State Data Reveal Years-Long Waits to Resolve Wage Theft Claims

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

New state data reveal that California workers face years-long waits to resolve cases of wage theft through California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office. Last year the average wait time for a worker to get a hearing on a claim that their employer didn’t pay owed wages was more than three years in Oakland – the worst in the state. San Francisco’s wait time was a little over two and a half years. According to advocates, the delays discourage workers from reporting wage thefts, in turn reinforcing systems of worker exploitation. The Labor Commissioner’s Office cites staffing shortages as a key problem in hearing cases efficiently, compounded by the pandemic. We’ll learn more about the causes and effects of California’s wage theft claims backlog. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:46.8	Music From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:50.6	Across the region, workers in some of the toughest, lowest-paying jobs, the essential workers of the pandemic, sometimes have their wages stolen, aren't paid overtime properly, or otherwise shorted by their employers.
1:03.2	And the way that they're supposed to rectify that situation is by filing a complaint with the Labor Commissioner's office.
1:08.8	After that, they're supposed to get a hearing.
1:11.1	But KQED analysis of state data has shown that's not happening in the time it's supposed to.
1:16.4	People in Oakland and San Francisco were waiting two to three years on average.
1:20.7	We dig into why this system to protect vulnerable workers is failing so badly.
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