California In-Home Caregivers Allege They Were Duped Into Union Membership and Dues

Three public employee unions in California are being sued for allegedly misleading in-home care givers into joining a union and paying dues without consent.

Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse in Sacramento. (Map data @2018 Google).

Three class action lawsuits have been filed in California alleging that some individuals providing personal care to their invalid family members were misled into joining a union.

The cases will be heard by the Superior Court of California in El Dorado, Sacramento, and Fresno counties.

Representing the plaintiffs in all three cases are attorneys Shella Alcabes and Ravi Prasad. Both work for the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank and legal activism group.

Alcabes told The Epoch Times, “Since the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, the unions have been acting deceitfully and using stall tactics to stem the losses of members and money.”

In the Janus decision, the high court declared that requiring public employees to pay union dues or agency fees as a condition of employment is unconstitutional, calling it compelled speech that violates the First Amendment.

For years, unions have claimed that the Freedom Foundation is pretending to be on the side of the workers but that in reality, it is serving the interests of private corporations and big business.

“Every employee has the right to decide whether he or she will join a union. They don’t have to give dues to a union that uses a portion of that money to advocate for causes and policies that the individual worker does not support. We think people should be aware of these rights,” Prasad told The Epoch Times.

A Cost-Effective Service

Through the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, the government pays individuals to provide in-home personal care services to loved ones, neighbors, and friends.

The goal is to keep an aged or disabled client living in his or her own home for as long as possible and out of more expensive modes of care.

The client hires the caregiver of his choice, and the government pays that worker $17 per hour or more, depending on the extent of the client’s needs and his county of residence.

Funding for the IHSS program comes from federal, state, and local sources.

The state of California issues all checks for individual provider payments and withholds a portion of the payment for applicable taxes and union dues.

It is the responsibility of the union to provide the state with a list of dues-paying union members every month or pay period.

The newly hired caregivers must attend an employee orientation session conducted by government officials at which a public employee union representative explains the advantages of union membership to the workers.

Attorney Shella Alcabes. Courtesy of Freedom Foundation

Some Representative Cases

According to the legal pleadings in the class action brought in El Dorado County, it was at such a session that new hire Luz Kendrick, who entered the IHSS program to care for her invalid son, evaluated her options and decided not to sign up for union membership.

Kendrick wrote the words “Do not want to participate” on the signature line of the union membership forms she was handed.

A short time later, Kendrick noticed that union dues were being taken out of her paycheck.

Kendrick sent an opt-out letter to the United Domestic Workers of America (UDW), who responded that she had agreed to the dues deduction and that they would continue to be taken from her paycheck every month for one year from her signup date.

Claudiu Hotea has been taking care of a member of his family as an IHSS caregiver since 2011.

At his new employee orientation session, Hotea signed up for union membership after being told by a UDW representative that he had to join the union if he wanted to receive benefits such as health insurance, the complaint alleges.

In May 2023, Hotea sent an opt-out letter to UDW requesting to withdraw his membership and cease dues deductions.

Mr. Hotea retained counsel in December 2023, who sent a letter to UDW demanding that the withholding of dues stop and that UDW provide Hotea with a copy of his membership agreement.

On Dec. 27, 2023, the Membership Resource Department of UDW sent Hotea’s lawyer a copy of his membership agreement dated March 28, 2019.

According to the complaint, the signature at the bottom of the membership agreement does not belong to Hotea, who contends he never signed a membership agreement on that date.

UDW eventually stopped taking dues from Mr. Hotea’s paycheck in May 2024.

The United Domestic Workers of America did not respond to a request for comment.

Dues Allegedly Deducted Without Consent

In another class action lawsuit brought in Sacramento County, plaintiff Sergei Muravskii is alleging that the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 deducted dues payments from Muravskii’s paychecks between March 2024 and Feb. 10, 2025, without his affirmative consent.

Attorney Ravi Prasad. Courtesy of Freedom Foundation

Muravskii, an employee of the University of California Davis Health, claims he signed a union membership form that did not contain any reference to paying dues.

When Muravskii noticed dues were being taken out of his paycheck, he sent a letter to the union withdrawing his membership and requesting that the withholding stop.

According to the complaint, “On March 28, 2024, AFSCME 3299 sent him a membership form that they purported he signed, containing dues payment obligations up until a certain window period each year.”

Muravskii claims he did not sign this form or any other form containing dues payment obligations and that the signature on the form “does not reflect how he signs his name.”

The complaint asserts that Muravskii would not have signed any form that would have required him to subsidize union political speech.

Another employee of U.C. Davis Health, Swartika Lal, sent a letter to AFSCME 3299 in February 2024 withdrawing her membership in the union and requesting that the dues deduction from her paycheck cease.

Hearing nothing from the union, Lal called Local 3299 and was told that it had received her revocation letter and the dues deductions would stop in “two or three pay cycles,” according to the complaint.

Seeing no halt to the deductions, in August 2024, Lal hired a lawyer who sent a demand letter requesting that the union cease the deductions and refund, with interest, any dues deducted since February 2024, up until the deductions cease.

As of April 21, 2025, the union continues to take dues out of Lal’s paycheck.

AFSCME did not respond to a request for comment.

Problems in Fresno County

A third class action suit was filed in Fresno County, where IHSS provider Laura Lozano cares for two homebound clients.

According to the complaint, in 2017, Lozano received an unsolicited visit to her house from a representative of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015.

The complaint alleges that the representative tried to persuade her to join the union, going so far as to electronically sign a membership agreement on Lozano’s behalf without showing her the document or explaining that membership in the union entailed the deduction of dues from her paycheck.

In mid-2024, Lozano realized she did not have to be a union member or pay union dues. She sent two opt-out letters to Local 2015 and spoke on the phone with union officials several times, trying to cancel her membership and stop the dues collection.

As of April 28, 2025, union dues are still being deducted from Lozano’s paycheck.

Shirley Marsh is an IHSS provider furnishing home-based care to her disabled grandson.

According to the complaint, Marsh never signed a membership agreement with SEIU Local 2015 and does not agree with their political activity.

Despite not signing any membership agreement or dues authorization, SEIU Local 2015 commenced deducting union dues from her monthly paycheck.

The complaint states, “On Sept. 5, 2024, Ms. Marsh sent a certified opt-out letter to SEIU 2015 even though she had no need to do so since she was never a union member to begin with.”

As of April 28, 2025, SEIU 2015 continues to deduct dues from her monthly paycheck, according to the complaint.

The Service Employees International Union did not respond to a request for comment.

“The objective of these class action suits is to bring a halt to the deceitful and stalling tactics by the unions and to prevent them from recurring in the future,” said Prasad.

The cases also seek refunds of all inappropriately deducted union dues. 

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Shella Alcabes. The Epoch Times regrets the error.