After a 2022 CalMatters series documenting long waits and low payouts for workers who claim their employers have shorted them on wages, California lawmakers have now proposed bills to try to ease the backlogs.
One measure, Senate Bill 310 by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener, would allow workers to recoup more money through private lawsuits instead of filing claims through a heavily delayed system at the Labor Commissioner’s Office.
CalMatters reported that between 2017 and 2021, it took the understaffed office an average of 505 days to decide on workers’ wage theft claims — far longer than the 135 days required by state law. That wait time has since soared to more than 850 days, a state audit published last year found.
“We were really struck by some of the reporting about how long people waited and how broken the systems for workers to receive compensation,” Wiener’s spokesperson Erik Mebust said of CalMatters’ series. “When advocates came to us citing your reporting it was a very compelling pitch.”
Workers claiming wage theft can file private suits; join with coworkers to sue the business on behalf of the state; or file an individual claim with the Labor Commissioner’s Office, which decides on the claims in administrative hearings.
The latter two options are both flawed, Mebust said: While the group lawsuits lead to faster resolutions than the backlogged administrative claims, the suits usually lead to lower payouts. The bill would allow workers filing individual private lawsuits to claim not only their lost wages but also civil penalties.
The proposal is likely to receive pushback from business groups. The California Chamber of Commerce wrote in a 2023 blog post that the state should process wage claims faster, but should not “shift more enforcement” to private attorneys. A spokesperson for the group did not respond to a request for comment on the bill.
Another bill, by Fremont Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab, aims to push employers to pay up faster after workers have won their claims. SB 261 would require the Labor Commissioner’s Office to publicly post all its decisions against employers who have not yet paid claims. It would also allow the office to seek more fines against employers who do not pay within six months.
CalMatters found in the 2022 series that even after workers win their claims, only about one in seven judgments are paid.