FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, December 14, 2015

Contact: Scott.Vogel@seiuhcil.org

CHICAGO – A column written by the Illinois Policy Institute’s Scott Reeder misrepresented a healthcare insurance program covering 5,250 home healthcare workers who are members of SEIU Healthcare Illinois. The column appeared in no less than 6 newspapers.

A column by James Muhammad, a Vice President with SEIU Healthcare, that appeared in the Joliet Herald-News on Sunday notes Mr. Reeder’s ability to take liberty with the facts:

“Reeder makes numerous unfounded attacks on a contract that provides health insurance to some 5,250 home health care workers across the state of Illinois. The central claim in his piece is that taxpayers are being compelled to contribute to a union health care fund from which many people are not actually collecting benefits.

 Nothing could be further from the truth.” 

Mr. Reeder made it appear as if the contract is written in a way that is harmful to taxpayers and to create an impression that even he admits is a mirage.  In Mr. Reeder’s own words: “At least on the surface, it would appear the contract has the state paying 80 percent more than it should.”

Mr. Muhammad points out that, “In fact, if one were willfully trying to distort the truth to smear organized labor, as it is apparent that Mr. Reeder and the Illinois Policy Institute wants to do, it could be made to appear that way in print.”

Muhammad also points out that Mr. Reeder’s actions are consistent with a concerted strategy by Gov. Rauner and the Illinois Policy Institute – to which Rauner has given substantial financial backing – to undercut SEIU Healthcare publicly, at the same time Rauner attempts to attack those same healthcare benefits at the bargaining table.

Read James Muhammad’s full commentary HERE,

(Resource: also see SEIU HCII’s press release: REBUKED: Court Gives Low-Wage Home Healthcare Workers Major Victory Against Another Gov. Rauner Attack).