PA Home Care Workers Hustled

United Home Care Workers, a joint project of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pulled an ambush election on Pennsylvania home care workers, where only about thirteen percent of the involved workers were eligible to vote.  After Bill Messenger, attorney for the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, successfully argued the Harris v. Quinn case before the Supreme Court last year,  SEIU officials have been desperate for new ways to keep their coffers open.  Sean Higgins has the story in the Washington Examiner.

Connie Euston, of Moon Township, Pa., did not even know an election was happening until the day her ballot arrived in the mail. It was marked: “Urgent: Ballot Enclosed for Pennsylvania Homecare Attendants Election. Deadline approaching: Vote Today!”

Euston takes care of her quadriplegic son, Greg, with help from a state-run program that provides funded subsidies to offset the cost. The ballot asked whether she wanted United Home Care Workers as her state representative. She could check yes or no. The ballot said nothing else regarding the election or United Home Care Workers.

“There was precious little information available,” she told the Washington Examiner.
In fact, the ballot was about whether homecare providers would get what amounted to a union. United Home Care Workers is a joint project of the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. They were petitioning the state to represent the caregivers.
Euston learned this only after she read a newspaper op-ed on the matter. She voted “no.” Many other providers, who, like Euston, care for family members at home, presumably threw the ballots out, assuming they were junk mail.

Only 2,663 of the state’s estimated 20,000 home care providers were eligible to vote in that election — about 13 percent total — backed United Home Care Workers by the April 23 mail-in deadline. But it still won because only 2,970 voted overall and the majority of votes cast determined the election.

Euston has had two contacts with United Home Care Workers since then. Once when she received an automated call announcing their win and later when it hosted a conference call for the providers. During the latter call, she learned that it planned to press the state for 2 percent of all providers’ subsidy checks as a “representation fee.”