A Los Angeles City Council committee Friday approved a package of motions aimed at addressing wage theft.
The five-member Civil Rights, Equity, Immigration, Aging and Disability Committee voted 4-0 in favor of three motions. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who sits on the committee, was absent during Friday’s meeting.
The first motion would request an analysis on how the Bureau of Contract Administration’s Office of Wage Standards and the Civil and Human Rights and Equity Department can better assist and support workers who are victims of wage theft.
The second motion would empower the Office of Wage Standards to better enforce claims against businesses for overtime, break times, late pay and gratuities violations.
The third motion would request an analysis of resources used to prosecute wage theft cases, and identify additional resources and staffing needs to better prosecute wage theft cases.
Council members Hugo Soto-Martinez, Tim McOsker, Heather Hutt, Eunisses Hernandez and Bob Blumenfield introduced these motions in an effort to support workers.
“I think you all know these three motions are really about trying to make the city better at enforcing all kinds of violations,” Soto-Martinez said prior to the vote. “Some are report backs, others are trying to look at expanding the authority of OWS.”
The councilman said Angelenos lose about $1.4 billion every year, with an average of $40 a week stolen from a worker in the city.
“As someone who’s worked with the working folks at the city, that’s a huge difference between being able to pay a bill, put food on the table, or even oftentimes enjoy some luxuries of being able to take your kids out to the movies, or something like that,” Soto-Martinez said.
Soto-Martinez also noted that wage theft disproportionately affects women, people of color, and “folks who are more marginalized in our society.”
Soto-Martinez expressed his excitement at getting the motions passed and codifying them into law.
John Reamer, the director of the Bureau of Contract Administration, made a verbal presentation to the committee on how his bureau handles complaints regarding wage theft and the challenges in accomplishing that task.
According to Reamer, the Bureau of Contract Administration was established in 1991, and one of the tasks was to investigate wage violations and enforce compliance of city, state and federal laws.
The bureau deals with three categories of wage theft: prevailing wage, living wage and minimum wage.
In 2016, when the Office of Wage Standards was established, the bureau began enforcing other labor regulations, such as fair chance hiring, hotel worker protection, citywide hotel worker minimum wage, fair work week and freelance worker protection.
In the years the followed, the BCA ran into staffing issues, much like other city departments. Reamer said the BCA has a total of 44 positions, but there 29 vacancies.
Previously, the BCA produced a number of outreach campaigns to “strategically get the message out” regarding expectations of employee and employer.
“We have a hotline 844-WAGES-LA. We have several staff members that are bilingual,” Reamer said. “We’ve lost them. We’re trying to get them back on because our (job) is to make sure that we touch every single aspect of our city to make sure that all who need to can know.”
Reamer said BCA’s budget is roughly $430,000 for outreach efforts. Reamer added BCA’s processing time of wage theft complaints can take up to 534 days because of the challenges the bureau has.
Reamer said BCA prioritizes five of the 15 council districts — 5, 6, 10, 13 and 14 — because they “lead the pack” in respect to labor complaints.
Reamer reiterated the bureau is understaffed, needs more funding and be given the authority to go after the different forms of wage theft. Complaints regarding overtime, rest break, or meal break issues are turned over to the state.
“So many of the points that came to us, unfortunately had merit,” Reamer said. “But we weren’t empowered to do anything with some of the complaints that may have come to us weren’t solely minimum wage, some of them may have been overtime.”
“When we are fully staffed, there’s no one that does it better than us with respect to turnaround time from an investigation received to restitution provided,” Reamer said. “Many agencies are dealing with the same thing we are with respect to be able to have enough staff.”
Reamer added many businesses believe that it’s easier to get caught and pay restitution than it is to pay people up front. However, Reamer believes that the motions before council members can “help build our team” as well as partnerships to grow and enhance.
“I believe that we can stem the tide of wage theft,” Reamer said. “I’ve been doing this for a number of years. This can happen but it starts with us telling everyone wage theft is not going to happen in the city of Los Angeles.”