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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Paul Anderson (R)

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Key decision regarding unionizing care providers

Monday, July 7, 2014

 

By Rep. Paul Anderson

 

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling last week that could have a major impact on the child care unionization law signed last year by Governor Dayton. The court ruled on a case that came from Illinois, pertaining to personal care attendants, but the decision is expected to have a bearing on the Minnesota law that allows for child care providers who have clients that accept the state subsidy for child care known as CCAP to join a union.

 

The Illinois case, titled “Harris vs. Quinn,” concerned a group of healthcare personal assistants who opposed the state’s attempt to force them into a union or to pay what’s known as “fair share” fees if they chose not to join the union. (In Minnesota, those fair share fees can range up to 85 percent of the cost of regular union dues.) The Supreme Court ruled that those employees were not actually public employees, and that they cannot be forced to pay fair share fees if they don’t join a union.

 

That key ruling is expected to impact Minnesota’s law and give those child care providers not joining a union the legal right to refuse to pay the fair share fees.

 

It’s important to remember that this doesn’t end the attempt to form a public employee union of private child care providers in Minnesota. A separate lawsuit will determine whether AFSCME can continue its effort to organize those providers whose clients include CCAP families into their union. That case and the unionization effort enacted last year had been put on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling in the Illinois case.

 

When this legislation was passed in Minnesota last year, it made no sense to me because very few people affected by the law were in favor of it. Of the many providers I visited with, only one wanted to see the bill passed. After literally hours and hours of debate in both chambers of the DFL-controlled Legislature, it finally was approved in the final days of session. And almost immediately, legal challenges were initiated by those providers who were opposed to it. They view the Supreme Court ruling as a victory in their fight to keep the union out of their business.

 

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Enjoyed a pleasant evening last week at a meeting of the Glacial Ridge Cattlemen’s Association near Villard. What made the event unique was a busload of farmers and ranchers from Alabama in attendance. The 40 or so visitors were on a state-wide tour here in Minnesota to learn first-hand about agriculture in our state. And, aside from the obvious differences in the weather between our two states and the different crops grown in each, they deal with some of the same issues as we do. High input costs, variability in the weather and burdensome regulations were some of the things we have in common with each other. One visitor remarked how refreshing our weather was, with a cool breeze blowing that particular evening. Back home, he said, it was 95 degrees that day with high humidity.

 

It was interesting to hear how they raise cotton and peanuts, along with corn and soybeans, and we were invited to try their Alabama butter beans if we ever got the chance. Likewise, I returned the invitation for them to enjoy lutefisk at their earliest opportunity.

 

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