California Labor Rights Won by Low-Wage Workers

While minimum wage is on the rise in some parts of the country, the fight for fair pay is far from over. Wage theft continues to be a huge problem across the U.S., and it disproportionately affects low-wage and immigrant workers.

They are groups that rarely  speak against management. These workers would often rather endure wage theft than lose their jobs entirely, but they shouldn’t have to make that choice.

Recently, a San Francisco restaurant’s workers spoke up and fought for proper wages in exchange for the hours they worked for, something they were entitled to under California labor laws. Many of Yank Sing’s workers allegedly worked hours of overtime every day for years, but were only paid for eight hours a day. Yank Sing is a fancy dim sum restaurant in San Francisco.

It was revealed last fall that many of the restaurant’s hourly workers had been victims of continuous wage theft, in direct opposition to California employee rights. Instead of simply continuing to not report the issue and accepting their fates, Yank Sing workers organized and won a $4 million settlement for 280 current and former employees. This is one of the largest settlements of that type.

The campaign for these workers’ employee rights lasted for almost a year and a half. The workers would gather in each other’s homes and discuss their plans, with meetings often going late into the night.

Many workers feared this activism would lose them their jobs, but enough believed that their California labor rights were important enough that they should at least try to fight. Paychecks for these workers did not include compensation for overtime, though California overtime laws said they should have. Managers also allegedly illegally took tips away from their employees.

Three out of four low-wage U.S. workers were not properly paid for overtime in 2008, according to the National Employment Law Project.

Yank Sing’s owners agreed to follow California break laws, as well as to use time sheets to track workers’ hours, and pay them for the appropriate amount of work.

According to Haeyoung Yoon from the National Employment Law Project, laborers across the U.S. are “coming forward to demand better wages, better working conditions.”

The story of Yank Sing workers is even more remarkable given that many of them are immigrants who do not speak fluent English. Workers at Yank Sing hope that their story will help other workers across the U.S. fight wage theft.

If you or someone you know works under conditions in apparent violation of California employee rights and California labor laws, you may be eligible to file a lawsuit, and may be able to receive compensation for years of wage theft.

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If you were forced to work off the clock or without overtime pay in California within the past 2 to 3 years, you have rights – and you don’t have to take on the company alone.

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