Sep 30, 2026 · 15 min · 10 segments
For several weeks, the Freedom Fighters were on the ground in Michigan across the greater Grand Rapids area, talking directly with home healthcare workers and public school employees. In this episode…
Siena RoseHost
So to start, we had heard through the grapevine that SEIU, Service Employees International Union, was trying to reestablish a union for home healthcare workers in Grand Rapids.
And because we recognized this as a thinly veiled union scheme, we wanted to jump right into action, and that we did.
In-home healthcare, uh, for those of us who aren't, you know, familiar with what it means, you know, to deal with home healthcare, um, I wanted to set up the experience.
So it's usually what we saw most times and what is generally the case is a family member caring for another family member.
There are other times where an outside worker will get hired to come into the home and provide home healthcare service for someone else, but usually the vast majority of the time it is family caring for family, like a mom caring for her disabled son, we saw that quite a few times personally for whom that was the case, um, or a grandchild or child caring for an el- elderly parent or relative.
And to put it in workplace terms, because unions operate in a workplace setting, in that situation the caregiver is the employee of the person receiving the care.
So while if we're, like inserting this into workplace conditions, a union would traditionally come in to mediate between the employee and the employer to ensure the employer isn't taking advantage of the employee and the employee has the best working conditions, i- what would a union really do in this situation of home healthcare? It, like what would they do? What would they do? It makes no sense because your workplace is your home that you live in where you don't have regular hours, you're not clocking in and clocking out, you're like, you're not really officially working overtime.
Your stipend is a amount set by the government that cannot be changed, and your boss is your disabled family member whom you're caring for.
Actually, our CEO Aaron Wythe explained this very well in an interview he did a few weeks ago for The Center Square, and I'll play it here.
So to start, we had heard through the grapevine that SEIU, Service Employees International Union, was trying to reestablish a union for home healthcare workers in Grand Rapids.
And because we recognized this as a thinly veiled union scheme, we wanted to jump right into action, and that we did.
In-home healthcare, uh, for those of us who aren't, you know, familiar with what it means, you know, to deal with home healthcare, um, I wanted to set up the experience.
So it's usually what we saw most times and what is generally the case is a family member caring for another family member.
There are other times where an outside worker will get hired to come into the home and provide home healthcare service for someone else, but usually the vast majority of the time it is family caring for family, like a mom caring for her disabled son, we saw that quite a few times personally for whom that was the case, um, or a grandchild or child caring for an el- elderly parent or relative.
And to put it in workplace terms, because unions operate in a workplace setting, in that situation the caregiver is the employee of the person receiving the care.
So while if we're, like inserting this into workplace conditions, a union would traditionally come in to mediate between the employee and the employer to ensure the employer isn't taking advantage of the employee and the employee has the best working conditions, i- what would a union really do in this situation of home healthcare? It, like what would they do? What would they do? It makes no sense because your workplace is your home that you live in where you don't have regular hours, you're not clocking in and clocking out, you're like, you're not really officially working overtime.
Your stipend is a amount set by the government that cannot be changed, and your boss is your disabled family member whom you're caring for.
Actually, our CEO Aaron Wythe explained this very well in an interview he did a few weeks ago for The Center Square, and I'll play it here.
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