Illinois law that imposes union bargaining on nonunion care providers violates their First Amendment rights
Chicago, IL (November 10, 2015) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation and the Illinois-based Liberty Justice Center, six personal care and childcare providers have filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois and the SEIU Health Care II union. The plaintiffs are challenging a law that grants SEIU officials exclusive “bargaining” powers with state government for thousands of Illinois caregivers – including many who never joined the union or oppose the union’s presence – over policies related to their homecare practices, as well as a public subsidy their clients receive for caregiving.
The lawsuit follows the Foundation’s landmark 2014 Supreme Court victory in Harris v. Quinn, which was also filed on behalf of several home-based Illinois care providers. That decision prohibited union officials from collecting mandatory dues or fees from home-based caregivers and suggests that providers cannot be forced by state governments to accept exclusive union representation concerning their caregiving practices.
The providers’ lawsuit contends that state law infringes on their First Amendment rights by forcing caregivers to associate with a union they do not wish to join or support. The union’s power to deal with the State of Illinois over caregiving practices also violates the care providers’ right to freely petition their own government.
In recent years, union officials have increasingly targeted home and childcare providers for aggressive organizing campaigns. In Illinois, former Governor Pat Quinn signed a 2009 executive order designating 4,500 individuals who offer in-home care to disabled persons as “public employees” solely for the purpose of unionization. Quinn’s executive order mirrored an earlier directive issue by disgraced former Governor Rod Blagojevich, which designated over 20,000 personal care providers as state workers solely for the purpose of forcing them into union ranks. That executive order was later codified under the state law that is now being challenged by the plaintiffs’ lawsuit.
Foundation staff attorneys are also helping home and childcare providers challenge similar schemes in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington State.
“The government has no right to appoint an ‘exclusive representative’ to speak on citizens’ behalf just because they benefit from a government program,” said Jacob Huebert, senior attorney at the Liberty Justice Center public interest law firm, who is co-counsel in the lawsuit. “Under the First Amendment, individuals get to decide for themselves what they will say to the government and who will speak on their behalf. This lawsuit asks the federal courts to strike down this unconstitutional scheme.”
“Home-based caregivers should not be forced to associate with a union they have no interest in joining or supporting,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “We hope this case will build on the Supreme Court’s landmark, Foundation-won Harris decision to protect caregivers’ freedom of association and put a stop to union bosses’ forced homecare unionization schemes.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
