Foundation Opposes Biden Rule to ‘Authorize’ Illegal Union Skim of Medicaid Funds
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Comments: Federal law prohibits diverting Medicaid funds away from homecare providers
Harris v. Quinn plaintiff Susie Watts (left) said her victory against forced dues for homecare providers was really a win for her disabled daughter Libby: “It’s not even about me as a homecare provider…They’re her benefits that are being siphoned off.”
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Right to Work Foundation filed formal comments with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, asking the agency to reject an attempt to authorize state officials to redirect Medicaid funds into union coffers.
The Biden Administration’s pending proposal would overturn a 2018 Foundation-backed rule that confirmed that federal law prohibits union officials from skimming union dues payments from Medicaid funds intended for those who provide home-based assistance to people with disabilities. The Foundation’s comments argue that the Trump-era rule simply ensured that Medicaid regulations conformed to long-standing statutory law, and that the federal statute governing Medicaid prohibits diverting payments to any third parties, including unions and union PACs.
Under Obama, Union Bosses Cashed Out at Expense of Medicaid Recipients
The comments also detail the Obama Administration’s role in permitting union officials to violate the law, explaining that a special exemption created in 2014 by the Administration gave union officials legal cover to siphon upwards of $1 billion from Medicaid payments.
Union officials, especially at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), have long used deceptive and even unconstitutional tactics to divert taxpayer-funded Medicaid payments into union coffers. Before the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Foundation-won 2014 Harris v. Quinn decision, homecare providers in over a dozen states were required to fund union activities. State governments automatically deducted fees from providers’ Medicaid payments even though such union dues diversions violated federal law regarding Medicaid funds. In Harris, the court held that mandatory union payments violate the First Amendment rights of homecare workers who do not wish to support union activities. Even after the Harris decision was issued, union officials continued seizing money from hundreds of thousands of providers across the country under cover of the Obama-era rule creating an exception to the prohibition against skimming Medicaid funds. Union officials used numerous underhanded tactics to keep the dues skim going, including, according to providers’ reports, claiming the dues payments were mandatory, blocking or ignoring requests to stop the deductions, and even forging signatures to authorize them.
Unlawful System Exists to Subsidize Union Politics
“[Home and Community Based Service] Medicaid payments are supposed to pay for care for the severely disabled,” the Foundation’s comments state. “Diverting these payments to third-party special interests to subsidize their political agendas, lobbying and recruitment campaigns is as unconscionable as it is unlawful” under the federal law governing Medicaid.
“What you’re seeing is a misuse of Medicaid funds being steered away from paying for care to disabled people and being used for politics,” Foundation staff attorney William Messenger, who argued Harris, told The Washington Free Beacon in its report about the Foundation’s comments. “They set up an entire system to pressure Medicaid providers to assign a portion of their Medicaid funds over to” union officials and their political action committees.
Under the 2018 rule, union officials may still collect payments from caregivers who voluntarily support union activities, but cannot use taxpayer-funded government payment systems to deduct the dues from Medicaid payouts. Voluntary union supporters could still personally make payments just as millions of Americans make regular payments to private businesses or other organizations.
“The Biden Administration’s plan to reauthorize the Medicaid union dues skim is a cynical ploy to allow their political allies to divert funds that federal law makes clear should be going to help those who are homebound or have significant disabilities,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Homecare providers’ own free choice should determine whether union bosses receive their support, not politically motivated, federally imposed special exemptions.”
Foundation Battles Union Restrictions on First Amendment Rights at Ninth Circuit
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2021 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Cases challenge coercive, anti-Janus “escape periods” concocted by union bosses
Christopher Woods (right), seen here with Mark Janus, is taking up the latter’s fight by challenging an ASEA union boss scheme that traps workers in union payments even after they have dissociated from the union.
SAN FRANSCISO, CA – The 2014 National Right to Work Foundation victory for Pam Harris in the Harris v. Quinn Supreme Court case established that union bosses violate the First Amendment when they skim dues from homecare providers’ state subsidies without their consent. Now, seven California homecare providers have just appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals their federal lawsuit against Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 2015 officials for continuing to skim dues in violation of their rights.
According to their suit, SEIU honchos enforced a phony “escape period” on the homecare providers, illegally limiting the time in which they could stop the deductions. The providers’ suit says this contravenes the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. The Court not only held that the government cannot force individuals to subsidize union activities as a condition of employment, but also that government agencies can only deduct union payments after receiving a clear and knowing waiver of their First Amendment right not to make such payments.
Dues-Skim Scam: SEIU Took Dues Without Informing Providers of Rights
Although the plaintiffs, Delores Polk, Heather Herrick, Lien Loi, Peter Loi, Susan McKay, Jolene Montoya and Scott Ungar, are not public employees, they were designated as such solely for the purpose of monopoly unionization. Then that was used as justification for the State of California to skim union dues from their payments at the behest of SEIU officials. The seven participate in the In-Home Support Services (IHSS) program, which allots Medicaid funds to those who provide home-based aid to people with disabilities.
Polk and the other plaintiffs recount in the lawsuit that SEIU union bosses began taking cuts of their Medicaid subsidies after confusing phone calls or mandatory orientation sessions. After the plaintiffs contacted the SEIU attempting to exercise their right to stop the flow of dues, SEIU operatives informed them that they could only opt out of union dues during short union-created “escape periods” of 10-30 days once per year.
The lawsuit also points out that the federal law governing IHSS forbids diverting any part of Medicaid payments to “any other party” besides the providers. In fact, in rulemaking urged by National Right to Work Foundation comments, the federal agency that administers Medicaid confirmed that skimming such payments for unions violates the Medicaid statute passed by Congress.
The seven plaintiffs now seek a ruling that both the taking of union dues without their knowing consent and the policy restricting the providers from ending the dues deductions are unconstitutional. The providers also seek refunds of all money that they and any other IHSS program participants had taken from their payments through the illegal scheme.
Alaska Union Bosses Confine Prison Employee in Unconstitutional Deductions
Also at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Alaska vocational instructor Christopher Woods recently filed an appeal in his case challenging an “escape period” scheme to block him and other Alaska state employees from exercising their First Amendment rights recognized in Janus.
In a November 2019 email, Woods, who has worked as a vocational instructor at Goose Creek Correctional Center since 2013, informed Alaska State Employees’ Association (ASEA) officials he was exercising his Janus right to stop all union dues deductions. Rather than respect his rights, union officials rejected his request and told Woods that he could only “opt out” and not be a union member with written notice to this office during a 10-day period each year.
Woods persisted on December 2, 2019, submitting to both ASEA officials and the payroll office of the Corrections Department another email asking to cut off dues. Although the payroll office confirmed to both Woods and the ASEA that it had received the request, an ASEA official responded by merely telling the payroll office that she was “still communicating with [Woods] on the matter,” the complaint says. Woods reports in his lawsuit that he has “not received any further communications” from either the ASEA or the payroll office, and that full dues are still being seized from his paychecks.
Foundation String of Triumphs Against Janus Restrictions Unlikely to End
“‘Escape periods’ are shameless union boss-concocted schemes that only exist to keep dues money rolling into their coffers after employees have clearly communicated that they do not wish to support the union,” observed National Right to Work Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “Although these arrangements are egregious in any context, trapping homecare providers in dues-skim schemes which deprive them of money they receive for taking care of the disabled is particularly unconscionable, and additionally breaches federal law which prohibits those funds from going anywhere other than to the people giving care.
“Whether it’s the landmark victories in Harris and Janus or the eight recent lawsuits in which Foundation staff attorneys have knocked down ‘escape period’ policies and secured refunds of illegal dues for workers, the Foundation has a track record of success in these cases. Union bosses shouldn’t hold their breath in the hopes of keeping seized dues,” LaJeunesse added.
Worker Advocate Files Amicus Brief in Support of Personal Care Providers Seeking Refund of Illegally Seized Union Dues
National Right to Work Foundation brief filed with 9th Circuit Court of Appeals says union bosses should not keep dues seized in scheme ruled unconstitutional by U.S. Supreme Court in Foundation-won Harris case
San Francisco CA (January 11, 2017) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Hoffman, Routh, Eby, Olson v. Inslee in support of homecare workers in the state of Washington seeking a return of illegally seized union fees. The providers bringing the case are among the thousands of personal care provers in Washington State who had union dues illegally confiscated from them in a mandatory union dues scheme later ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
The United States Supreme Court outlined these rights in Harris v. Quinn, argued and won by Foundation staff attorneys in 2014. Harris held that the collection of forced union dues from home-based caregivers violated their First Amendment rights. The ruling struck down the scheme in Illinois, but the precedent established rendered similar schemes in other states, including Washington, unconstitutional.
In the amicus brief, Foundation attorneys argue that under Harris v. Quinn the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has no lawful authority to take the provider’s money and that now SEIU officials have no more right to keep the money than any individual or business that illegally confiscates money from a victim against their will.
“It is outrageous that forced dues seized under a scheme struck down by the Supreme Court in Harris v. Quinn have not yet been returned to the victims of the SEIU’s unconstitutional forced dues scheme,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “SEIU bosses have no more right to these providers’ money than a thief has to keep the money stolen during an armed robbery.”
National Right to Work Foundation Staff Attorney Argues Case Before 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Challenging Forced Union Dues
Janus v. AFSCME could be next U.S. Supreme Court case to decide constitutionality of mandatory union fees for public employees
Chicago, IL (March 1, 2017) – On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will hear oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME, a case challenging mandatory union fees paid by government workers in Illinois. This case builds on recent Supreme Court decisions Knox v. SEIU (2012) and Harris v. Quinn (2014), both of which were won by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
In Janus, the plaintiffs are two Illinois government employees who are represented by staff attorneys from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Liberty Justice Center.
Under Illinois law, union officials are empowered to require government employees to pay money to a union as a condition of employment. Although state employees aren’t forced to be full-fledged union members, they are required to pay mandatory dues or fees to a union or be fired. This lawsuit seeks to end that practice on the grounds that these fees violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.
A victory for the Janus plaintiffs would impact millions of government employees who currently can be fired for refusing to pay dues or fees to union officials. The National Right to Work Foundation currently has seven cases across the country on behalf of public employees seeking a ruling that mandatory union fees violate the First Amendment, with Janus most likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court first.
In 2016, because of the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the High Court split 4-4 in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case that would have also ended forced dues for public employees. A new justice will be the deciding vote should Janus or another case presenting the issue be taken up by the Supreme Court.
National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix commented, “Hopefully the Seventh Circuit will rule quickly so the case can go to the Supreme Court, which should uphold the First Amendment by ending the injustice of forcing public employees to pay tribute to union bosses as a condition of working for their own government.”
