This article originally appeared in The Detroit News Nov. 2, 2025.

SEIU Healthcare Michigan announced in November that it had won an election allowing the union to represent nearly 32,000 home health caregivers who assist people with disabilities in their homes. But only 4,025 of the 31,616 eligible caregivers voted to be represented by the union — a mere 12.7% of the group.

Until recently, home caregivers weren’t eligible to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act because they don’t work in a centralized workplace. They work in private homes of the people needing personal care. Most caregivers are family members serving loved ones who need support. They cannot bargain over working conditions in someone’s house.

That changed recently when the Legislature passed a law creating a new kind of quasi-state employee ― a move that is flatly unconstitutional. Under this new law, home caregivers are state employees, but they are state employees only for the narrow purpose of unionization. They aren’t hired, fired, trained or managed by the state. The people receiving care ― often family members ― retain full authority over that.

This new law exempts these home caregivers from oversight by the Michigan Civil Service Commission, even though the legislation explicitly makes them employees of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. (The Michigan Constitution gives the Civil Service Commission exclusive authority over state employees.)

The caregivers’ union doesn’t have the power to bargain with the Department of Health and Human Services over wages or working conditions. Stipends for home caregivers are decided legislatively. In sum, the SEIU can collect dues, but it can’t negotiate better pay and working conditions — the very reason unions typically exist. At best, it can “advocate” for higher wages, something that is more akin to lobbying than bargaining.

So, what’s the point of this union? The only real answer is that this is just another partisan power grab to fill the coffers of its preferred political party.

SEIU Healthcare of Michigan is an extremely partisan union that gives almost 100% of its political donations to the Democratic Party. It now gets to collect dues from tens of thousands of caregivers, even though it cannot represent them in the traditional sense.

This isn’t about improving working conditions; it’s about creating a new revenue stream that can be funneled into political campaigns. In effect, these caregivers ― many of whom are just family members caring for loved ones ― are funding a union that acts more like a political action committee.

This is not the first time such a scheme was tried. The SEIU promoted a similar arrangement in the early 2000s. Before it ended in 2012, the SEIU had already diverted $34 million in Medicaid money meant for in-home caregivers into its own coffers. It even admitted in court that a primary purpose of the dues was to influence political elections. The group tried to pass a constitutional amendment enshrining the scheme, 2012’s Prop 4, but the voters rejected it 56% to 44%.

Now the Legislature has reimplemented an almost identical dues skim to the one rejected in 2012.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Michigan home caregivers to stop this unconstitutional scheme.

Home-based caregivers and their patients deserve better than to be exploited as pawns in a partisan money grab. Medicaid dollars should go toward care — not to a politically connected union that can’t even do what unions are supposed to do.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.