The San Diego City Council Tuesday unanimously approved amending the municipal code to strengthen the city’s ability to enforce wage theft laws, including allowing civil action to recover unpaid wages and overtime.<\/p>\n
Council members Marni von Wilpert and Sean Elo-Rivera proposed the amendments to the law, which previously did not authorize such civil actions.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 1, 2027, San Diego’s minimum wage will rise from $17.75 to $18.35 per hour.<\/p>\n
“It’s already expensive enough to live in San Diego. While the city of San Diego is working to address the cost of living by raising the minimum wage, our city’s minimum wage increase only matters if that money actually shows up in the paychecks of working San Diegans,” von Wilpert said.<\/p>\n
San Diego joins a growing number of cities nationwide taking enforcement action to combat wage theft. In September, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection announced a $131.5 million enforcement action against DoorDash for violations of the city’s delivery worker laws. More than $115 million is expected to go directly to more than 260,000 delivery workers.<\/p>\n
“Wage theft is theft. Today we strengthen the city’s tools to ensure workers receive what they have earned. Workers who experience wage theft now have a stronger path to get their money back, and businesses who cut corners by cutting paychecks will be held accountable,” von Wilpert said.<\/p>\n
In July of this year, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the recovery of more than $500,000 in back wages for six workers at a San Diego deli who were not paid the local minimum wage or required overtime. <\/p>\n
According to a city document, federal investigators found that the employees regularly worked 11-hour days and averaged 55 hours per week while being paid a flat rate of $100 per day. The enforcement action resulted in each worker receiving approximately $83,000 in back wages.<\/p>\n
“Wage theft is theft. Period,” Elo-Rivera said. “At a time when working families are struggling to afford rent, groceries, and other basic necessities, the last thing they should have to worry about is whether their employer is going to steal the wages they’ve earned.”<\/p>\n
Elo-Rivera said for too long, workers have been left to fight alone to recover wages that are rightfully theirs and with amending the code, the will city will have stronger tools for accountability, recovering stolen wages, and ensuring employers are not disadvantaged by following the law. <\/p>\n
“This is about making San Diego work for hard-working San Diegans. If you earned it, it’s yours. And your city should have your back,” Elo-Rivera said.<\/p>\n
Wage theft can take many forms, including:<\/p>\n
Denial of legally required meal and rest breaks <\/p>\n
Failure to pay overtime wages<\/p>\n
Misappropriation of employee tips<\/p>\n
Requiring employees to work “off the clock” <\/p>\n
Failure to provide or allow use of earned sick leave <\/p>\n
Unauthorized or unlawful deductions from paychecks<\/p>\n
Failure to reimburse employees for business-related expenses<\/p>\n
In addition to the proposed enforcement changes, Tuesday’s action included technical and conforming amendments to “better align” the earned sick leave provisions in the city’s Earned Sick Leave and Minimum Wage Ordinance with existing requirements under California law.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s vote was 8-0, with Councilwoman Vivian Moreno absent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego City Council Tuesday unanimously approved amending the municipal code to strengthen the city’s ability to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,13134,76,75],"class_list":["post-495492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-city-council","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}