And as spending has increased, so has the size of the public employment sector. Meanwhile, the private sector will soon be close to earning a coveted placement on the endangered species list.

As the union leaders’ plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn’t mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether.  In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth.

But don’t let the beltway pundits fool you.  While the current administration certainly deserves a great deal of credit for bloating the public roster, this was a plan in the making far before the economic “crisis” was created.  And while America focused on the sexier details of  a scandal at that time, many overlooked the legislative and economic arsenal of weaponry that labor leaders honed at the height of their rebirth.

The public bloating flourished years ago in places like California, Illinois, Michigan and Maryland, and grew steadily, though concurrent private sector employment growth dampened that effect. The public sector saw a dramatic spike between 2006 and 2007, just before the mid-term election when Democrats won back control of Congress again – this after stints of Republican power from 1995 to 2001 and from 2003-2007 had interrupted Democrats’ control of one or both houses for 46 straight years.  In 2007 the private sector plummeted.  There would be plenty of catch-up to play.

Union leaders have an obvious history of bloating public sector employment.  But more importantly, there are direct connections to their activity in certain private sectors and intentional disruptions in the balance between the public and private workforce.  Reading about events in isolation from one another might not emphasize the gravity of this issue.  But revisiting prior stories and connecting the dots over and over again will.  Apathy is our greatest enemy right now.  As we enter 2010, this is perhaps one of the most important times in history when such activity could literally push America past the point of no return and will impact who your children will work for in the future.  One particular time in recent history really sets the stage for the perfect storm of today between private and public sector employment; the current stimulus spending is merely the el Niño that has stirred up the silently raging waters.

It starts in 1994 and gains its true momentum by 2005.

In 1994, ACORN and labor unions rallied behind Maryland Democrat Parris Glendening.  Soon after, that same coalition stood by a newly elected Maryland Governor Parris Glendening as he signed the Living Wage bill into law, granting government the power to set wage standards on any project that receives public subsidies. The practice of quid quo pro was back in full force.  In 1996, Glendening needed to fulfill another campaign promise to unionize state employees. When it looked like too much political and community opposition would stop that from occurring through the normal state legislative process, he issued an executive order to mandate unionization of state employees. It was the first of its kind.  It was challenged shortly thereafter, but upheld in court as within the power of the Governor’s office.  That set the wheels in motion down one path.

In 1999, after SEIU and California Nurses Association lobbied for a mandate on nurses in hospitals, California Gov. Gray Davis signed the Nurse to Patient Ratio bill into law.  That same year, SEIU made headlines all across the country when it successfully organized nearly 75,000 Los Angeles County home care workers, receiving credit for revitalizing a labor movement that was all but left for dead.  The cause to take care of the caretakers seemed a noble one to the public; however, most were unaware of the fact that the effort would require SEIU to sue the county of Los Angeles in order to set up a shell corporation that could serve as the employer of record with which the union could bargain. The public was also completely ignorant to the reality that the state of California could never sustain the level of financial burden that such an arrangement would create.  Nonetheless, this set the wheels in motion down a parallel path, where eventually the two paths would meet.

Fast forward to 2003.

Rod Blagojevich is the newly elected Governor of Illinois.  Still energized by their California home care workers win, Andy Stern, Anna Burger and their SEIU have just founded the New Unity Partnership with four other AFL-CIO unions (which later became Change to Win in 2005). Intent on organizing unorganized workers and vowing to push for a far more progressive agenda than their parent AFL-CIO has pursued, Stern is positioning himself as the more liberal replacement for current AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, himself a Democratic Socialists of America member.  SEIU has worked hand in hand with ACORN and its political organizing arm, Project Vote, to win promises from politicians, including Blagojevich, in exchange for their mobilizing power in recent and upcoming elections.

After helping Blagojevich reach his 1% margin of victory in Illinois’ gubernatorial election, SEIU is immediately rewarded on March 4, 2003 with a signed Executive Order from Blagojevich granting it collective bargaining rights for the state’s 25,000 home-care workers.  On February 18, 2005, Blagojevich signed another Executive Order for the bargaining rights of 49,000 child-care workers.  This also gave the SEIU unprecedented access to the names and addresses of thousands of workers it could target for mailings and visits from union organizers – a particularly frightening prospect for those whose workplace was also their home.

And in December 2005, Blagojevich then took it a step further.  The state of Illinois and SEIU reached a precedent-setting agreement for those child care workers, making it the nation’s first state contract of its kind for such workers.  While these workers wouldn’t technically be considered direct employees of the state, they in essence became contractors to the state, gaining health benefits and a 35% increase in wages, at the cost of nearly $300 million to Illinois taxpayers.  The contract was officially signed on March 9, 2006.  Meanwhile, some of those home child care workers weren’t even aware they’d all but lost their “self-employed” status.

And such solidified a pattern.  Just as they raid one another’s territory for new members, unions like SEIU now saw the tangible benefits to raiding the private sector, not only to gain new members, but to secure public funding and make it more difficult to cut it off.

It wasn’t long before Andy Stern was reciting, “Time to Build a National Child Care Movement.”  SEIU formed strategic organizing campaigns AFSCME and UAW to split up  regions and form child care unions, and with groups like ACORN and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to mobilize support and serve as a public relations vehicle. In 2005, Change to Win split from the AFL-CIO and was now its own entity, with SEIU and the Teamsters as its anchor unions and Anna Burger as its chair.  Democracy Alliance is founded, with Anna Burger appointed vice-chair, spawning dozens of inter-connected progressive 527 organizations and injecting more than $50 million into big labor’s agenda.

Even ACORN became revitalized, as it reaped the benefits of not only being a paid vendor to SEIU (search LM2 reports on Dept. of Labor website), but they would also see an increase in grants from state and federal government agencies to serve as a recruitment and training arm for these causes.  On Page 107 of ACORN’s Year End/Year Begin Report for 2006, SEIU and ACORN celebrated the child care victory together:

“And we signed this in style on March 9th: marching into the state of Illinois Building locked arm-in-arm singing ‘Victory is Mine,’ led by SEIU President Andy Stern and Local 880 childcare leaders Angenita Tanner, Martina Casey, Alma McIntosh, Maria Velasquez, and scores of others from across the state.  All the while, we were being filmed by “60 Minutes” and were broadcast on the show in May of 2006 – another first!  And we had a great blowout of a party afterwards when hundreds of homecare and childcare leaders from across the state celebrated the victory with a party across the street from the state of Illinois Building where we were joined by  Governor Blagojevich, State Senate President Emil Jones, and President Stern!

Best of all, this victory in Illinois was followed up by other organizing and contract victories in Oregon, Washington, and New York, with another ten states with hundreds of thousands of childcare providers in the organizing process!”  The report continued, “…Our early support of Governor Blagojevich and his commitment to support an Executive Order allowing homecare and home child care workers to organize put us far ahead of the other states… It is no accident that once Illinois’ Governor signed the Executive Order and helped pass the enabling legislation granting home child care providers organizing rights, that states like Washington, Oregon, Iowa, New York and others did the same thing…”

Generally, there is public acknowledgment that many union leaders take advantage of the political system in order to work around it at the same time.  This presentation given for the Child Care Association of Illinois highlights some of these tactics:

Unions have been “working governors” and “working state legislators”, as well as pressuring for more governmental support through “political quid pro quos.”

And so was Chicago, where the momentum propelled a larger movement of legislative scheming between labor unions and governors, with SEIU at the helm.  Legislating by Executive Order was now their most powerful political tool.  Converting independent private sector workers to the public workforce became their most powerful social tool.

Armed today with the invaluable power of hindsight, we’re able to dissect a master blueprint that has changed the balance between private sector and public sector employment and helped set into motion a sophisticated strategy designed to hijack the private sector right out from under the noses of the American people.  Rather than depend on local organizing or on Washington, SEIU and its partners would simply work the state legislators.  Their plan?  Replicate the Blago formula in multiple states and multiple sectors.  In a few short years, nearly 20 states had already been infiltrated, the fallout of which is only becoming evident to most average Americans now, as the economic downturn shines a spotlight on budgets.

Workers in some states are finally noticing and have been crying foul.

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Their latest video below provides an update on the Loar v. DHS complaint. Mackinac Center communications specialist Kathy Hoekstra indicated that the center has received additional interest from other individuals, as well as from national media, especially since their recent Wall Street Journal article.  Director Patrick Wright elaborates on the state’s curious stance on the matter, and expresses astonishment over the MHBCCC’s no-show to scheduled hearings where the organization was expected to provide testimony, one of which was a state House Human Services sub-committee meeting on an Auditor General’s report concerning the child care programs.  You can follow continuing developments and media coverage on the Loar v. DHS case here.

(Coincidentally, SEIU has recently received a $2 million tax credit to build a Member Action Center in Michigan).

In October 2007,  Colorado’s Face the Nation revealed Ritter’s collaboration with the unions:

“In the latest documents obtained by Face the State, it is clear that policy analysts inside Ritter’s office solicited the advice of staff at the National Governor’s Association to identify states that have “authorized state employee collective bargaining by executive order.”

Only days after the order was issued, CAPE SEIU, AFSCME and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced a joint labor coalition, Colorado WINS, which organized state workers under a cooperative agreement. Some were staunchly opposed to any union involvement, like Dave Ohmart, founder of Colorado LOSES, who contacted me back in May to share his concerns about SEIU.  He was also worried the initiative would lead to the release of home addresses, union solicitation at work meetings, increases in state spending, and the forced deduction of dues from paychecks. Just this October, a HR manager had to intervene to halt WINS reps from using work meetings to solicit members.  In November, Ohmart contacted the Governor’s legal designee for employee partnerships, asking questions about how union representatives obtained the home addresses of employees.  As with Michigan and others, the state seems to absolve itself of any responsibility.  Meanwhile, Ohmart’s concerns and those of Colorado LOSES seem to be being validated, one at a time.

Other states are all facing similar issues, in addition to heavy burdens on the state budget.

While the campaign to unionize child care and home care workers in the remaining states continues, unions like SEIU have lined up the next concentration of unorganized workers, to name just a few: private security workers , Transportation Security Officers in the TSA (2008 letter from President Obama to AFGE union president John Gage), and as we’ve seen in the Green Jobs programs and government development projects, independent contractors, such as the New York City Independent Contractors Agreement with SEIU.

Looking back in hindsight at 1994, 1996, 1999, the Blagojevich executive orders in the early 2000’s, and all of the state milestones that have followed since then, the pattern is undeniable.  There is an intentional balance shift between the private sector and public sector employment that took hold long before today.  There is a concerted effort that contrives the anti-capitalist propaganda circulating the country for the last decade, camouflaging it as populace outrage.  The radical stimulus spending and the legislative squall are the catalysts that have finally jolted everyday Americans into engagement.  I started out this piece by stating that apathy is our greatest enemy right now.  Fail to observe, to connect the dots, and to engage, and we risk depriving the next generation of the innovation and entrepreneurship that molded the lives of all who came before us in this great country.

In 2010, we all must be John Galt.

This past September Lisa Snyder, a 35 year old Michigan mother,  made the news when she received a disturbing letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services.  In it, the letter warned her that she was in violation of the law.  Her offense?  Watching a handful of neighborhood kids  each morning for about 20 minutes as they waited at the end of her driveway for the school bus to arrive, with the blessing of their parents. State law in Michigan prohibits the home supervision of unrelated children for more than four weeks in a year without a child care provider license.  Turns out a neighbor had complained and the Michigan Department of Human Services, the watchdog for home child care licensing, intervened by sending the warning letter.  In Michigan, state employees for the DHS are represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union.  Coincidentally, the union that represents the state’s home child care workers?  Also the UAW.

AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
FCC: Family child care   |   FNN: Family, friend and neighbor
” Building a Union of Family Child Care and FFN Providers”
by SEIU & AFSCME members to the National Women’s Law Center

So, are these the unintended consequences of, as Michigan Rep. Brian Calley described it, “agency officials interpreting a 36-year-old statute regulating day care centers more broadly than necessary”? Or intended consequences that UAW is the union that represents both the home child care workers  AND the government agency that serves as its enforcer and watchdog in the first place?   Let me point out that in 15 out of the 16 states in its home child care organizing strategy, SEIU designates the organizing lead either to itself or to its collaborating partner union, AFSCME – Michigan is the only state in which they deviate and incorporate UAW.

Also in Michigan, a story of three women who run their own independent businesses out of their homes, caring for neighborhood children. They each recently  received a letter indicating that they are now dues-paying members of the Child Care Providers Together Michigan union – a complete surprise to them.

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After a 2006 Executive Order by the Michigan Governor awarded the union (a partnership of UAW and AFSCME) bargaining rights for home child care workers, all it took for the union to convert all 40,000 child care workers to dues paying members was 5,900 signed union authorization cards.  That left some independent home child care workers, who’d for years considered themselves self-employed, feeling dismayed and stunned. Such began cries of forced unionism and initiated a lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Human Services.  The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Patrick Wright from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, explains that the whole arrangement -

is nothing more than “a government ’shell corporation‘ designed to get around possible political and constitutional obstructions to the arrangement”.  Wright offers a detailed backgrounder on this case and a fantastic explanation of the scheme behind the actions.

So, was this an instance of unintended consequences that were simply unforeseen by the state of Michigan and its representatives working with the unions?  Or was unionizing 40,000 child care workers under the quiet cover of an apparently under-advertised vote by mail campaign an intended consequence for AFSCME and UAW?  More importantly, why is SEIU’s part in this production so downplayed?  Their joint documents clearly indicate that SEIU is driving the national movement to unionize home child care workers all across the country.  Not to mention SEIU’s “Kids First” program, which is both the beneficiary and the business driver behind all of these new home child care union members, in concert with AFSCME’s efforts.

Some of these examples seem to be reminiscent of other SEIU unionization efforts.

Most recently, there is the case of the National Union for Healthcare Workers (NUHW), an independent union that was formed by the democratically elected Executive Board members and stewards of SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West (SEIU-UHW), the result of Andy Stern’s two year hostile takeover of the union before it became SEIU-UHW. Fellow BigGovernment contributor, Publius, wrote about their recent struggles with SEIU in the post, “Union and Whistleblower Complaint Documents SEIU Ballot Fraud”. On the heels of that post comes another titled “Whistleblower Video Reveals SEIU Ballot Fraud“, which exposes scandalous video of SEIU’s typical unionizing tactics from a June 2009 union election against the NUHW, which I’ll reference here for convenience (but be sure to read the full post above!):

There are of course countless articles that recount  the landmark 2005 action by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich when he issued an executive order that gave home-based child care providers the freedom to form a union for the first time ever in the state’s history. One of many unintended consequences of that decision was the empowerment of SEIU to visit workers at their workplace – their homes.  This opened up the door for similar problems in a number of states.

And stories of unintended consequences abound in California, not just in reference to the struggles of what has since become UHW, but also on the struggles that existed between SEIU and other labor unions, such as the California Nurses Association (a struggle that still remains) and for a time in multiple states, even labor union partner AFSCME.

A great, detailed timeline of SEIU’s history of attacking other labor unions, including its own, is maintained by UNITE HERE’s specialty website that issues an open call for SEIU to change its course.

But why is SEIU so eager to carry out its strategy to turn all of these home child care workers into state employees and unionize them?  AFSCME answers it well in their own talking points:

“By employing millions of independent providers across the country, states are undercutting public employee wages and conditions, and threatening our jobs. AFSCME must organize independent providers to fight for decent wages and benefits, and to prevent the erosion of our own living standards.“

Click to view flyer

There’s also the benefit of billions and billions of dollars in state and federal aid that goes not only to the care providers (for nutritious food and expenses), but to the unions for education and research and various other things. And when you have independent home child care providers who, given the choice to unionize and receive government food subsidies, would prefer to give up food subsidies if it meant remaining independent and self-employed, why would you deny them that?  Why place that burden on the state and federal taxpayers when it does not need to be there?

Well, that simply solidifies the next benefit, which is the benefit of thousands of additional dues-paying union members at a time.  And with more members of course comes more power and leverage.  In fact, it’s worth pointing out what others have also noticed tucked away inside the Senate health care bill.  SEIU’s leverage would seem rather evident in a few key sections:

The Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel, one of a multitude of new bureaucratic agencies created in the bill, will help dictate how many workers staff our health care facilities and home workers, along with their benefits and wages, etc.

SEIU will also benefit from a likely appointment on the National Health Care Workforce Commission (Page 1279), a commission of 15 members to be appointed by the Comptroller General to include individuals  with national recognition for their expertise in health care labor market analysis, including health care workforce analysis, in addition to health care workforce education and training, among other expertise.

It’s not so much the workers’ rights that anyone really takes issue with – unions of course have every right to make recommendations for the best wages and benefits on behalf of their members.  And it’s not so much the notion that labor unions would have input to the analysis and education of health care workers that some might take issue with.

The real issues at hand are those of unintended consequences:

• As states negotiate their health care, home care and child care contracts and turn more of them over to labor unions like SEIU, the universe of unionized health care workers expands.  Add to that the government-run option, and that universe expands exponentially – to an unbalanced level. It’s hard to imagine there would be any private health care workers left in a few years. (Especially when the union repeatedly assaults any defense of the free market system and capitalism).
• With the recent behavior of SEIU and its incessant attacks on companies and individuals they perceive to be “too wealthy”, will a union with so much power granted to it by the government take it upon itself to determine to whom and how care is delivered?  Rather than boycott advertisers, will they refuse care if they don’t like what you say or how much you make?
• Will SEIU’s notoriously aggressive tactics in negotiating contracts seep into our personal health affairs?  Think about it – this is a union that has allegedly harassed its own affiliates, stalked home care workers and nurses at their homes for not electing SEIU to represent them, forced home child care workers into unionism, and broken into people’s mailboxes to steal their voting ballots.  What will its leaders do when health care workers’ contracts don’t go the way they’d like?  Will they go on strike and leave patients stranded?
• How many other “babysitter” laws will be added into legislation or their interpretation stretched to fit the needs of growing SEIU’s membership?
• What else will SEIU try to somehow attach to health care, in an effort to embed itself into every facet of our personal care?  Aside from actual health care workers, SEIU currently ties the following workers, all SEIU members, to health care:  Cafeteria Workers, Laundry Service Workers, Janitors, Building Service Workers, and others.
• If state governments like Michigan can unionize workers who happen to receive public subsidies as part of their private business operations, how will this apply in the arena of health care with a government-run plan?  Will SEIU seize this as an opportunity to step in and unionize any facility or provider receiving subsidies?  And what about individuals?  The government and SEIU enforce this logic for business bailouts.  Government also  uses the same logic to enforce mandatory participation in the Green for All weatherization programs in states like NJ.  What’s to say the same logic won’t be applied to individuals in the public option?
• With a monopoly on the health care workers in the country, what kind of “Justice for All” plan of accountability will the SEIU launch after their “close the wealth gap” issue isn’t achieved?  Will they embark upon a “close the health wealth gap” instead?
• Once SEIU has expanded to all of health care, what’s left?  Will they come after your union next?  Or try to unionize you?  Perhaps they’ll unionize private consultants, accountants, home caterers, writers, Joe the Plumber, homemakers and moms.

Will we conveniently chalk it all up to the law of unintended consequences? Or will anyone in Congress or average American citizen voters have enough sense to start looking for intent in such consequences?