thank you for being here. >> thank you very much. i am a legislative manager with the tax collector's office. i will keep my comments brief. thank you for calling this hearing on wage theft. it is an important issue for san franciscans. those registered with the city must renew their registration. when we send this notice, we do include notices regarding the minimum wage ordinance and others inside a city law including paid sick leave. in addition, in the past year, the office of labor standards enforcement have entered into an mou so that we can implement cases against business cases as

they move through their case process. with that, i am happy to take any questions. >> thank you. any questions? thank you very much. let's turn the hearing to public comment. let me call of your names. if you could please come up,walter, norman, chung, johannes, chen, chen, if you could please start lining up. please come forward. if you could please come up and you could begin to speak.

lopez. juan, claud, brown, kate, any member of the public who would like to speak, please come up. the mic is yours. >> [speaking foreign language] >> good afternoon supervisors over your lunch time. i am from the progress of

workers of lyons. i am an activist in the tiny speaking community. -- chinese speaking community. >> [speaking foreign langueage] >> i work with low-income parents and i help them do referrals. i work with a lot of wage theft. >> speaking[speaking foreign la] >> they worked very hard to make a living for their families. they think if bay put 100%, they will get 100% back.

unfortunately, they usually only get 40% back. >> [speaking foreign language] >> they work really long hours. not only do they get support for approval from the employers, they get yelled at by the employers. they bring frustration to their families. they take it out on the kids and their wives and their spouses. >> [speaking foreign language] >> parents are not going to have time for their kids. the kids are going to skip school and join gangs.

they are not going to be educated. >> [speaking foreign language] >> we hope that the city and the departments in the city can work together to enforce labor laws. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> i am the workers' rights coordinating attorney. we are community-based social services organization. we serve the latino and immigrant workers situations. >> we are hoping that raising awareness on these issues will help sending these clients are really great including passage of the legislation that you have

proposed. we would like to echo some of the issues that have been raised from our perspective. we can communicate what would be helpful regarding low-wage immigrants and latino workers. in 2010, which represented consultants. we recovered over $80,000 in wages for them. while they might seem small as an advocate of many small claims. those small claims, because these workers live on the edge, that amount of money it means not getting evicted from their homes, being able to feed their children that night or being able to meet many other essential needs. the lesser examples of the

cases, we've recovered $10,000 for care givers that were paid only $5 an hour. we recovered $4,000 for a day laborer who was not paid 43 days of pay by his employer. a lot of this goes on for a long time. that is not bad. >> i had three minutes. >> two minutes. i just want to take a minute to recognize olse. it is taking a while to recognize the claims. we would like to see your legislation passed. >> thank you.

>> hello. >> i am with the chinese progressive association. i think there are many loopholes in the minimum wage ordinance right now. it is not strong enough. i want to tell you guys a story. in 2008, in april, 24 workers came to us to complain about their wages. the employer owed them two

months of unpaid wages. there are five owners who own the restaurant. the restaurant actually closed already. we help the workers filed claims. but the process took a very long time. so there is not enough pressure on employers. employers use these loopholes to escape the law. after two years, this year,

finally, the city got the employer to call them to go to a hearing. so all this time the employer has been ignoring the city. right before the hearing, the lawyers said, "let's settle." so, in the final settlement, the agreement seems to be it will take two years for the payment plan to complete. so it is going to be around $40,000.

because the process took so long, a lot of workers just dropped out. so the workers are taking more than two years to get their wages back, but can the workers wait two years to pay their rent? we are not saying the olc is not doing their job. we are saying the law needs to be enforced aggressively. so we want the law to be enforced effectively. we do not want to have to waste 108 days for workers to get their money back, to get their

judgment. chairperson campos: thank you. >> we want to resolve the issue in one year. chairperson campos: thank you very much. thank you. next speaker. >> my name is johannes iwjaya. i am also a victim of which the act. -- of wage theft. in 2008, i started working for a sushi food-service company.

my job is to deliver the sushi. i deliver sushi to different areas, including san francisco, berkeley, and alameda. a lot of times, i deliver to san francisco. for the time i'm in san francisco, they did not pay me san francisco minimum wage.

for my overtime, i had to repair the truck, maintain the truck. all this overtime was not paid for. first, i went to the labor commission. they do not have bilingual staff, so they referred me to cba. with the help of cpa, we were able to resolve my problem. and my employer decided to settle.

and i got my minimum wage and overtime. chairperson campos: thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is norma sanchez. i am here to speak on the issue of wage theft. i have been a worker for over 10 years at a restaurant in san francisco.

in one case, accessing my right to paid lift -- paid sick leave, i went from having a five-day workweek to only having two days. this particular case was an emergency were ahead to take care of my children. my employer told me if i had to take paid state -- had to take

paid sick leave, i should stay home with my children and not work those days. so i am here to ask you all to please join us in putting an end to wage theft. employers apply their own laws and do not follow the labor laws here in san francisco. i am a working mother. i have a family to provide for. with this retaliation from employers not enforcing our

rights, it is not acceptable. so paid sick leave is actually the law. for them to retaliate against us is unjust. i am not just talking about my own rights, but also the rights of my co-workers, who sometimes cannot speak up, and for workers in communities across the country.

chairperson campos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> i am also here bahau it -- here on behalf of young workers united. i am also here to speak out. i was retaliated against also. i went from being full time to a part-time employee.

i feel i was discriminated against because of my age and my abilities, because i do not have the capabilities of a younger worker. i was retaliated against for taking paid sick time, which i did not get paid for. on the contrary, the hired somebody else and let me go. it seems to be a habit with a lot of these employers to exploit workers across different industries and across the city. it does not seem fair to me,

being in this country where it is supposed to be a fair democracy. thank you for the meetings and hearings you guys have held on tv. so i also want to commend you guys for taking some stance on

some good issues. the other thing is you guys here at the city have a tool with investigation of workplaces. but it seems the focus has usually just then on the health and safety of the food. it is a good thing today that there is more collaboration and they are starting to ask also about the safe -- the safety and health of the workers and if they are facing exploitation in the workplace.

also give a score for responsible employers. chairperson campos: thank you. next speaker. thank you. >> i am a restaurant worker. i have been in the united states for four years. i have worked many jobs in the united states. i never got minimum wage. we never had benefits.

one of those jobs, i was working in a restaurant. they owed us workers many months of unpaid wages. for me, it was only a few weeks. it was over $1,000 in wages. we chased after the employers for over two years, and i have not gotten a penny. most of my co-workers were owed way more than me. my employer ran away. the olsc decided to drop the

case. it is hard for us without our wages to survive. we hope that you will support our campaign, and we hope the city can't act now. -- can act now. chairperson campos: thank you. next speaker. >> i am the director of the san francisco day laborer program. i represent day laborers. to a small and limited degree, states have a common practice of stealing wages from day laborers. in august 2005, the first job i acquired by standing on a

mission. i was a student and needed money for books. i was picked up at six o'clocks 30 in the morning. after eight hours of work, with my hands full of bleeding blisters, my employer promised me she would hire me the next day and pay me the next day. the next morning, i waited at the specified corner on top of a fire hydrant. six minutes later, i was pacing on the sidewalk. 20 minutes later, i was cursing myself for not getting the license plate number. i was enraged. but the only thing i could do was hoping i could see that blue truck coming down the street. i want you to imagine the anger, the frustration, the hopelessness that i felt. multiplied this anger by weeks

and even months of other workers not getting paid. this is for weeks and months on and, which is the case of a lot of delivers. i was extremely lucky that after an hour of waiting the employer did show up and gave me the $100 he owed the. most workers, especially day laborers, are not as lucky. that is why we need the cities -- the city to work with the community to stop wage theft. chairperson campos: thank you. next speaker. >> i want to thank the supervisors for listening to my stories.

i used to work for kola. i experienced workplace injuries. because of that, my employer fired me. but it is very illegal. on top of that, they did not pay me my paid sick leave. it is not just me. my co-workers also urged me to tell you supervisors about this.

we want the city to help us. because a lot of people have not been paid their paid sick leave. and so i can seek justice. i can have justice. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon, everybody.