LA District Attorney Files Wage Theft Charges And Announces New Justice Labor Unit

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The details: The newly created Labor Justice Unit filed seven felony charges 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. California Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower says Park and Lee have a history of resolving wage theft claims.

"We have a pattern of one or two workers speaking up and filing a claim with my office and the employer resolving that claim," she said. "At that point, that employer understood that how they were operating their business was illegal — against the law — and they had the opportunity to come into compliance, but they failed to do so."

Why it matters: Garcia-Brower says there are more than 30,000 workers in the garment industry.

"An industry that is rampant of violations, that is predominantly women workers, immigrants who do not speak English, who speak Spanish and other Asian languages," she said. "We now have a growth of Indigenous workers speaking Indigenous languages."

What is wage theft? According to Gascón, wage theft occurs when employers deny workers their rightful wages, benefits, or overtime pay.

"Studies estimate that billions of dollars are stolen from workers each year through wage theft, making it a significant economic concern," he said in a statement. "Wage theft can take various forms, such as unpaid overtime, minimum wage violations, illegal deductions, misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and denial of benefits."

The affects of wage theft: Garcia-Brower says wage theft affects the entire family.

"We all know that stress impacts our physical wellbeing, and this is something that spills over in our families, in our communities," she said. "So wage theft absolutely cannot be tolerated."

What's next: Gascón is urging more alleged victims to come forward and call the California Labor Commissioner's Office.

Go deeper: For teens learning about wage theft in LA's garment industry, the personal is political