By Jack Spencer | Michigan Capitol Confidential 
LANSING — A federal court judge ordered the State of Michigan to continue deducting dues from Medicaid checks and send it to the Service Employees International Union, in direct conflict with a state law signed in April by Gov. Rick Snyder.
If unchallenged, this would mean the so-called “home health care dues skim” would go on through February of next year.
Judge Nancy Edmunds, of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan, handed down the order after a brief hearing in Detroit. The gist of Edmunds’ ruling was that because Michigan’s Employment Relations Commission recognized the forced unionization of tens of thousands of so-called home health-care workers in 2005, the state is on the hook for fulfilling the contract obligations with the union.
In making her decision, Edmunds chose to ignore several elements. Among these are the facts that the alleged employer, the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, or MQC3, no longer claims to be the employer and that since being defunded by the Legislature, MQC3 has had only a single employee who works out of her house in Okemos for three hours or less a month, so she can continue to collect unemployment benefits.
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