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California Awards LA County More Than $1.6 Million To Fight Wage Theft
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Illustration by Miguel Gutierrez Jr.
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CalMatters; iStock
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The California Department of Industrial Relations recently awarded Los Angeles County more than $1.6 million to prosecute wage theft.
The money comes from the Workers’ Rights Enforcement Grant Program, which will allow prosecutors to tackle wage theft cases and address obstacles workers face in reporting labor violations.
In L.A. County, the district attorney's office received $733,351. The county counsel‘s office was granted $475,000. The Long Beach prosecutor’s office received $414,392. In the city of L.A., the city attorney’s office was granted $317,543.
Prosecutors have already been busy holding employers who steal from their workers accountable. L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón’s office filed criminal charges last fall against garment industry business owners Soon Ae Park and Lawrence Lee for allegedly paying workers as little as $6 an hour and failing to provide overtime.
Gascón followed that up by charging Catalina Island business owners Jack and Nora Tucey for allegedly stealing more than $500,000 in overtime wages from 18 employees just two months later. According to the D.A.'s office, Jack Tucey died in December.
Gascón, who’s up for reelection this November, said wage theft was one of the most under-reported crimes in L.A. County.
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“We want to make sure that the employers that are willing to steal from the workers, that they are going to also be paying the consequences of that,” he said in an interview with LAist last fall.
An Economic Policy Institute study from 2017 revealed that 2.4 million low-wage workers in the 10 most populous states lose $8 billion annually in minimum wage violations.
In total, 17 prosecutors across the state received $8.55 million to go after wage theft violators.
California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower called wage theft a serious and costly crime.
“Wage theft is a persistent problem, and this funding helps address it in local communities across our state,” she said in a statement.
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