The Challenge

United Domestic Workers represents more than 200,000 home care and family childcare providers in California. Its members work under the state's In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, caring for seniors, people with disabilities, and children in private homes across the state, not on a factory floor or in a shared office where a union rep can post a flyer on a break room wall.

UDW is also a voluntary union. Since the Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in Harris v. Quinn, UDW can no longer automatically enroll home care workers as members. Every member has to be reached and asked to sign up. That makes consistent, direct communication existential for the union, not just convenient. The biggest challenge UDW faced was public awareness and informing members.

"We kind of realized the general public didn't know who we were," said Dan Arel, UDW's Director of Communications. "When you think of workers in a steel factory in Pittsburgh, you think of United Steelworkers. When you think of Teamsters, you think of all these different things. When someone says, 'My mom's a home care provider,' you don't go UDW. We are large and we have this political force, but no one knows who we are."

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The Solution

UDW had experimented with peer-to-peer texting, but the tool didn't become mission-critical until 2018, when the Camp Fire tore through Northern California — killing 85 people, displacing tens of thousands, and leveling an entire city where UDW had members.

"We didn't know if our members were okay. We didn't know what they needed. We didn't know what was happening. And it became like, wait, we can text them. We tried peer-to-peer for the very first time with a simple, 'Are you okay and what do you need?'"— Dan Arel, Director of Communications, UDW

That moment reframed texting from a nice-to-have into UDW's fastest way to reach every member at once. The union later moved to Prompt.io to fix a workflow bottleneck: previously, every new campaign targeting a subset of members meant going back to UDW's data team for a fresh list. With Prompt.io, UDW maintains one master contact list with every tag and data set built in, so staff can segment and launch a campaign without waiting on anyone else.

UDW now runs campaigns in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, and is expanding its use of graphics and video within Vietnamese-language texts to convey more information in fewer words. On the regular when there's no natural disasters or giant elections happening, UDW is texting its members access to key union information and resources.

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The Results

• Membership growth: UDW crossed 100,000 members this year and enters the new year at roughly 110,000 — making it the third-largest AFSCME affiliate in the country.
• Disaster response: Peer-to-peer texting gave UDW a direct line to members during the Camp Fire and has since become the union's go-to tool for checking on members' safety and needs during emergencies.
• Civic engagement: UDW registered thousands of voters through Prompt.io during the most recent election cycle.
• Everyday engagement: Texting now drives turnout for membership meetings, food drives, diaper distributions, and connects members to other resources and support.
• Multilingual reach: Campaigns run in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, with Vietnamese-language content expanding to include more graphics and video.

"While email and traditional things like that will be a part of it, where we get the most bang for our buck is in texting. You don't have to do things as you've always done them. If we stuck to the way we've always done things, we never would've seen the membership turnout that we have."— Dan Arel, Director of Communications, UDW

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What's Next

UDW is preparing for one of its biggest campaigns yet: statewide bargaining for IHSS contracts across 21 California counties. Arel also sees peer-to-peer texting playing a growing role in connecting members to services — from citizenship support to other member resources — as UDW continues to lean on direct, personal communication as the backbone of its organizing strategy.

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