The recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of
Harris v. Quinn impacts Rhode Island
laws governing home day care workers and owners.
The case involved an Illinois mom who took care of her ill
minor child in her home. Because the child received public subsidies for
medical bills, Illinois law forced Ms. Harris to pay dues to a public-employee
union which ostensibly lobbied to increase public funding. The Supreme Court
concluded that, unlike full- fledged public employees, quasi-public employees
or private workers like Ms. Harris, who work for their clients or customers
first and not for the state, cannot be forced to join the union.
Rhode Island has a similar statutory scheme that requires
home day care workers and owners to pay union dues or agency fees to public
employee unions. But after Harris,
the entrepreneurs who run a day care center in their home with one or two
subsidized children can no longer be treated like public employees. Any dues or
agency fees that they pay will be totally voluntary. The era of forced
unionization based merely on government subsidy of customers or clients is
over.
The good news is that home day care providers will now be
able to accept subsidized children without fear of having to buy union
protection in the form of dues or agency fees and without diverting a portion
of workers’ pay to the union. And most importantly, low income parents will
have a wider choice of day care options as more home-based facilities will be
able to accept their children. And higher costs caused by additional union
expenses can be avoided.
Nothing in this ruling prohibits labor unions from forming
and trying to attract workers, but it is hard for unions to attract members
voluntarily. Even in Rhode Island, a strong union state, only a small fraction
of the private sector workforce is unionized. The laws that the Harris case addressed were a sneaky way
for certain labor unions, through their political allies, to expand their
membership rolls. Fortunately those forced unionization laws are now considered
a violation of the First Amendment free speech rights of private citizens and
small business owners.
