If you take the man’s money, you work for the man. What’s the question? Of COURSE the government can prevent you from uttering religious comments. You’re already bought and paid for.


2 posted on 03/03/2010 8:44:08 AM PST by Pecos
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To: Kaslin

The saddest part of this is the fact that some GOP lawmakers in the state seem to back this crap.

My plea to my fellow Michiganders is please don’t blindly vote without looking at where these people stand. Races for the US house senate make a lot of noise but I think we’re hurting ourselves the worst right here at home.


3 posted on 03/03/2010 8:46:54 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin!)
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To: Kaslin
I would shut it down, and close up shop before I would be forced to support a union.

Unions will be the death of the United States, just like they were the death of Detroit and other cities.

The only people who thrive under unions, are the union bosses. All the members are reduced to mediocrity under the disguise of "job security" and "regular raises". But there is nothing you can do to excel, because the very premise of unionism is SAMENESS. You must all be the same,with the only difference is HOW LONG you have been the same (seniority).

But you know the old saying, "Some people have 20 years of experience, and some have 1 year's experience, 20 times".

In a word...unions are COMMUNISM by slavery. The main difference between UNIONS and yo' MAMA is, yo' MAMA loved you unconditionally, and she didn't charge you monthly dues to think the way she did.
4 posted on 03/03/2010 8:55:03 AM PST by FrankR (Those of us who love AMERICA far outnumber those who love obama - your choice.)
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To: absolootezer0

LOL


5 posted on 03/03/2010 8:57:11 AM PST by envisio
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To: Kaslin

This is basically the government stealing money from business owners and giving it to the union.

That is all this is.


6 posted on 03/03/2010 9:01:19 AM PST by GeronL (Political Philosophy: I Own Me (yep, boiled down to 6 letters))
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To: grellis

MI ping


7 posted on 03/03/2010 9:01:28 AM PST by absolootezer0 (2x divorced, tattooed, pierced, harley hatin, meghan mccain luvin', smoker and pit bull owner..what?)
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To: cripplecreek
The saddest part of this is the fact that some GOP lawmakers in the state seem to back this crap

Of course they do. The GOP never undoes anything.

8 posted on 03/03/2010 9:02:34 AM PST by GeronL (Political Philosophy: I Own Me (yep, boiled down to 6 letters))
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To: Kaslin

Filed under “Unions are evil”...


9 posted on 03/03/2010 9:05:22 AM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Kaslin

70,000? uh, that’s a ridiculous and completely false number. makes me question the 5,000 “in favour.”


10 posted on 03/03/2010 9:06:44 AM PST by absolootezer0 (2x divorced, tattooed, pierced, harley hatin, meghan mccain luvin', smoker and pit bull owner..what?)
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To: Pecos

if you don’t accept any children that come with government assistance, you aren’t being required to be unionized (yet).


11 posted on 03/03/2010 9:11:05 AM PST by absolootezer0 (2x divorced, tattooed, pierced, harley hatin, meghan mccain luvin', smoker and pit bull owner..what?)
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To: GeronL

Its a pretty screwy situation and the private industries that are supposedly going to do the heavy lifting for NASA should pay heed. The same can be said for welfare recipents, people on unemployment, and social security. Basically anyone who gets a paycheck that in any way comes from government. How about doctors who have medicare patients?

The government can force you to pay union dues to a union that will do absolutley nothing for you.

Here in Michigan the courts have even denied them a right to fight back. Its nothing more than government sanctioned theft.


12 posted on 03/03/2010 9:15:59 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin!)
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To: cripplecreek

They need to keep suing and they need to get some real Republicans up there too. And TEA Parties!


13 posted on 03/03/2010 9:26:03 AM PST by GeronL (Political Philosophy: I Own Me (yep, boiled down to 6 letters))
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To: absolootezer0

Pretty easy to stuff the ballot box when nobody even knew there was a vote.


14 posted on 03/03/2010 9:26:12 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin!)
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To: GeronL

Definitely something our GOP candidates for Governor need to answer.


15 posted on 03/03/2010 9:27:24 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin!)
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To: absolootezer0

Another funny thing about that vote.

They were mail in ballots mailed to union HQ for union counters to tally without any representation from opposition. I really doubt they even bothered with any counting at all.

I am kind of curious about how they came up with the numbers.


16 posted on 03/03/2010 9:39:22 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin!)
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To: Kaslin

If Christians running Day Cares [and Christian and Catholic Hospitals] would CLOSE their doors to the hundreds of thousands of Day Care Children, the State could not locate enough Centers for the children [or hospitals for the patients].

As long as the State needs service providers and hospitals within their borders, WE The People have the upper hand.

When 0bama-bots open the concentration camps, aka FEMA camps, not so much.


17 posted on 03/03/2010 9:49:36 AM PST by HighlyOpinionated (MAKE THE WHITE HOUSE A SMOKE FREE ZONE. No Cigarettes, Cigars or Pipes.)
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To: HighlyOpinionated
When 0bama-bots open the concentration camps, aka FEMA camps, not so much.

Michigan is importing prison inmates from Pennsylvania for no other reason than to keep union guards employed now.
18 posted on 03/03/2010 9:55:49 AM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin!)
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To: Kaslin

This is another example of how incredibly inventive leftists are at devising multi-million dollar legalized rackets.


19 posted on 03/03/2010 9:58:44 AM PST by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: cripplecreek
Its nothing more than government sanctioned theft.

actually its direct government theft. the "dues" come directly from checks the government sends out to the daycares, and funnelled the money to unions. then the gov't also increased the child care allowance rate to match.
day care providers shouldn't notice any difference in what they actually get.
the only people that are truly effected are taxpayers.
20 posted on 03/03/2010 10:08:09 AM PST by absolootezer0 (2x divorced, tattooed, pierced, harley hatin, meghan mccain luvin', smoker and pit bull owner..what?)
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