Dues

Over the past 50 years union participation in the private sector has declined from 35% to 11% while growth in the public sector unions has increased. In an attempt to further this growth here in Minnesota the unions want to include child care providers. A similar situation developed in Illinois some years ago and today the Supreme Court ruled against the union which means the Minnesota case will follow. In Minnesota like 26 other states all public employees must pay union dues. Using the law the unions maintained that if a mother is caring for her invalid child and receiving funds from Medicaid she is considered a state employee and therefore must pay dues. This was struck down by the court today. The reason this is important is that unions act like lobbyist promoting government benefits for their members and 95% of the money goes to democratic politicians. A few years ago Wisconsin changed the law and allowed people to stop paying union dues if they wanted to and the number paying dropped 60% and the union collections dropped from 6 million per year to 2 million per year. If other states followed Wisconsin it would likely be the end of public unions.