Posts tagged Department of Health and Human Services
SEIU celebrates $16 home care worker minimum wage, readies to lobby for $20
June 5, 2024 // The union in recent years has pushed to increase pay rates for the workforce whose average wage had hovered around $11 for nearly a decade. Last year, Nevada state lawmakers passed a bill establishing a $16 an hour minimum wage for home care workers. “Sixteen is great,” said Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy, a former SEIU organizer who spoke at the event Thursday. “It shows the power of collective mobilization. But I think that we are going to do a little bit better next legislative session.” An increase to $20 per hour for home care workers would be possible by adjusting the Medicaid reimbursement rate for the employers who provide home care services to $30 per hour.
Commentary: Union ‘neutrality agreements’ are a threat to employers’ free speech
October 27, 2023 // Federal agencies have begun to make adoption of these so-called agreements a condition for federal contractors. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services have pushed neutrality agreements on contractors. The Treasury Department has even hinted it may alter the tax code to funnel job creators into these agreements. Virginia companies receive over $72 billion in government contracts annually, the largest amount among all states. These contracts are responsible for tens of thousands of Virginia jobs. It’s not difficult to see these forced federal neutrality agreement requirements as a backdoor attempt to silence Virginia employers and organize their companies. If allowed, this would be another blow to Virginia’s rich history of workplace freedom.
HHS Appears To Forget To Redact Email Calling For Expanded COVID-19 Mandates For Students
September 13, 2023 // “It’s concerning … [if] the CDC was even seriously considering imposing COVID vaccine mandates on students nationwide,” Nelsen said. “But if they weren’t seriously considering it, then they shouldn’t have redacted or attempted to redact disclosure of the contents of that email.” A CDC spokesperson told the DCNF that Lubar “obviously was not referring to vaccines for children” but was instead referencing the testing requirement. “At the time, the vaccine was not authorized or recommended for kids under 12 years of age,” the spokesperson said. “That recommendation did not come until November 2021. She was commenting on the testing of school children to keep classrooms open and safe. Her comment came on the heels of CDC funding totaling $10 billion to make testing widely available to school districts and was concerned that not enough attention was being focused on testing of students.”
We’ve Beaten Down the Union ‘Dues Skim’ in Michigan Again and Again
August 11, 2022 // A few months later, Robert Haynes — a retired Detroit police officer — reached out to tell us that he and his wife Patricia were ensnarled in a similar scheme. Bob and Pat receive monthly Medicaid checks to take care of their two adult children. This dues skim resulted in an estimated 80,000 day care and home caregivers being forcibly unionized, with $35 million taken from their paychecks and given to unions. Harris v. Quinn, Bob and Pat Haynes,
Opinion: States should protect caregivers’ Medicaid funds from union skims
June 27, 2022 // Yet, while a number of states including Michigan have taken action to prohibit the dues skim, a May rule by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reversed a Trump administration effort to stop the skim nationally. A separate 9th Circuit decision last week also continues to allow unions to trap home care providers into paying them. Robert and Patricia Haynes, cerebral palsy, Gov. Rick Snyder, Harris v. Quinn, Cindy Ochoa, most pro-union president ever,