Santa Clara County Wage Theft Report

Building Working Power

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated various workers rights issues, from wage theft, reduced hours, to health and safety issues in the workplace.

The Wage Theft Coalition’s second report aims to highlight key wage theft trends in Santa Clara County and document worker experiences around wage theft and other workers rights issues. We focus on other workers rights violations in addition to wage theft because of the overlapping issues workers are experiencing, especially under the COVID-19 pandemic. These issues include retaliation, health and safety in the workplace, immigration, and labor trafficking.

In this report, we share our findings based on cases from the Department of Labor, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, and the San Jose Office of Enforcement. We look specifically at six key industries: care giving, fast food, construction, personal care, gig work, and janitorial work.  We combined this data with the stories of workers based in these industries.

Lastly, we share the various policy victories won by Coalition leaders in the past few years as well as policy recommendations to build worker power in the future.

Photo Credit: California Domestic Workers Coalition