State Of Minnesota To Allow Forced Unionization Of Private Care Providers

The State of Minnesota has pushed through legislation defining private personal and child care providers as state employees, thus allowing them to be unionized.

Governor Mark Dayton had previously tried to accomplish this with an executive order, but that was struck down by the courts.

How do these people qualify as state employees? Because some of them accept government funds. According to Democrats, they’re merely allowing these workers the same right to organize that other workers have:

“Today, the DFL members of the Minnesota Senate gave childcare providers the right to vote for a union,” Alexandria child care provider Lynn Barten said this morning. “Everyone wins when we come together and work together to improve our lives and profession.”

Childcare provider Marilyn Geller of Bemidji said this morning’s vote showed Democratic senators “acknowledged that we are smart women who deserve the right to vote to join a union.”

“With a union, providers will be able to negotiate with the state for better reimbursement rates, which will keep costs down for providers and parents. It’s simple, providers can’t work for less and parents can’t pay more,” Geller said.

The problem with this argument is that an independent care worker, running his/her own business and having no other association with these other workers outside of the acceptance of some state funding, would be forced to pay union dues if the unions organize. Minnesota, after all, is not a right-to-work state.

Nothing is stopping these workers from paying dues to a union or organization now. What this new law does is force workers who might not want to be a part of a union to join up.

Which is an absolutely travesty. Unless you’re part of Big Labor, in which case it’s quite the bounty handed out by the Democrats.

If this sort of thing happened outside of government it would be called racketeering, and people would be sent to jail.