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US judge blocks Trump Administration rule inhibiting unions | National News
FILE – In this April 8, 2020, file photo, health care workers carry personal belongings of a patient who is evacuated to a waiting ambulance the Magnolia Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Riverside, Calif. A federal judge on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, blocked a Trump Administration rule that opponents said would have harmed the bargaining rights of more than 500,000 home health care workers in California and several hundred thousand additional workers across the nation.
FILE – In this April 1, 2020, file photo a health care worker leaves Cedar Mountain Post Acute nursing facility in Yucaipa, Calif. A federal judge on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, blocked a Trump Administration rule that opponents said would have harmed the bargaining rights of more than 500,000 home health care workers in California and several hundred thousand additional workers across the nation.
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a Trump Administration rule that opponents said would have harmed the bargaining rights of more than 500,000 home healthcare workers in California and several hundred thousand additional workers across the nation.
San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria found that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule changing Medicaid state payment requirements would have made it tougher for states to deduct employee benefits and union dues from workers’ paychecks.
That in turn would have made it tougher for Medicaid in-home workers to unionize and seek higher wages and better conditions as they help low-income seniors and people with disabilities bath, eat, get dressed, take medication and move about, said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
Chhabria denied the federal agency’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit and instead issued a summary judgment blocking the rule adopted in 2018, which had not yet been enforced.
The challenge was filed in May 2019 by Becerra and attorneys general in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington. Spokesmen for the federal agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agency had said it was required to make the change because the old system was barred by federal law, but Chhabria said that “action was based on an erroneous interpretation of the Medicaid statute.”
