Six workers will be repaid more than $45,000 in stolen wages from a North Long Beach company after the city prosecutor’s office secured a historic wage theft consent decree against the employer.
City Prosecutor Doug Haubert’s office announced the consent decree against Mattress Factory Direct, operated by father-son duo Arturo and Alberto Zavala of Downey, on Friday, May 22.
The consent decree was ordered by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gloria White-Brown and will remain in effect for five years. It marks the first wage theft-related consent decree (which is effectively a legally binding settlement approved by a court) in Long Beach history, according to Haubert’s office.
“Wage theft is a serious crime,” Haubert said in the announcement. “Some employees are afraid to report theft by employers because they are worried about losing their jobs and they know how hard it is to prosecute. We are going to continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute employers who take from their own employees.”
An investigation into Mattress Factory Direct, supported by the California Department of Industrial Relations’ Wage Theft Grant Program and Long Beach’s in-house Workers’ Rights Prosecution Unit, found that the Zavalas had paid several employees in cash below the minimum wage rate, and that the pair had failed to pay overtime or give employees their legally required breaks.
The Zavalas were convicted of eight counts of wage theft, and under the terms of the consent decree, will pay about $45,477 to six employees in total, Haubert’s office said. Those six employees were drivers for Mattress Factory Direct, who would deliver mattresses, sofas and other furniture to customers.
“The payment represents twice the amount stolen from employees plus interest,” the city prosecutor’s office said. “Each defendant will also serve one year of probation, the maximum allowed by State law.”
The Zavalas will also be required to hire a third-party payroll firm moving forward to ensure that their business is in compliance with wage and hour laws under the consent decree, which will also require the employers to keep records of all employees and independent contractors.
Those employment records will also have to be turned over to the city prosecutor’s office should additional claims be made against the Zavalas and Mattress Factory Direct by employees in the future.
“This might be the first Consent Decree for wage theft resulting from a criminal case in California,” Haubert said in a statement. “We are not just recovering wages for employees, we are holding employers who commit wage theft accountable. We are imposing terms on them that will ensure they cannot commit fraud in the future.”