RIGHT TO WORK FOUNDATION FUNDS MINNESOTA HOME HEALTH SERVICES EMPLOYEES CHALLENGE UNIONIZATION
JANUS 2.0? Home-based employees providing home-health are affiliated with SEIU in Minnesota. This week, the employees asked the U.S. Supreme Court asked to review the affiliation in the Bierman case. A group of Minnesota home-based care providers backed by the National Right to Work Foundation (which brought the landmark Janus v. AFSCME suit) petitioned the Supreme Court Thursday to take up a challenge to a Minnesota state law that permits home care workers for Medicaid recipients to unionize. The suit, Bierman v. Dayton, was brought in 2014 after Minnesota home care providers voted to be represented by the Service Employees International Union. The plaintiffs argue that even though the law doesn’t require union non-members to pay fair-share fees, the SEIU still bargains on behalf of everyone in the bargaining unit, including non-members, a circumstance the plaintiffs decry as “monopoly representation.”