PETOSKEY -- According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Michigan Department of Human Services will stop withdrawing so-called “union dues” from subsidy checks to home-based day care providers who supply child care services to low-income families on March 18. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed suit against the DHS in 2009 to stop what they call illegal withdrawals and had to continue their fight several times.
The head of the Department of Human Services says at-home providers are private businesses, not state employees. The decision means two unions will lose millions of dollars. The union, Child Care Providers Together Michigan, is a subsidiary of the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy said e-mails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that the unions brought this idea to the Granholm administration, which helped them implement it.
“This is fantastic news,” said MCLF Director Patrick J. Wright, who sued the DHS on behalf of Sherry Loar of Petoskey, Michelle Berry of Flint and Paulette Silverson of Brighton. “Our clients took a courageous stand against powerful interests and overwhelming odds. The idea that millions of dollars could be diverted annually from the subsidy checks of low-income families to fatten union coffers was bad enough. The fact that the government was a party to this scheme and was willing to call private employers ‘public employees’ made it all the more egregious. It is commendable that new DHS Director Maura D. Corrigan has just publicly affirmed in a news release, ‘These providers are not state employees.’”
After the ruling, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy quoted Loar saying, “I’m thrilled. But this lawsuit should not have been necessary in the first place. My government attacked the sanctity of my home just to benefit its political allies. I’m so happy to know that I’m no longer responsible to a union inside the walls of my own house.”
