Anti-Labor Forces Try to Quash Child-Care Union

November 20, 2015
By Steven Wishnia and Neal Tepel

Two far-right organizations are trying to overturn an Illinois law that designates the Service Employees International Union the "exclusive representative" for child-care providers and home caregivers in the state who are paid out of public funds.

The federal lawsuit, announced Nov. 11 by the Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, argues that the law violates workers’ First Amendment right “to choose individually with whom they associate to petition the government for redress of grievances,” including negotiating contracts and lobbying for increased funding for day care and home assistance programs. SEIU Healthcare Illinois vice president James Muhammad said the two organizations’ agenda is “to weaken, if not totally destroy, every avenue for workers to have a voice on the job through a union.” Home-care and child care workers “united in SEIU Healthcare,” he added, have won wage increases from $1 an hour to $13. Read more http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/17/us-usa-election-clinton-seiu-idUSKCN0T626Q20151117#