there are viable options. we love the elders. we learn from the elders. it's a continual quality improvement model and will be for years to come if given the opportunity. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. (applause) hi, supervisors. i'm really nervous. i came here on behalf of my friend sandra parker whose mother is at university mound. sandra is new here. she really fights goliath, she's wonderful. i want to say three things. i wanted to say that for me, and i hope for all of us, the elderly are giants. they're a little bent now, but we stand on their shoulders, and we look and we see our history through their eyes. secondly, i want to say that the board of trustees seems so untrustworthy to me an outsider that they cannot put something

together for these people. they're the most vulnerable among us and i really think they should. and thirdly, i want to say i feel so good coming here. i feel such love. i feel there is love in this room from the family members, but also from the supervisors who are helping us to talk about it because, you know, no man is an island. we're all people and i thank you for that. take care. >> thank you. (applause) >> is there any other member of the public who has not spoken who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. i'd like to just -- i know that we have another item and there are many people who have been waiting for that item as well. but i want to call back mr. stead lander from the board of directors of university mound.

you heard the testimony. you know that the city is going to do everything we can to block you from closing this facility. that means suing you, we will do that. if that means rezoning this area, we will do that. and who knows what else, you know. but every single option that's available, i know that i'm 100% commit ~ commit today pursuing that option. so, i want to give you the opportunity to do the right thing here. as i understand it, people are supposed to vacate this property by july 31st. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> are you prepared in light of everything you have heard to call that deadline null and void? or are you still going to go forward with that? ~ deadline? >> we have stated repeatedly to people that is our deadline,

that we're not going to evict anybody on july 31st. >> once again, are you prepared to rescind the evictions that you have issued these folks? >> no, we're not prepared to rescind evictions. >> thank you. okay. colleagues, i want to give you an opportunity to say something, but i want to just be very clear. i do want to continue this item to the call of the chair because between now and july 31st i think that we need to do everything we possibly can to stop this closure and i want the families to know that you have my commitment and i'm only one of 11 members of the board, but you have my commitment that i'm going to fight to do everything i possibly can till hell freezes over to make sure we stop the closure of this facility. and i was hoping that the board of directors of university mound would have better sense

after everything that's been said, but, you know, maybe this wouldn't be happening i guess if that had been the case to begin with. so, if the city has to fight to make it happen, the city will fight to make it happen and i certainly will do everything i can to make it happen. and i want to thank the mayor's office. i want to thank all the city agencies that have been involved. but i think that we are on alert to take action because i think that we're not just fighting to keep a building, to keep a home, to keep a community open. i actually think that this fight ultimately is about who we are as a city. it's really about the soul of san francisco, how we lost our soul as a city that we're letting dozens of seniors who have given their lives and served the city be thrown out on the street like that. i don't think that san

francisco has lost its soul and we have a few days to make sure that we stop this injustice from happening. so, with that i'll turn it over to you, colleague. >> thank you, supervisor campos. (applause) >> and i wanted to just acknowledge that i'll be there with you until hell freezes over as well to help make sure that we rescind the evictions -- (applause) >> i wanted first to thank the mayor's office, department of aging and development services, department of public health staff for everything you've done as well to try to help these older folks. as someone said, our elders are giants and i totally agree with that and we have to do everything we can to have a heart. and to mr. brinkman and mr. said lander, i want to thank them for being here and ask you also to have a heart. my mom is 90 years old.

if she were evicted from her home, i can't imagine the amount of fear, anger, confusion and pain that she would be through. and i wanted to thank [speaker not understood] sandoval and other in the community here to explain how the children have grown up with the seniors in their neighborhood and the craft sales and the part of the community that by evicting and closing you're ripping away and ripping apart. and i know that there are options and i would just ask you to not put profit above people's needs. and lastly i'll just say that we have some residents here for the next hearing that remember the international hotel, largely a senior complex in chinatown, manila opportunity. ~ town. and when 40 or more years ago that place was evicted through law enforcement evicting

seniors and older china folk, that many of them dispersed and never came back for 40 year. i'm glad that it's been rebuilt, but i think it's one of those examples, if you evict these giants, as some called them, it's ripping apart away of our neighborhood and our communities. and i just ask you to look into your hearts not to do this and to really take up the offers by the city and supervisor campos as well. but i wanted to thank everyone for the great testimony, especially those not only the caregivers and but especially the community members that see our giants as part of our neighborhoods and our communities as well. >> thank you, supervisor mar. supervisor yee. >> thank you, chair campos. (applause) >> if you don't turn the temperature up in this room, hell will freeze over. [laughter] >> thanks for coming and testifying to the public and also to our officials in san

francisco. you know, an issue there to me, i lost both my parents and my aunt who i grew up with in my household. i saw what the transitions did to them in terms of having to move from one place to another, in particular, my aunt who passed away in the last -- moving two years where i saw her having to move from a nursing home in san francisco to eventually move over to san mateo county. she was always confused and it was -- that was part of a piece of why she probably left us a little sooner than she had, had she could have stayed in san francisco. i think supervisor campos, in terms of some of the

suggestions and how we would stave off this attempt to evict the seniors are good suggestions and we will look into the legality of what we can do as a city, and i think we'll be right there supporting those efforts. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. (applause) >> well, we want to move on to the next item. but i'd like, if i can get a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair, and i would simply let everyone know that given the impending deadline, that there might be the need for a special meeting, special emergency meeting of this committee and emergency action of the board. so, stay tuned. so, if we can get that motion. motion by supervisor yee. if we can take that without objection. [gavel] >> and, again, thank you to all the families and everyone that came out. why don't we take a quick one-minute break so that we can

let people out and then we'll start the hearing on the next. thanks. [pause]

>> great, thank you everyone, we're back from our prior meeting. if you can call item number 2, mr. clerk. >> item number 2 is a hearing on the wage theft task force final report in order to discuss the task force recommendationses, as well whether various city departments mentioned in the report plan to implement those recommendations. >> thank you very much. this is a hearing request that i've introduced and i want to thank my co-sponsor supervisor mar, and i want to thank everyone who has been waiting

patiently. [speaker not understood]. as we know, san franciscos has led the nation in raising the standard around labor protections to make sure that we have safe and dignified workplace environmenttionv throughout the city. and while the majority of businesses do honor these high standards for their employees, a small number of businesses are still getting away with breaking the law and are failing to compensate workers for what they are owed. wage theft in san francisco not only harms workers and their families, but it creates an uneven playing field for law abiding businesses and it actually undermines our local economy by reducing both consumption and tax revenues. with the help of the progressive workers alliance in 2012, supervisor mar and i call for the establishment of the wage theft task force to study the issue of wage theft in san

francisco and generate recommendations for addressing and preventing it here in the city. over the course of a year, the task force convened city departments and stakeholders from the business and labor community to assess the prevalence of wage theft and the enforcement challenges that are facing workers, investigators and employers throughout the city. among the key recommendations the task force proposes an increase to the resources available to the office of labor standards enforcement, which is an important part of any strategy to truly eradicate wage theft. during the recent budget add back process, supervisor jane kim, supervisor eric mar and i with the strong support of the community were able to secure an additional 170,000 per year to expand the staffing and enforcement capacity of the erloc. in addition recommend,s of the task force include the recommendation of the permanent task force to facilitate greater collaboration and coordination among city

departments as well as the exploration and mechanisms for monitoring business compliance. as we prepare to rate the city's minimum wage, hopefully after a successful ballot measure this november, it is critical that we continue to prioritize our enforcement strategies to uphold our wage laws. rates and minimum wage without raising the capacity of city agencies and others to eradicate wage theft would be an incomplete victory for workers in san francisco. in addition to fully implementing the task force's recommendations, we need to explore other tools to hold [speaker not understood] employers accountable and to ensure the basic rights of workers are protected. as an example, allowing more employees to file a wage lien for unpaid wages is a type of enforcement strategy that we think should be considered in order to empower working people in san francisco to more forcefully challenge incidents of wage theft. i want to thank the wage theft

task force that has put a lot of energy and effort into putting together the recommendations and i look to our -- look forward to our discussion today. today's hearing and our continued efforts are on the issue hopefully will bring more added attention to this important issue, help identify future employment -- enforcement strategies, raise awareness, continue to engage city departments and highlight stories for workers who are successful in their challenges to wage theft. in a few moments we will be hearing from the -- hearing about the final report from the task force's co-chairs, charlotte noss, workplace justice and donald levitt, head of rloc. additionally we'll hear from the district attorney's office, the city attorney's office, and the department of public health around the work of our city agencies in fighting wage theft. before we begin, i'd like to ask supervisor mar if he has any comments.

>> i just wanted to thank the progressive workers alliance, the office of labor centers enforcement, donald levitt, and the members of the task force. thanks so much to supervisor campos for -- and his staff for the leadership. i think the wage theft task force is really unique because it's made up of workers, organizationses alongside city departments, and better coordination as supervisor campos and had i staff put together i think was a key goal. i think we're not calling out most businesses because most businesses are good businesses, but there are a few bad apples that i know that our staff from ofle and other enforcement agencies have gone after over the years. but i just wanted to thank the progressive workers alliance for not only the groundbreaking 2011 law, but also the establishment of this grassroots and city departmental task force. and i'm looking forward to the recommendations from the task force. i just wanted to say that wage

theft is a civil rights issue. it's an economic justice issue and i'm very, very proud to have stood side by side with the progressive workers alliance and other community groups to make sure that san francisco stand tall in projecting low wage justice for everyone. >> thank you, supervisor. i don't think we have any other comments from the committee. why don't we hear now from the co-chairs of the task force, charlotte noss and donald levitt. and, again, thank you for your incredible, incredible work. ~ knauss >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm donna levitt, and this is co-chair charlotte knauss, and we will be both presenting the final report from the wage theft task force. as you know, the task force was created by the board of

supervisors on june 12th, 2012. it was charged with making recommendations to the board regarding how the city could best address wage theft in san francisco. we met monthly from october 2012 to september 2013 and our finding and recommendations were presented in a written final report that was submitted to the board. i'd like to introduce the members of the task force. in addition to charlotte, who at the time was an attorney at the legal aid society employment law center and is now self-employed, and myself, and i'm the director of the office of labor standards and enforcement. laurel turner represented the city attorney's office. rebecca wagoner represented the district attorney's office.

captain thomas cleary represented s.f.p.d. karen yu represented the department of public health. lou phillips from the treasurer and tax collector's office. regina [speaker not understood] from the office of small business. in addition to those city agencies, community, business and labor representatives included ace wise man from young workers you needthed. [speaker not understood] lou from china progressive association. and for part of the time lin fred gau from asian americans advancing justice sat in [speaker not understood]'s seat. terry valin from the filipino community center. tina chin from united here local 2. manny chic from the mayor law group. karen highsler from mission pie and don houston from elery owe, the two business owners. ~ el io

and many of those task force members are here today. and if you would please stand, those of you who were able to make it today. a few. thank you for coming. (applause) >> so, the task force had a year to educate ourselves [speaker not understood] to develop recommendations and there is a sense of responsibility from the task force members to make good suggestions and to dive right in and have ideas about what they see about the problem. we did, of course, discuss what wage theft was. we heard, you know, testimony from workers about the scope of the problem. we talked about current enforcement strategies. and spent the majority of our time talking about remedies and things that the city could do and the city in collaboration with community groups to better prevent and remedy wage theft. over the course of the year we were lucky enough to have

[speaker not understood] kick us off in our initial meeting. we heard testimony from san francisco workers. we heard from chinese restaurant workers. we heard from latino laundromat workers. we heard from filipino care givers. we heard from experts on issues of retaliation such as [speaker not understood] and [speaker not understood] especially on the issues of using immigration status in retaliation. we heard from the folks that are doing current enforcement, the members of the task force, and also members of this state enforcement agencies. and the task force numbers were incredibly participatory. we discovered the wage theft is pervasive. those local and national studies show that a large number of low-wage workers still experience wage theft. that up to a quarter of them are not paid minimum wage and up to three quarters of workers are not paid overtime.

we found that there are certain industries that were affected more common in or can occur across industries, but that certain industries [speaker not understood] you can read the list, care giving, janitorial work, was especially preach leapt. ~ prevalent. we heard about how wage theft is harmful not only to the workers who experience that violation by not bringing home a satisfactory paycheck to support their families, but also the impact on communities, the impact on decreased revenues to local government, and the unfair competition with responsible businesses. >> the participants in the task force reviewed current strategies that are being used to combat wage theft in san francisco. san francisco not only lead the country in the most progressive labor laws, but we're fortunate to have the country's most

robust local enforcement agency. the olrc has taken a different approach than most enforcement agencies which distinguishes the agency and some of its success. when a claimant files a complaint at the olrc in san francisco, the agency investigates all of the workers in the business. the agency does not make out one individual claimant, come to a conference with the employer a would happen if a complaint is filed at the state. that encourages workers to come forward who might otherwise be fearful and we maintain the confidentiality of the claimant's identity to the extent that we can through the process. another thing that distinguishes our enforcement strategy is that we work closely with the collaborative of community-based organizations and that

collaborative is under contrived to the tune of about $460,000 a year. it's a collaborative now of six community-based agencies who you'll hear from later in this testimony. but their work is critical because they are culturally competent and they have relationships in the community and sometimes workers feel more comfortable approaching a community agency than bringing a complaint directly to the city. that collaborative is headed by the chinese progressive association and includes the filipino community center, [speaker not understood], young workers united, dolores street community services which houses both the day laborer program and la collectiva, and i forgot somebody, asian law caucus,

asian americans advancing justice. thank you. >> you'll hear during later comments from other agencies that are also active in current enforcement efforts and also some of the changes they've made since the task force concluded. the task force identified four major challenges that confront worker and the city when they seek to enforce wage and hour laws. number one was a lack of resources. despite the investment that san francisco has made in the office of labor of standard enforcement, having a local enforcement agency that look to around the country as a model for how to do local enforcement, the task force still believes the investment of resources is not enough to combat the problem. the second big challenge was the lack of data sharing between agencies.

there's no single coordinated system by which a business interacts with the city. so, the department of public health trackses a business in a way that does not necessarily coincide with how law office of labor standards tracks a business ~. so, a city department could be interacting with a business that has violations in other city departments without the two departments knowing about the commonality of the business. the third main challenge, independent of of out orlc does enforcement and investigation process, many workers seek to recover their wages through other avenues. we considered data from the department of labor standards enforcement that state labor commissioner as well, and the data from the state agency [speaker not understood] on the number of workers who come forward and win a claim versus the amount of wages which are actually collected and it's somewhere along the lines of 20% of wages are actually

collected. and, so, there are challenge to collecting wages outside of orlc process through the labor commissioner process is a huge challenge to combating wage theft. and the fourth big challenge is the vulnerability of the employees that we're talking about. we're talking about low wage worker who are often not completely fluent in english who are often the full income generators for their family who are dependent upon that job. however, [speaker not understood] depending upon that income to support their families and therefore fear losing that job. when worker come forward they often face retaliation. they face not only community pressure among the ethnic community to not come forward and speak against the employer, but also threats that they're going to be fired or threats using their immigration status as, you know, in retaliation. based upon all of the data that we heard or the testimony and the current enforcement strategies and the challenges,

the task force came to these conclusions about what the problem statement was. it was really important to identify those areas where the problem was so that we could make recommendations targeted at them. so, these are the findings of the task force and we try to include all the players involved. so, the city does not have a comprehensive strategy and sufficient resource he to combat wage theft. the general public in san francisco is not aware of how prevalent wage theft is. workers often lack information or are afraid to come forward. agencies lack resource s and lack efficient data system. we heard a lot in the last point ~ about why employers commit wage theft and we came to this conclusion. some employers lack knowledge. they simply don't know. they've gone into business, many of them are immigrant employers who are first time business owners in the city of san francisco, and i will grant you that operating a business in san francisco, there are a lot of laws to follow.

so some of them simply lack knowledge. some of them have made a calculated financial decision that it is worth it in the short term to steal wages from workers versus the chances of getting caught and paying those back wages in the future. some business owners lack the skills and resources to comply. they are trying their best to comply, but they don't have the staff or human resources department, or they don't have an outside payroll company, whatever the reason. and then there are those industries where they simply are a culture of noncompliance, where it is very difficult to find a responsible employer. for example, we talked a lot about the care home industry where residential care homes are pretty much across the board operated in violation of workers rights and it is very difficult in that industry to find a responsible -- although there are some. it's difficult to find a responsible business owner. so, for one or many -- >> supervisor mar had a question. >> yes,