Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signs into law bills to restore bargaining rights for the state’s home health care workers on October 10. Photo courtesy Gov. Whitmer’s office.
Copyright 2024 Capital & Main
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law two bills Tuesday that clear a path for the state’s home care workers to organize a statewide union of more than 35,000 workers as well as standardize care and training.
Public Act 145 reinstates workers in Michigan’s Home Help Program as state employees. The change enables the workers, who are paid through Medicaid and often care for family members, to form a statewide union. Public Act 144 creates a state authority to oversee standards and training across the workforce.
Michael Ewing, a Grand Rapids home care worker who pushed for the legislation as a member of the worker organization Michigan Home Care Workers United, attended Tuesday’s signing.
“This is like the best feeling,” Ewing said. “It’s been keeping a smile on my face. I’m motivated and focused on the next step and what we got to do to make this a complete thing.”
Ewing, who previously worked for 15 years as a line cook and food factory worker, said he’s excited about the prospect of joining a union so that he can earn a living wage and afford to spend money on his family.
“Individual homecare workers deserve nothing less than the ability to collectively bargain just as workers in all other sectors have,” said state Sen. Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores), sponsor of Public Act 144, in a statement following the signing.
Ahead of Whitmer’s signing, the legislation received criticism from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank that pushed for the 2012 reclassification of Home Health workers as private employees.
“This is atrocious public policy and you should reject it,” Patrick Wright, vice president for legal affairs at Mackinac, testified to lawmakers ahead of a House vote on the legislation. He argued that the changes would primarily be “a windfall to the SEIU,” and suggested lawmakers raise wages rather than open the path to unionization. (Disclosure: The Service Employees International Union, to which Michigan Home Care Workers United is affiliated, is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)
Tuesday’s signing coincided with Vice President Kamala Harris’ announcement of a proposal to cover home-based care under Medicare, the public health insurance for the elderly. By expanding care, Harris’ proposal would likely increase the number of care workers paid with public funds. Federal data suggest that 29% of people over age 65 — the Medicare eligibility threshold — will require home care at some point; today, that would be about 18 million people. By comparison, Medicaid currently covers home care for 4.2 million people nationwide.
History under Snyder
Both acts will take effect in March 2025. Union officials expect to plan a card-check election over the next four months and form a union next year.
Michigan home care workers have been without a union since 2012, when then-Gov. Rick Snyder reclassified the state’s then-42,000 Home Help workers as private employees. The change effectively disbanded the union. In its wake, wages barely budged, and SEIU Healthcare membership in Michigan plummeted by 84%.
Home care workers in Michigan earn, on average, $13.53 an hour — well below the $20.28 living wage for single adults without children residing in the state.
The signing follows a six-month organizing campaign by home care workers and SEIU. Since March, workers have knocked on doors, camped out on the Michigan State Capitol lawn, and urged lawmakers to pass the bills. As Capital & Main previously reported, the change means home care workers could soon file for the state’s largest union election since Whitmer’s repeal of a right-to-work statute took effect in mid-February.
SEIU began organizing home care workers in the early 1980s, and it now represents nearly 800,000 home care workers across 16 states and two Canadian provinces, according to Beth Menz, deputy director of SEIU Healthcare. Tuesday’s signing, Menz said, returns Michigan to a “national movement around care organizing.”
“When the people providing that [home] care make a living wage, have access to training, have access to health insurance, a couple of days off to care for themselves while they’re caring for others, we know that only makes the delivery of care that much better,” said Menz.