SEIU Legal Win: Court Orders Fresno Not to Cut Home Care Pay

Fresno County home care workers won an important legal battle Thursday. SEIU lawyers appeared before the Fresno County Superior Court and succeeded in their request that the Court issue a temporary restraining order requiring the County to maintain pre-July 1 IHSS wages and benefits for IHSS workers.

The TRO will be in place until a preliminary injunction hearing on July 30. The Union has also requested that the Court order binding arbitration of the issue. While this is excellent news for Fresno home care providers, we do not know how the County will respond to the TRO.

In a separate legal move, SEIU filed a contempt motion against the State, seeking to hold it in contempt for letting the Fresno and Santa Barbara County rate decreases go into effect despite a federal ruling to stop them. The Union also asked for a further injunction ordering the State to pay IHSS providers the correct wage amount for the first July pay period within 7 days of the submission of their hours, and for the second July pay period in their regular paychecks.

While the legal defeats for the State and Fresno County pile up, the battle is not yet won. Stay tuned for more updates from SEIU-UHW.