Fighting Wage Theft – Center on Policy Initiatives

fighting wage theft & retaliation

Understanding wage theft

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About $2 billion are stolen from California workers each year due to minimum wage violations alone.

Economic Policy Institute

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What is Wage Theft?

Worker Justice Fund

State Bills

In The News

Read our Confronting Wage Theft Report

Read our report- Shorted: Wage Theft, Time Theft, and Discrimination in San Diego’s Restaurant Industry

Lea nuestro reporte Enfrentando el Robo de Sueldo

Lea nuestro reporte Robo de Sueldo, Robo de Tiempo y Discriminación en los Restaurantes del Condado de San Diego

What is Wage Theft?

Wage theft occurs any time a worker is paid less than they earned.

Hover Over The Images To Read About Your Rights As A Worker:

Download our Know Your Rights handout

Descargue nuestro folleto para conocer sus derechos

Working off the Clock

Employees must be paid all hours worked, whether those hours are scheduled or not.

If an employer is aware that a worker arrives early to prepare or stays late to do “side work” such as cleaning or stocking, even if that work is off-the-clock, the worker must be paid for that time.

Late or Bounced Paycheck

All wages are due and payable twice during each calendar month, on days designated in advance by the employer. If a paycheck is late or bounces (is returned for insufficient funds), the employee can receive penalty payments in addition to the amount of the check.

Illegal Deductions & Charges

Employers cannot deduct wages for damages, breakage, cash shortages, nonpayment by customers or required uniforms or tools required for the job. It’s illegal for managers to take money from a tip pool or paychecks to make up for cash register shortages, to make employees cover nonpaying customers, or to deduct the cost of broken or damaged items.

Denied Breaks

Workers in California must be allowed to take a paid 10-minute rest break for every 4 hours worked and an uninterrupted 30-minute unpaid meal break if working more than 5 hours.
Workers can choose to skip breaks, but employers cannot discourage or prevent the breaks, and must relieve workers of all duties for the meal breaks. The penalty is one hour of extra pay per violation.

Not Paid for Time Scheduled

In California, employees who report to work for scheduled shifts must be paid for at least half of their usual number of hours (and no less than two hours), even if they are sent home sooner. Workers who arrive for a scheduled shift cannot be sent home without being credited for “reporting time pay,” which is meant to offset the time and costs of commuting, childcare, and lost earning opportunities when an expected shift is cut short.

Denied Overtime Pay

In California, most employers are required to pay overtime –1.5 times the regular wage– for all hours an employee works over 8 hours in a day, more than 40 hours in a week, and on the 7th day in a workweek. Workers are often asked to work overtime without being paid the required rate. It is also illegal for employers to falsify time records to avoid paying earned overtime.

Stolen Tips

Management cannot 1) keep any portion of tips left for employees by customers, 2) reduce wages because of tips earned, or 3) deduct credit card company fees or charges from tips left on credit cards. All tips belong to employees, not management. Employers and managers cannot take any part of tip pools or tips left for individual employees.

local campaigns we're working on

WORKER JUSTICE FUND

Wage theft is a major problem that affects all workers, especially workers the system undervalues, like recent immigrants and workers in industries that pay the lowest wages. Workers shouldn’t go into debt, or risk losing their jobs, homes, and/or food and care for their families because they stand up for their rights on the job.

A worker justice fund would provide financial assistance to workers experiencing wage theft or other violations of their rights. A worker justice fund can ensure workers who file claims are paid the money they are legally owed and allow workers to cover housing and other necessities, preventing them from going into further financial hardship. Covering workers’ loss of wages and providing financial assistance will promote workers’ rights, health, and safety and empower more workers to report violations.

Only 9% of workers in California who won court wage theft judgments received the full amount of money owed to them.

Cal Matters analysis of 2017-2021 statewide data

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On June 13th the County Board of Supervisors approved the Workplace Justice Fund!

$100,000 was allocated for the fund, right now the fund works in two ways:

Workers can get up to $4,000 if their employer retaliates against them after filing a wage theft complaint with the County’s Office of Labor Standards.

Many employers just don’t pay even if a worker wins their case. Any worker who has filed and won a wage theft judgment can get up to $3000 from the fund. Then the County will work to recover all money owed to the employee.

State Bills we're supporting

SB 497: equal pay and anti-retaliation act

Every day in California hundreds of thousands of workers experience wage theft, harassment, and abuse. Every worker is entitled to safety and dignity on the job. Today, bosses get away with retaliation because they have the power to bully and silence workers for demanding fairness and respect. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The Equal Pay and Anti-Retaliation Act (SB497) can change the gross imbalance of power and reduce workplace abuse. SB 497 would create an assumption that a negative action against an employee is retaliation when it occurs within 90 days of a worker reporting a labor or equal pay violation. The bill would also allow whistleblowers to collect up to a $10,000 penalty. Currently, only the state may collect from lawbreaking employers.

CWOP: CALIFORNIA COVID-19 WORKER OUTREACH PROJECT

Effective workplace laws require well-informed workers. Last year, California committed $50 million over two years to expand a historic worker outreach program that builds community resilience through workers’ rights education. Now the Governor proposes eliminating the program’s second year in 2024.

Workers in California’s low-wage industries still face hazards and exploitation. We have succeeded in creating a highly effective new piece of our workplace fairness infrastructure and cannot afford to discard it.

Building resilient and equitable communities requires empowering workers in low-wage industries to assert their rights.

California must:

Preserve the second $25 million of the total $50 million committed to CWOP last year

Recognize that the need for this critical education work is not confined to the pandemic, and as we move into recovery, we should continue educating workers about their rights broadly, renaming the program the “California Workplace Outreach Program”