approach to dealing with it. more staffing is obviously an issue. the city attorney needs to step in more quickly and litigate more vigorously when things take a long time. something to have a conversation about is whether there should be a change in the process so that people can bring in private lawyers. if be city attorney does not have the resources to create a dedicated unit and devote more resources, that is something that should be discussed. >> i wanted to answer exactly that question. i agree with you that olse needs to consider additional resources. other folks can talk about what the city attorney's office has done.

>> i do not even know if is a private attorney general action. they do not provide lawyers. the state can do it. i think it is excellent that the city attorney is skilled in this. we might want to have an option that if be worker chooses to instead have a private attorney represent him or her, that is an option. >> is that something that we could do locally? >> i would think so. i am not suggesting this. it might be worth discussing how that would fit into the process. >> in the next session -- section will talk about what other agencies are doing in the city and county. hopefully, that can give you a sense of what else has happened. >> i did notice that the city

attorney's were not one of the organizations brought here. it seems to me that indeed olse and others government attorneys and the private and nonprofit bar to assist with this. >> we represented hundreds of government workers at the arm factories that in 2001 had worked for months and months with no pay. the company shut down and they declared bankruptcy. upwards of $1 million in wages. we lost the case when they said that there is no individual liability on behalf of the employer. this agency is critical because

it allows liability of individuals. corporate officers. you cannot do that in the state. it has been foreclosed. the other critical issue is that the district attorney should be prosecuting wage staffed. -- theft. in the early 2000's, we went to the division labor standards enforcement, the chinese standards, and the labor council and met with him to push him to do something about the wage theft. to put it politely, they blew us off. they had no interest in doing this. ultimately, there was a federal prosecution. in 2007, the owners was -- were convicted. it were not convicted on wage theft.

they were convicted on bankruptcy fraud and hiding of assets. it took four months for an attorney to get a conviction. it was a really ugly regis lack of effort by the district attorney when they large part of northern california where hundreds of workers experienced wage theft. every place you look in the labor code, there is a misdemeanor. we gave them the materials and the legal theory that they needed to do to win the case. in terms of city action, attention to wage that is really critical. >> i just want to comment that i remember that specific incident.

i have left the d.a.'s office at the time. i had talked to her and fellow co-council. i know that was a disappointing decision at the times. i had a similar experience when i was co-counseling a case regarding a factory that had not paid workers what they were due. it took years to litigate that case. without the resources of nonprofit foundations or government attorneys, these workers are often left out in the cold. these are often good examples for us to think about as policy makers of what we can do as a city family to make sure that these cases are properly

resources. we need to make sure that justice is done. >> the next session of the presentation focuses on what other city departments are doing to address the issue of wage theft. we did invite the city attorney's office to be here today. i spoke to the city attorney. my understanding is that he is out of town and could not be here today. i agree that a dedicated unit on this issue makes sense. my understanding from the city attorney is that he has a draft -- and directed his staff to pay close attention to what happens here so he can direct his staff. let's hear from the san francisco department of public health.

>> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for inviting us here. i have a presentation. i am handing one copy to a clerk. i need my copy. i am going to need this one for now. i am going to do two things. you have presented a compelling case to why she -- we should care about this issue. i will talk about why the health department cares about this issue. why this is beyond individual workers.

what the health department is doing to support the work, could any of this support the expanded or leverage? this could help discourage a wage theft. why do we care? it was very important to note that the history of labor law, whether it is employment or wages, sick days or health insurance, this is all to improve the health of workers. it is hard for a public health agency to stand idly by and when these laws are not being enforced. those experiencing wage theft

are experiencing disparities. they are available -- vulnerable to chronic disease and illness. most of the businesses are going diligently to try to recover the law and bring down the whole industry. a little bit more specifically, supervisor campos, you pointed out some of the consequences of not having wages paid. we would like to emphasize that these consequences are not just to the individual workers and their families.

these consequences are to society at large. if a worker is the teeth because they are not being paid wages, they are creating a safety risk. if their not being paid sick days, there is the risk of infectious diseases in the workplace. the businesses that tend to disobey labor laws, tend to dissipate -- and disobey other health and safety laws. i do not need to reemphasize that this is a pervasive national problem. i will move to the types of roles and strategy is that they will play. first i will detail working conditions and their effect on

health. there is a lot of information -- information needed to describe the picture. this is needed to motivate the actions. a lot of the investigations we have done with community partners. a number of the reports were instrumental in the passage of labor laws including be a living wage laws, minimum-wage law and the paid sick days law. i have attached some of these reports for you. the second role we play is the education of workers and employers and residents. we try to directly tell the employers of why these are important public health and safety laws. they are often not aware of the law. we can be the first point of contact and educate them about

the law. we can create the culture and the businesses. these are things that the health department is going to look at. the inspectors are out there in the field looking at businesses. it might be a very small part of it. it will help move this forward. the third role in monitoring compliance, not everything that we are looking for can be seen visually in a field inspection. sometimes an indication of labor law can be seen not posting the employee notification requirements. we can see how many workers are working at one time. we are trying to train our inspectors and staff on we can see and making referrals of symptoms. quite exciting is working with olse in a coordinated way.

some of the research we have done over the years, which have done a health impact assessment of the living wage ordinance and the sick pay law. we have had a project looking at the health and safety of day laborers. recently, with the chinatown workers projects. recently, we have done an assessment of labor law and domestic workers. we have an explicit regulatory authority under california law and local law for the agency. the minimum wage ordinance and safe -- in itself says that olse may request revoke station or suspension from another organization until the

wage violations have been remedied. the health and safety code at the california level and our own health and safety code says that we can revote or suspend a permit for a business operator whenever they violate any law. that is a very, very broad authority. as part of the education, we have been conducting food operator training. every food operator is required to send this safety training. we have integrated liberal lot training. -- labor law training. i have asked my staff to start looking at the employee notification requirements and giving the employees notification requirements and making referrals when they are

not placed. we have started requiring proof of workers' compensation insurance and other labor law requirements before we even give the permit. in a few cases, we have used armed force the authority to suspend the permit until the business complies with the olse requirements and sanctions. i think some of the next steps in improving our work, what -- how can we improve this? the training of the health inspectors, tracking chronic violations and considering violation history and issuing

new permits. one of the loopholes and one of the way employers get around these is that they simply close down their shop. assuming businesses under a new form, even if bay are under an investigation. we are trying to track these owners. coordinating code enforcement can have the same chronic violations. thank you very much. >> i think we are fine. we appreciate all of the efforts by the department of public health and for your continued commitment to this issue. i would like to call on christine from the district attorney's office. thank you for waiting patiently. she is the chief of staff to the district attorney. we want to hear directly from

her on her office of's efforts on this issue. >> we have demonstrated part of our commitment by the time in the hearing room packed -- hearing room. i want to express our commitment to this issue and interest in pursuing these matters where appropriate in the criminal context. olse plays an important role in these matters. i have heard, as i have sat here listening to the other partner agencies, certain other ones that should have been sent to our agency for prosecution or you have somebody contract in and receiving city dollars and not pay workers what they are due, in my opinion, that rises to a different level and

requires more strict intervention. we have two resolve cases of wage theft. we have partnered very closely with the chinese progressive organization and we appreciate that partnership. the challenge that we have, we need a victim to come forward. that is often the largest impediment for our office to proceed on these matters. collaboration with city agencies and community organizations are necessary to augment the actions we're taking in these areas. they are the most vulnerable communities and they are often hesitant to reach out to law forces -- law-enforcement are -- or are unaware of the resources available. i understand that supervisor mar and campos are contemplating a

task force. inside of city government and outside of city government, we can understand where the zipper. matters are handed to us. theft is obviously a crime. grand theft is a felony. we are more than willing to do that. we have an assigned attorney that works on these matters. we also works on issues of human trafficking, not just sexual trafficking, but labor trafficking. we encourage everybody in the hearing with these issues to reach out to us. we are an eager and willing partner to putting an end to this kind of conduct. >> thank you for being here. i was curious how you view how

we should be pursuing cases as opposed to olse, as opposed to the city attorney's office. >> we have a case pending right now with allegations of felony grand theftand misuse of another person's contract in licensed. the day labor contract did were taken for their money. we also have the earlier cases that we have already settled, mostly focused on the theft issue. we are able to secure the restitution payments to the workers that were defrauded. >> do you coordinate with other potential government agencies on various situations about whether you should take the case? i am wondering what kind of

conversations happened. >> there is very little coordination. i was happy to hear the work that olse is doing. i have been in conversation with the police department. i reached out to express my interest in working with them. you have for my commitment to make those conversations happen. regardless of what actions you take, for we will make sure we are more coordinated with those agencies. if you have those employees that are taking four or five years to comply, that is where we should get involved. >> there seems to be a working group between the different government agencies or the particularly bad actors. and there are more than one agency is bringing actions against them. that is bringing actions to the employment and that employer. >> the threat of criminal

consequences as a way of moving people that civil consequences do not. we will sit down and meet and talk about those efforts. we will participate in the task force. you will have our commitment on the it. >> as far as following up on what the president was saying, my feeling on this is that this has to be a city-wide strategy. part of the strategy is olse. the strategy is provided for by the law. there are limitations on that. resources is a key limitation. even though perhaps only a few cases will go to a hearing, i think that we should do better than five. having the city attorney and the district attorney involved, especially in those cases that are so egregious, it would be

unjust to go through a five- year. -- five-year period before they are solved. action by the city attorney and the district attorney can send a very clear message that we are not going to tolerate that in the city and county. those recalcitrant employers not only have to contend with the processes in place, they also have to contend with the city attorney's office and the district attorney's office. that can serve as a very strong deterrent to these kinds of actions not taking place. >> we had a recent case where the defendant received nine months in jail. this is a sanction that we can

levy and have a fax on the community in general. most of their conduct is not rise to the level of criminality. >> there is that working groups. to figure route what cases that are currently pending might be appropriate for consideration by those offices. the fear is that if you wait too long, the employee might not be around anymore. that not only means that that worker is not going to get the wages that are owed to him or her, but that employer may exploit other workers down the road. >> thank you very much. thank you for your patience. now we can hear from the police department. thank you for waiting patiently. if you could just briefly tell us what the police department is

doing on this important issue. >> i am currently assigned to the vice crimes unit. in human trafficking investigations, wage theft is a central issue. it is almost essential to this -- establish the greater crime of human trafficking. we also see suggestions of similar problems in inspections we do in massage parlors. we have recently established a recentlywith olse. we have established protocols as to how we can reciprocally help each other in our investigation. when we get an allegation of human trafficking at a garment factory or some other commercial

facility, it is helpful for us to utilize inspection authority to get in there and talk to people and find out what is going on. conversely, some places are not easy to get into or they might not be immediately cooperative. we have offered to reciprocate by going with them and facilitating a safe environment. we also come across a wage test -- theft issues in our investigations. they bring cases to us. we conduct an investigation and there is a bifurcation. the human trafficking is investigated by us. they insist their clients in getting relief related to those wage theft issues.

many wage theft situations have the potential to escalate into a human trafficking situation. obtaining labor through fraud or coercion, that is very serious. i'd like to remind everybody that that should be brought to the attention of police. >> thank you very much. >> it is good to see you here. i have patrolled the streets at 2:00 in the morning with the sergeant while he was under cover. i appreciate seeing you here. i want to ask, i think a lot of the public view wage theft as an

issue between the employer and employee. one thing that your department could help op -- help out on his education. when you are out in the community, you have so many more officers that touched the community. it would be great as part of the general public outrage that your officers help to educate residents and businesses to their rights and responsibilities. >> in terms of our own internal training, it is not too much for us to learn through our role in training officers on top of human trafficking, we can also bring in awareness of other issues. that is something in terms of us moving forward, we need to

discuss. what role this department is playing in terms of referring cases or conducting investigations that reach a certain threshold. that is something that i am committed to working with in terms of identifying what is central role for our unit is and how we can disseminate that. we need to look for opportunities to educate the public. >> every time your police captain is in community forms, letting them know this is a priority would be helpful. >> thank you very much, sgt. the final presenter from the treasurer's office. i would also like to thank the workers and other members of the public who have been patiently waiting and sitting through this hearing. as soon as this is done, we will