Wage Theft is Rarely Reported

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Thousands of workers in San Diego do not report irregularities in the payment of their salary, according to a study released by the Center on Policy Initiatives, San Diego State University, and the Employee Resource Center.
The report states that only a small percentage of affected workers have filed a complaint with the offices of the San Diego Workforce Commission.
It is estimated that last year employers in San Diego and Imperial counties did not fulfill minimum wage rate more than 40,000 times, but only 82 affected individuals filed a formal complaint, according to the study.
The most common payment violations are the lack of compensation for overtime, commissions, paid sick days, or reimbursement for expenses related to work. Aside from those violations, there are also employers who do not comply with the municipal law approved by voters a year ago, which raised the minimum wage in the city.
The minimum wage in San Diego is $11.50 per hour, a dollar more than state law.
Although the ordinance was approved with more than 60 percent of the electorate, some employers have not complied and workers have not reported the lack of compliance for fear of losing their jobs said Alor Calderon, director of the Employee Rights Center.
Calderon attributed this practice to the fact that the city has failed to enforce the law by not establishing a system for issuing complaints.
“We must do something to protect these workers who are robbed at the end of the week or month and feel that there won’t be anyone there to knock on doors and demand the worker’s payment,” Calderon said.
Although the city has a specialized office to enforce this ordinance, activists believe that the office has done an inadequate job at informing thousands of employees of their rights.
However, the Mayor’s Office issued a statement saying it has abided by the minimum wage law since it came into effect.
The report showed fear of retaliation as the most common motive for not reporting employers, followed by a lack of information, doubts about whether there will be a favorable resolution, lack of time, advice, or money, or because the worker it is undocumented.
The study was conducted by surveying more than 300 people who have or had filed a complaint with the appropriate authorities. Most of them work in sectors such as construction, restaurants, retail, transportation, medical, or manufacturing.
A worrying aspect is that about 84 percent of workers wait until they no longer have a job to issue a complaint, which can hold back the already time consuming process, researchers say.
“Although the law protects from retaliation, in practice it is very difficult to win a case,” said SDSU professor Jill Esbenshade.
The process can also be very slow. A construction worker interviewed for the report said that he issued his complaint over a year ago after going one week without pay.
To date, he is still awaiting a hearing.
The report proposes that the City of San Diego improve its mechanisms to abide by both the minimum wage and paid sick leave laws.
The study cites cases from Los Angeles and San Francisco, whose authorities have managed to recover thousands of dollars that were stolen from their workers.