SEIU's fingers reach into Michigan's Capital

Nestled between this week's state tax credits for auto suppliers, a furniture maker and a few high-tech companies is this gem: A $2 million credit to a for-profit affiliate of the Service Employees International Union to build a "Member Action Center."

The "shared organization" would "provide administrative services for the SEIU and other local labor organizations," says the Michigan Economic Development Corp. Despite cost disadvantages here over rival sites, the project would invest $3 million and create 224 new jobs -- in Redford Township.

That, by sheer coincidence, is the home of House Speaker Andy Dillon. He's the Democrat pushing a one-health-care-plan-for-all-state-employees that parts of the SEIU (among the most politically active unions in the nation right now) and other public-employee unions steadfastly oppose.

Which means the SEIU's new center and the hundreds of employees (theoretically) working there would become constituents of a speaker pushing the kind of reform that organized labor is working the Capitol to kill, not withstanding Michigan's "lost decade."

This was all done by the Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s Michigan Economic Growth Authority board -- which as Hewes notes, is composed almost entirely of gubernatorial appointees. Naturally, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. appears to be in bed with the SEIU: