ST. PAUL, Minn.—State lawmakers want Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration to explain its apparent faith in a politically connected union despite evidence of fraud since the union won an election to represent thousands of residents who care for disabled relatives in their homes.
State Rep. Marion O’Neill, chairman of the Subcommittee on Employee Relations, plans to schedule a hearing to ask the head of Minnesota’s labor relations agency to detail how an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union recruited home caregivers and the state administered the election.
“I want to see how many [ballots] they actually did send out, and I want to see the original receipts for the mailing,” O’Neill told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
“I want to see copies of the returned ballots,” she said. “I want to see who signed them and verify that those signatures are authentic, and not fabricated and not forged.”
Thousands of home caregivers now seek to decertify the union.
And before state legislators vote yea or nay on a new contract with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, O’Neill and others are asking the Dayton administration to answer some hard questions about allegations of voter fraud that potentially violate state and federal law.
In 11 affidavits obtained by The Daily Signal, caregivers—known as personal care assistants—allege that SEIU Healthcare Minnesota signed them up and deducted union dues from their Medicaid-funded paychecks without their permission.
