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"content": "\u003cp>Nearly 2,000 registered nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center campuses in Oakland and Berkeley began a five-day strike Monday in response to high turnover rates, staff shortages and workplace safety issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The nurses, represented by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, called on Sutter Health to implement workplace violence prevention plans, increase staffing and provide more robust safety resources, including better access to medical-grade safety equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am seeing nurses leave the medical center for other nursing positions on a regular basis. We have nurses working overtime, and even double shifts, day after day to keep the hospital running,” said Mike Hill, a nurse in Sutter’s intensive care unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hill said that while workplace violence in hospitals — mostly of patients toward staff — has always been a concern, there was an uptick in incidents during the pandemic, when many patients didn’t have the family support they needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes it’s intentional. Other times, it’s from anger, fear or a medical condition that causes them to lash out at staff. Either way, it’s dangerous for us as professionals,” said Hill. “It’s not just physical violence. Sometimes it’s verbal threats.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When workplace violence occurs, hospitals announce “code gray” on the intercom system to alert security, Hill said. But like the nursing team, the security department at Alta Bates is understaffed, and in some cases it takes too long for guards to arrive at the scene, Hill said, forcing other nurses to step in to help their colleagues. Hill said more security guards are needed both inside the hospital and in the parking garage, to prevent vehicle break-ins, thefts and attacks on staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those concerns about violence, he added, are compounded by the hospital failing to take the necessary measures to effectively protect nurses from COVID exposure and other diseases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) fined Sutter Health for violations tied to COVID-related workplace safety issues after an investigation was launched in response to the July 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/calosha-finds-alta-bates-summit-medical-center-guilty-eight-serious-violations\">death of an Alta Bates nurse\u003c/a>, who contracted the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sutter must create working conditions to enhance patient care while also providing a safe work environment that retains nurses,” said Hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ann Gaebler, a registered nurse of over 40 years, said she has never seen Sutter “act this disrespectfully” toward nurses, and it’s causing experienced health care providers to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without proper mentorship, we see young nurses suffering the moral injury and the moral distress of having to care for patients without the support they need, and so they leave,” Gaebler said in a statement. “This is not how you grow the next generation of nurses or how to take care of a community. We need Sutter to step up to address our concerns about retention, so we can continue to provide excellent care to our patients.”[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Dr. Joanne Spetz, director, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF\"]‘I think the pandemic revealed and exacerbated a lot of problems that existed already, and some of those problems were brewing around stress and burnout and workloads, as we’re hearing from physicians and nurses and other health care professionals.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the walkout, Sutter management faulted local leaders in the nurses unions, accusing them of putting “politics above the patients and the nurses they represent” despite Sutter being willing to bargain, a spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our attention remains on providing safe, high-quality care to the patients and communities we’re honored to serve, and we are confident in our ability to manage this disruption,” the statement said. “We are hopeful the union shares our desire to reach an agreement and enable our nurses to turn their focus back to the patients the union has asked them to walk away from.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930036\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930036\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People holding yellow and red signs and wearing red nurse outfits walk across the street.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nurses begin a five-day strike at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland on Oct. 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sutter Health’s proposed contract includes a pay increase of more than 20% over four years and a commitment to pursuing initiatives aimed at promoting diversity and advancing equity among its employees, along with continued health coverage for nurses and their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sutter nurses strike is just the latest in a slew of labor actions in recent months among health care workers throughout the Bay Area, mirroring a larger nationwide trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The walkout comes less than a week after some 2,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health care employees approved \u003ca href=\"https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/new-4-year-agreement-ratified\">a four-year contract\u003c/a>, ending an unprecedented, grueling 10-week strike over staffing shortages, wages and patient care, and just days after the Valley Physicians Group, a union representing about 450 doctors employed by Santa Clara County, announced its intention to hit the picket line on November 1 over similar issues.[aside postID=\"news_11929713,news_11924980\" label=\"Related Posts\"]Even though \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/union-membership-rate-8-point-6-percent-in-manufacturing-23-point-4-percent-in-utilities-in-2019.htm#:~:text=Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics,-The%20Economics%20Daily&text=In%202019%2C%20the%20union%20membership,hunting%3B%20and%20finance%20and%20insurance.\">less than 7% of health care workers nationwide were unionized\u003c/a> as of 2020, the health care sector \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/11/955128562/for-health-care-workers-the-pandemic-is-fueling-renewed-interest-in-unions\">also has seen renewed interest in unionization since the pandemic\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the pandemic revealed and exacerbated a lot of problems that existed already, and some of those problems were brewing around stress and burnout and workloads, as we’re hearing from physicians and nurses and other health care professionals,” Dr. Joanne Spetz, director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic, she added, also laid bare the extent of labor shortages across a wide range of essential jobs within health care settings, including custodial staff, nursing assistants, food-service workers and delivery people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When those jobs are all in short supply, that puts even more pressure on physicians, nurses and others,” Spetz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And many health care workers are finding that their most common demands — for reduced workloads, more support services, more time for administrative tasks and, in a growing number of instances, tougher security measures — are often not sufficiently met by employers, who often cite nationwide labor shortages and rising costs of doing business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unionization is more popular than it’s ever been, even across political lines, with \u003ca href=\"https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx\">a recent Gallup poll showing that 71% of Americans approve of labor unions\u003c/a>, the highest approval rating since 1965.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But questions remain over how financially well positioned hospitals are to hire and train more people and meet their employees’ increasingly vocal — and organized — demands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Health care is competing against a lot of other industries and sectors that also are having difficulty recruiting,” Spetz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A skilled trade or retail or a restaurant can change their prices pretty quickly, but for health care, they are in these often multiyear insurance contracts and they cannot immediately drum up more revenue in order to pay those higher wages,” said Spetz. “They’re likely to be going back to the insurance industry in the next few years as their contracts come up for renegotiation and ask for more money. And then the insurance companies eventually are going to need to figure out how to pass that on in the price of higher premiums.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, Spetz added, the pressure of keeping costs down at a time of rampant inflation in a labor-intensive field like health care is exacerbated by the rising costs of supplies and equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because it takes a while to have the ability to raise revenue … that just puts more financial pressure,” Spetz said, adding that as the pandemic relief money fades, hospitals will be facing financial shortfalls and worrying about “how the money’s going to play out for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of it comes down to building a workplace where health care workers really feel valued, are able to use all their skills, are respected as professionals, regardless of what level they work within the organization … and have the autonomy to use their knowledge and skills to the highest ability,” Spetz said. “You need to be adequately staffed in general. And so that’s going to be the big challenge for employers, is how to create that healthy, supportive work culture. And you have to do that while you’re dealing with labor shortages and plugging all the holes that need to be plugged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional reporting was contributed by Bay City News and KQED’s Laura Klivans.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"headline": "Multiple Bay Area Health Care Strikes Reflect a Workforce Under Increasing Strain",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Nearly 2,000 registered nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center campuses in Oakland and Berkeley began a five-day strike Monday in response to high turnover rates, staff shortages and workplace safety issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The nurses, represented by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, called on Sutter Health to implement workplace violence prevention plans, increase staffing and provide more robust safety resources, including better access to medical-grade safety equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am seeing nurses leave the medical center for other nursing positions on a regular basis. We have nurses working overtime, and even double shifts, day after day to keep the hospital running,” said Mike Hill, a nurse in Sutter’s intensive care unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hill said that while workplace violence in hospitals — mostly of patients toward staff — has always been a concern, there was an uptick in incidents during the pandemic, when many patients didn’t have the family support they needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes it’s intentional. Other times, it’s from anger, fear or a medical condition that causes them to lash out at staff. Either way, it’s dangerous for us as professionals,” said Hill. “It’s not just physical violence. Sometimes it’s verbal threats.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When workplace violence occurs, hospitals announce “code gray” on the intercom system to alert security, Hill said. But like the nursing team, the security department at Alta Bates is understaffed, and in some cases it takes too long for guards to arrive at the scene, Hill said, forcing other nurses to step in to help their colleagues. Hill said more security guards are needed both inside the hospital and in the parking garage, to prevent vehicle break-ins, thefts and attacks on staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those concerns about violence, he added, are compounded by the hospital failing to take the necessary measures to effectively protect nurses from COVID exposure and other diseases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) fined Sutter Health for violations tied to COVID-related workplace safety issues after an investigation was launched in response to the July 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/calosha-finds-alta-bates-summit-medical-center-guilty-eight-serious-violations\">death of an Alta Bates nurse\u003c/a>, who contracted the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sutter must create working conditions to enhance patient care while also providing a safe work environment that retains nurses,” said Hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ann Gaebler, a registered nurse of over 40 years, said she has never seen Sutter “act this disrespectfully” toward nurses, and it’s causing experienced health care providers to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without proper mentorship, we see young nurses suffering the moral injury and the moral distress of having to care for patients without the support they need, and so they leave,” Gaebler said in a statement. “This is not how you grow the next generation of nurses or how to take care of a community. We need Sutter to step up to address our concerns about retention, so we can continue to provide excellent care to our patients.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I think the pandemic revealed and exacerbated a lot of problems that existed already, and some of those problems were brewing around stress and burnout and workloads, as we’re hearing from physicians and nurses and other health care professionals.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the walkout, Sutter management faulted local leaders in the nurses unions, accusing them of putting “politics above the patients and the nurses they represent” despite Sutter being willing to bargain, a spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our attention remains on providing safe, high-quality care to the patients and communities we’re honored to serve, and we are confident in our ability to manage this disruption,” the statement said. “We are hopeful the union shares our desire to reach an agreement and enable our nurses to turn their focus back to the patients the union has asked them to walk away from.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930036\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930036\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People holding yellow and red signs and wearing red nurse outfits walk across the street.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59635_001_KQED_SutterRNStrikeOakland_10242022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nurses begin a five-day strike at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland on Oct. 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sutter Health’s proposed contract includes a pay increase of more than 20% over four years and a commitment to pursuing initiatives aimed at promoting diversity and advancing equity among its employees, along with continued health coverage for nurses and their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sutter nurses strike is just the latest in a slew of labor actions in recent months among health care workers throughout the Bay Area, mirroring a larger nationwide trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The walkout comes less than a week after some 2,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health care employees approved \u003ca href=\"https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/new-4-year-agreement-ratified\">a four-year contract\u003c/a>, ending an unprecedented, grueling 10-week strike over staffing shortages, wages and patient care, and just days after the Valley Physicians Group, a union representing about 450 doctors employed by Santa Clara County, announced its intention to hit the picket line on November 1 over similar issues.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Even though \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/union-membership-rate-8-point-6-percent-in-manufacturing-23-point-4-percent-in-utilities-in-2019.htm#:~:text=Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics,-The%20Economics%20Daily&text=In%202019%2C%20the%20union%20membership,hunting%3B%20and%20finance%20and%20insurance.\">less than 7% of health care workers nationwide were unionized\u003c/a> as of 2020, the health care sector \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/11/955128562/for-health-care-workers-the-pandemic-is-fueling-renewed-interest-in-unions\">also has seen renewed interest in unionization since the pandemic\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the pandemic revealed and exacerbated a lot of problems that existed already, and some of those problems were brewing around stress and burnout and workloads, as we’re hearing from physicians and nurses and other health care professionals,” Dr. Joanne Spetz, director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic, she added, also laid bare the extent of labor shortages across a wide range of essential jobs within health care settings, including custodial staff, nursing assistants, food-service workers and delivery people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When those jobs are all in short supply, that puts even more pressure on physicians, nurses and others,” Spetz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And many health care workers are finding that their most common demands — for reduced workloads, more support services, more time for administrative tasks and, in a growing number of instances, tougher security measures — are often not sufficiently met by employers, who often cite nationwide labor shortages and rising costs of doing business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unionization is more popular than it’s ever been, even across political lines, with \u003ca href=\"https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx\">a recent Gallup poll showing that 71% of Americans approve of labor unions\u003c/a>, the highest approval rating since 1965.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But questions remain over how financially well positioned hospitals are to hire and train more people and meet their employees’ increasingly vocal — and organized — demands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Health care is competing against a lot of other industries and sectors that also are having difficulty recruiting,” Spetz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A skilled trade or retail or a restaurant can change their prices pretty quickly, but for health care, they are in these often multiyear insurance contracts and they cannot immediately drum up more revenue in order to pay those higher wages,” said Spetz. “They’re likely to be going back to the insurance industry in the next few years as their contracts come up for renegotiation and ask for more money. And then the insurance companies eventually are going to need to figure out how to pass that on in the price of higher premiums.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, Spetz added, the pressure of keeping costs down at a time of rampant inflation in a labor-intensive field like health care is exacerbated by the rising costs of supplies and equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because it takes a while to have the ability to raise revenue … that just puts more financial pressure,” Spetz said, adding that as the pandemic relief money fades, hospitals will be facing financial shortfalls and worrying about “how the money’s going to play out for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of it comes down to building a workplace where health care workers really feel valued, are able to use all their skills, are respected as professionals, regardless of what level they work within the organization … and have the autonomy to use their knowledge and skills to the highest ability,” Spetz said. “You need to be adequately staffed in general. And so that’s going to be the big challenge for employers, is how to create that healthy, supportive work culture. And you have to do that while you’re dealing with labor shortages and plugging all the holes that need to be plugged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional reporting was contributed by Bay City News and KQED’s Laura Klivans.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Kaiser Mental Health Workers Approve New Contract, Ending 10-Week Strike",
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"content": "\u003cp>Some 2,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health care employees in Northern California are returning to work after voting almost unanimously to ratify a new contract on Thursday, ending a grueling 10-week standoff over staffing shortages, wages and patient care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four-year contract gives therapists nearly two hours of additional time per week to respond to patient emails, contact social service agencies and perform other administrative tasks. The deal also includes a commitment from Kaiser to hire more therapists, improve access to treatment for patients and increase initial consultation times for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It took much longer than it should have to reach this agreement, but, in the end, we succeeded in securing important improvements in patient care that Kaiser negotiators told us across the bargaining table that they’d never agree to,” Jennifer Browning, a Kaiser social worker who served on the bargaining committee, said in a statement.[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"kaiser-strike\"]The hard-fought deal between the Oakland-based health care giant and the National Union of Healthcare Workers — the union representing Kaiser therapists, social workers, chemical dependency counselors and other mental health staffers in the Bay Area and Central Valley — \u003ca href=\"https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/tentative-agreement-reached-with-nuhw-to-end-strike\">was reached earlier this week\u003c/a> after Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg stepped in to mediate. Thursday’s official approval of the agreement ends the longest strike among mental health care workers in U.S. history, according to the union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Kaiser officials said they were “very pleased at the outcome” of the vote. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We appreciate our therapists’ confidence in this agreement, which addresses the concerns they expressed, while upholding Kaiser Permanente’s commitment that any agreement must protect and enhance access to mental health for our members,” the statement said. “We are glad to have all our employees back, caring for their patients.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11922524/kaiser-mental-health-workers-in-northern-california-begin-open-ended-strike-over-staffing-shortages\">Workers first walked out on August 15\u003c/a>, amid accounts of widespread burnout, retention issues and unsafe therapist-to-client ratios — sometimes resulting in patients having to wait as long as three months to see a therapist, workers said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early on in the strike, Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker in Kaiser’s psychiatry department in Oakland, said burnout and poor working conditions were contributing to dismal retention rates among employees, and making it difficult for the company to recruit new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser,” Marcucci-Morris \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923034/were-drowning-why-kaiser-mental-health-workers-are-striking\">told KQED’s Forum in August\u003c/a>. “We get into this field to help people, and it’s hard to recruit therapists when Kaiser’s reputation is known to make people wait so long for therapy sessions. It’s really, really not ethical.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pressure mounted on Kaiser to resolve the impasse, as striking workers garnered support from notable state lawmakers, including Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The day is going to come where the people of this country … truly have access to behavioral health care and mental health care that they need, that they deserve,” NUHW President Sal Rosselli told striking workers last Friday, speaking from the steps of Kaiser’s downtown Oakland offices, after announcing that Steinberg had agreed to mediate. “And when that day comes, historians are going to point to this strike, this union strike, as the catalyst that made it happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natalie Rogers, a Kaiser therapist in Santa Rosa, was among scores of employees who breathed a collective sigh of relief on Thursday, after not receiving any compensation for 10 weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we are all happy that we are going back to work. As you could imagine, it was definitely a financial strain, and an emotional strain,” Rogers said. “But I think that we have formed a unity like no other. I think that we now know … what we are capable of doing if we stick together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And because of that, she added, morale will be higher. “We will have the support from one another that we need to help push Kaiser to where we feel our patients will get the best care,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Lesley McClurg.\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Some 2,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health care employees in Northern California are returning to work after voting almost unanimously to ratify a new contract on Thursday, ending a grueling 10-week standoff over staffing shortages, wages and patient care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four-year contract gives therapists nearly two hours of additional time per week to respond to patient emails, contact social service agencies and perform other administrative tasks. The deal also includes a commitment from Kaiser to hire more therapists, improve access to treatment for patients and increase initial consultation times for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It took much longer than it should have to reach this agreement, but, in the end, we succeeded in securing important improvements in patient care that Kaiser negotiators told us across the bargaining table that they’d never agree to,” Jennifer Browning, a Kaiser social worker who served on the bargaining committee, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The hard-fought deal between the Oakland-based health care giant and the National Union of Healthcare Workers — the union representing Kaiser therapists, social workers, chemical dependency counselors and other mental health staffers in the Bay Area and Central Valley — \u003ca href=\"https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/tentative-agreement-reached-with-nuhw-to-end-strike\">was reached earlier this week\u003c/a> after Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg stepped in to mediate. Thursday’s official approval of the agreement ends the longest strike among mental health care workers in U.S. history, according to the union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Kaiser officials said they were “very pleased at the outcome” of the vote. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We appreciate our therapists’ confidence in this agreement, which addresses the concerns they expressed, while upholding Kaiser Permanente’s commitment that any agreement must protect and enhance access to mental health for our members,” the statement said. “We are glad to have all our employees back, caring for their patients.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11922524/kaiser-mental-health-workers-in-northern-california-begin-open-ended-strike-over-staffing-shortages\">Workers first walked out on August 15\u003c/a>, amid accounts of widespread burnout, retention issues and unsafe therapist-to-client ratios — sometimes resulting in patients having to wait as long as three months to see a therapist, workers said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early on in the strike, Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker in Kaiser’s psychiatry department in Oakland, said burnout and poor working conditions were contributing to dismal retention rates among employees, and making it difficult for the company to recruit new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser,” Marcucci-Morris \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923034/were-drowning-why-kaiser-mental-health-workers-are-striking\">told KQED’s Forum in August\u003c/a>. “We get into this field to help people, and it’s hard to recruit therapists when Kaiser’s reputation is known to make people wait so long for therapy sessions. It’s really, really not ethical.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pressure mounted on Kaiser to resolve the impasse, as striking workers garnered support from notable state lawmakers, including Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The day is going to come where the people of this country … truly have access to behavioral health care and mental health care that they need, that they deserve,” NUHW President Sal Rosselli told striking workers last Friday, speaking from the steps of Kaiser’s downtown Oakland offices, after announcing that Steinberg had agreed to mediate. “And when that day comes, historians are going to point to this strike, this union strike, as the catalyst that made it happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natalie Rogers, a Kaiser therapist in Santa Rosa, was among scores of employees who breathed a collective sigh of relief on Thursday, after not receiving any compensation for 10 weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we are all happy that we are going back to work. As you could imagine, it was definitely a financial strain, and an emotional strain,” Rogers said. “But I think that we have formed a unity like no other. I think that we now know … what we are capable of doing if we stick together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And because of that, she added, morale will be higher. “We will have the support from one another that we need to help push Kaiser to where we feel our patients will get the best care,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Lesley McClurg.\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For decades, California’s lawmakers and regulators have taken aim at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/when-employers-steal-wages-from-workers/?series=unpaid-wages-california-workers\">employers who rob their workers\u003c/a> of pay, overtime premiums, tips and other forms of compensation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last year, legislators made \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1003\">certain instances of wage theft a felony\u003c/a>. They also fixed their sights on \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB62\">wage theft in the garment industry\u003c/a>, eliminating some long-standing pay practices that often resulted in workers being paid below the minimum wage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11916303,news_11913910,news_11925744\"]Earlier this month, California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2022/2022-81.html\">recovered $282,000 in stolen wages\u003c/a> and penalties for 22 workers of a Long Beach car wash using a law enacted in January that empowers her office to \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB572\">place liens on the property of problematic worksites\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s laws targeting wage theft — which is the failure by bosses to pay workers what they are owed — make it a leader among states, national labor experts say. But enforcing those laws has not been easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials and lawmakers say the Labor Commissioner’s office, the California agency overseeing wage and hour violations, has been too short-staffed to do its job, a problem that worsened during the pandemic and subsequent labor shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year alone, California workers filed nearly 19,000 individual claims totaling more than $338 million in stolen wages. Many claims take three times longer than the legal minimum of 135 days to resolve, data provided by the Labor Commissioner’s office shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Three strikes’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San José Democrat who chairs the Assembly’s labor committee, said the Labor Commissioner does not have enough agents or other workers to process all the wage claims made by California workers effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly a third of the Labor Commissioner’s positions were vacant in May, officials told a state Senate budget committee. In August, a spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner’s office told CalMatters \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/08/wage-theft-california-car-wash/\">the office had hired 288 people since January 2021\u003c/a>, but not how many people had left the office during that period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner’s budget this year is $166 million, enough funding for nearly 840 positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to put more urgency into it,” Kalra said, ”and that could include having hiring bonuses, whatever it takes to increase the staffing, because it’s unacceptable — the current state of affairs. If we really care about these workers, we need to show it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11929428\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11929428 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016.jpg\" alt=\"a woman in a blue blazer speaks behind a podium at a press conference\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower speaks during a press conference in Long Beach on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. The state Labor Commissioner’s Office returned more than $200,000 in stolen wages to 22 Long Beach car wash workers. The wages were recovered through a new law, SB 572. But insiders say issues with staffing and retention at the Commissioner’s office have made the law hard to enforce. \u003ccite>(Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Experts and legislators say California’s bureaucratic hiring processes and below-market salaries are complicating its hiring efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to recruiting workers, “it’s three strikes against them right now, just the government in general,” said Patrick Murphy, director of resource equity and public finance at The Opportunity Institute, a nonprofit that studies poverty and racial inequality in California. “It’s the nature of government, the tight labor market, and then the specialization that goes with these jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s hiring and retention issues at agencies enforcing labor laws have existed for years. The Little Hoover Commission, California’s bipartisan oversight agency, studied wage theft in 2015 as part of \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/sites/lhc.ca.gov/files/Reports/226/Report226.pdf\">an investigation of California’s underground economy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hiring frustrations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The study found that state investigators across agencies are paid less than those in police forces and often required to have more training and education. The state’s hiring process for such jobs can take up to a year, the report found, making hiring frustrating for all parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just not a competitive employer,” said Krystal Beckham, project manager with the commission, who led the study. “You can see that when it comes to enforcement in the underground economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California stands out among states for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/when-employers-steal-wages-from-workers/#89a79d79-151c-4aa7-856c-919c81bdb37f\">its efforts and policies to tackle wage theft given its union density\u003c/a>, number of worker centers and public dollars committed to combating the problem, said David Cooper, a researcher who has studied wage theft at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which is based in Washington, D.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/unionmembership_california.htm\">Union members accounted for 15.9% of wage and salary workers in California\u003c/a>, compared to 10.3% nationally. That higher-than-average membership helps workers identify wage theft, Cooper said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San José\"]‘We need to put more urgency into it, and that could include having hiring bonuses, whatever it takes to increase the staffing, because it’s unacceptable.’[/pullquote]\u003ca href=\"https://mitsloan.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2022-06/Report%20on%20Worker%20Organizing%20Landscape%20in%20US%20by%20Kochan%20Fine%20Bronfenbrenner%20Naidu%20et%20al%20June%202022.pdf\">The state also has 47 worker centers\u003c/a>, more than any other, according to a recent report by the Worker Empowerment Research Network, a national collection of labor experts. Worker centers are community-based organizations providing training and support for lower-income workers. California’s labor offices have partnered with a coalition of 17 centers to bring wage theft investigations in certain industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, workers can file lawsuits against employers through California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which gives workers the same powers as the state to sue employers and recover penalties on behalf of co-workers. Last year the Department of Industrial Relations received 6,501 notices of new PAGA suits, according to data provided to CalMatters in response to a records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Abusive practices\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The size of California’s economy, its diversity and its demographics also give cover to abusive practices by employers, experts said. The state has a vast service economy, a robust agricultural sector and one of the nation’s largest immigrant populations, including about \u003ca href=\"https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/CA\">1.7 million undocumented workers\u003c/a>, according to the Migration Policy Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wage theft typically affects society’s most vulnerable workers: those with the least education and financial means and the fewest legal protections. Often those workers are immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has far more immigrants than a lot of other places, and we know that immigrants, and people of color generally, tend to more likely be victims of wage theft,” said Cooper, director of the institute’s Economic Analysis and Research Network, which coordinates nearly 60 state and local research and advocacy efforts nationally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Immigrants who are either undocumented, or may have family who are undocumented, are not going to speak up as vocally if their rights are being violated,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooper said the thousands of wage theft claims filed in California each year are likely an undercount of stolen-pay cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Good faith dispute’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the California Chamber of Commerce said those claims represent only a fragment of a percent of California’s $1 trillion-a-year payroll, and the vast majority of claims are misunderstandings of California law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalChamber CEO Jennifer Barrera, who represented employers as an attorney before joining the business group, said wage theft claims at large employers often come down to a “good faith dispute” about whether a worker was properly classified. With small employers, there often was a lack of education about labor laws, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you got into the smaller employers, it was just a lack of understanding of what actually the law required but thinking that they were doing things right,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s policymakers over the years have focused on accountability in cases of wage theft. The state, for instance, requires businesses in certain industries, such as car washes and garment manufacturers, to register with the state and post bonds with the state, so there are funds available to recoup stolen wages for workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature also has taken on the growing prevalence of contracting and subcontracting in various industries by passing laws that make the “parent” employer or company responsible for a contractor’s labor violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s former Labor Commissioner, Julie Su, instituted a statewide, multilingual “Wage Theft Is A Crime” public awareness campaign in 2014. Two years later she launched a strategy of partnering with various workers’ rights organizations throughout the state to bring targeted, high-profile enforcement actions against some large employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Advocates, not umpires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Experts credit much of California’s wage theft enforcement philosophy to Su’s advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Su lifted up an entirely different way of thinking about the role of government and was not afraid to say, ‘We are not neutral. That is not our role. We are not umpires,’” said Janice Fine, professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University. “‘We are advocates for worker rights.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su, now deputy secretary of labor in President Biden’s administration, through a spokesperson declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts have argued that gig economy companies such as Uber and Lyft have committed wholesale wage theft by classifying their workers as contractors rather than employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California, the birthplace of the gig economy, has been at the forefront of those battles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Janice Fine, professor of labor studies and employment relations, Rutgers University\"]‘Su lifted up a different way of thinking about the role of government and was not afraid to say, ‘We are not neutral. That is not our role. We are not umpires.”[/pullquote]In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-enacts-law-to-classify-some-gig-workers-as-employees-11568831719\">legislation intended to classify some independent contractors as employees\u003c/a>. In response, Uber, Lyft and other gig giants spent more than $200 million on a successful ballot measure, Proposition 22, that exempted them from that law. The ballot measure was \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/Prop-22-the-gig-worker-exemption-for-Uber-and-16401915.php\">ruled unconstitutional last year\u003c/a> but remains in place while the case is being appealed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, García-Brower’s office sued the ride-sharing companies, accusing them of “systemic wage theft” for misclassifying workers and failing to meet their obligations under California law, including paying minimum wage and overtime, providing rest breaks and other requirements. That suit also remains outstanding, but the debate over worker classification is now a national one: On October 11, the Biden administration released a proposal that would make it easier for contract workers to be classified as employees, giving them federal labor protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>505 days\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California, García-Brower, who was appointed by Newsom, has continued the pro-worker philosophy of her agency. She was a former executive director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a Los Angeles-based organization that investigates wage theft and other abuses in the janitorial industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My No. 1 goal is to improve our ability to enforce the law, to make workers’ protections real in a very practical way for the poorest workers, for those vulnerable communities,” García-Brower said in an interview with CalMatters last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most pressing for García-Brower is addressing backlogs for those workers waiting to have their wage claims heard. For workers who don’t drop or settle their cases, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/08/wage-theft-california-car-wash/\">the state averages 505 days to decide an individual worker’s wage claim\u003c/a>, data from 2017 to 2021 shows. That is much longer than the 135-day maximum set by state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalra, the Assembly member, said California needs to quickly address those wait times by staffing the commissioner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re having these massive budget surpluses. If we can’t give them the resources now, then it may just show that it’s not a priority,” he said. “I really hope that’s not the case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters staff reporters Lil Kalish and Grace Gedye contributed to this report. Julie Watts is an investigative journalist at CBS13 in Sacramento. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article is part of the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/projects/california-divide/\">California Divide\u003c/a> project examining income inequality and economic survival in California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For decades, California’s lawmakers and regulators have taken aim at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/when-employers-steal-wages-from-workers/?series=unpaid-wages-california-workers\">employers who rob their workers\u003c/a> of pay, overtime premiums, tips and other forms of compensation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last year, legislators made \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1003\">certain instances of wage theft a felony\u003c/a>. They also fixed their sights on \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB62\">wage theft in the garment industry\u003c/a>, eliminating some long-standing pay practices that often resulted in workers being paid below the minimum wage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Earlier this month, California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2022/2022-81.html\">recovered $282,000 in stolen wages\u003c/a> and penalties for 22 workers of a Long Beach car wash using a law enacted in January that empowers her office to \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB572\">place liens on the property of problematic worksites\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s laws targeting wage theft — which is the failure by bosses to pay workers what they are owed — make it a leader among states, national labor experts say. But enforcing those laws has not been easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials and lawmakers say the Labor Commissioner’s office, the California agency overseeing wage and hour violations, has been too short-staffed to do its job, a problem that worsened during the pandemic and subsequent labor shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year alone, California workers filed nearly 19,000 individual claims totaling more than $338 million in stolen wages. Many claims take three times longer than the legal minimum of 135 days to resolve, data provided by the Labor Commissioner’s office shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Three strikes’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San José Democrat who chairs the Assembly’s labor committee, said the Labor Commissioner does not have enough agents or other workers to process all the wage claims made by California workers effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly a third of the Labor Commissioner’s positions were vacant in May, officials told a state Senate budget committee. In August, a spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner’s office told CalMatters \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/08/wage-theft-california-car-wash/\">the office had hired 288 people since January 2021\u003c/a>, but not how many people had left the office during that period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner’s budget this year is $166 million, enough funding for nearly 840 positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to put more urgency into it,” Kalra said, ”and that could include having hiring bonuses, whatever it takes to increase the staffing, because it’s unacceptable — the current state of affairs. If we really care about these workers, we need to show it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11929428\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11929428 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016.jpg\" alt=\"a woman in a blue blazer speaks behind a podium at a press conference\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/GettyImages-1430447016-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower speaks during a press conference in Long Beach on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. The state Labor Commissioner’s Office returned more than $200,000 in stolen wages to 22 Long Beach car wash workers. The wages were recovered through a new law, SB 572. But insiders say issues with staffing and retention at the Commissioner’s office have made the law hard to enforce. \u003ccite>(Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Experts and legislators say California’s bureaucratic hiring processes and below-market salaries are complicating its hiring efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to recruiting workers, “it’s three strikes against them right now, just the government in general,” said Patrick Murphy, director of resource equity and public finance at The Opportunity Institute, a nonprofit that studies poverty and racial inequality in California. “It’s the nature of government, the tight labor market, and then the specialization that goes with these jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s hiring and retention issues at agencies enforcing labor laws have existed for years. The Little Hoover Commission, California’s bipartisan oversight agency, studied wage theft in 2015 as part of \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/sites/lhc.ca.gov/files/Reports/226/Report226.pdf\">an investigation of California’s underground economy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hiring frustrations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The study found that state investigators across agencies are paid less than those in police forces and often required to have more training and education. The state’s hiring process for such jobs can take up to a year, the report found, making hiring frustrating for all parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just not a competitive employer,” said Krystal Beckham, project manager with the commission, who led the study. “You can see that when it comes to enforcement in the underground economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California stands out among states for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/when-employers-steal-wages-from-workers/#89a79d79-151c-4aa7-856c-919c81bdb37f\">its efforts and policies to tackle wage theft given its union density\u003c/a>, number of worker centers and public dollars committed to combating the problem, said David Cooper, a researcher who has studied wage theft at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which is based in Washington, D.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/unionmembership_california.htm\">Union members accounted for 15.9% of wage and salary workers in California\u003c/a>, compared to 10.3% nationally. That higher-than-average membership helps workers identify wage theft, Cooper said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://mitsloan.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2022-06/Report%20on%20Worker%20Organizing%20Landscape%20in%20US%20by%20Kochan%20Fine%20Bronfenbrenner%20Naidu%20et%20al%20June%202022.pdf\">The state also has 47 worker centers\u003c/a>, more than any other, according to a recent report by the Worker Empowerment Research Network, a national collection of labor experts. Worker centers are community-based organizations providing training and support for lower-income workers. California’s labor offices have partnered with a coalition of 17 centers to bring wage theft investigations in certain industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, workers can file lawsuits against employers through California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which gives workers the same powers as the state to sue employers and recover penalties on behalf of co-workers. Last year the Department of Industrial Relations received 6,501 notices of new PAGA suits, according to data provided to CalMatters in response to a records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Abusive practices\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The size of California’s economy, its diversity and its demographics also give cover to abusive practices by employers, experts said. The state has a vast service economy, a robust agricultural sector and one of the nation’s largest immigrant populations, including about \u003ca href=\"https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/CA\">1.7 million undocumented workers\u003c/a>, according to the Migration Policy Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wage theft typically affects society’s most vulnerable workers: those with the least education and financial means and the fewest legal protections. Often those workers are immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has far more immigrants than a lot of other places, and we know that immigrants, and people of color generally, tend to more likely be victims of wage theft,” said Cooper, director of the institute’s Economic Analysis and Research Network, which coordinates nearly 60 state and local research and advocacy efforts nationally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Immigrants who are either undocumented, or may have family who are undocumented, are not going to speak up as vocally if their rights are being violated,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooper said the thousands of wage theft claims filed in California each year are likely an undercount of stolen-pay cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Good faith dispute’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the California Chamber of Commerce said those claims represent only a fragment of a percent of California’s $1 trillion-a-year payroll, and the vast majority of claims are misunderstandings of California law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalChamber CEO Jennifer Barrera, who represented employers as an attorney before joining the business group, said wage theft claims at large employers often come down to a “good faith dispute” about whether a worker was properly classified. With small employers, there often was a lack of education about labor laws, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you got into the smaller employers, it was just a lack of understanding of what actually the law required but thinking that they were doing things right,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s policymakers over the years have focused on accountability in cases of wage theft. The state, for instance, requires businesses in certain industries, such as car washes and garment manufacturers, to register with the state and post bonds with the state, so there are funds available to recoup stolen wages for workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature also has taken on the growing prevalence of contracting and subcontracting in various industries by passing laws that make the “parent” employer or company responsible for a contractor’s labor violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s former Labor Commissioner, Julie Su, instituted a statewide, multilingual “Wage Theft Is A Crime” public awareness campaign in 2014. Two years later she launched a strategy of partnering with various workers’ rights organizations throughout the state to bring targeted, high-profile enforcement actions against some large employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Advocates, not umpires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Experts credit much of California’s wage theft enforcement philosophy to Su’s advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Su lifted up an entirely different way of thinking about the role of government and was not afraid to say, ‘We are not neutral. That is not our role. We are not umpires,’” said Janice Fine, professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University. “‘We are advocates for worker rights.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su, now deputy secretary of labor in President Biden’s administration, through a spokesperson declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts have argued that gig economy companies such as Uber and Lyft have committed wholesale wage theft by classifying their workers as contractors rather than employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California, the birthplace of the gig economy, has been at the forefront of those battles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Su lifted up a different way of thinking about the role of government and was not afraid to say, ‘We are not neutral. That is not our role. We are not umpires.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-enacts-law-to-classify-some-gig-workers-as-employees-11568831719\">legislation intended to classify some independent contractors as employees\u003c/a>. In response, Uber, Lyft and other gig giants spent more than $200 million on a successful ballot measure, Proposition 22, that exempted them from that law. The ballot measure was \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/Prop-22-the-gig-worker-exemption-for-Uber-and-16401915.php\">ruled unconstitutional last year\u003c/a> but remains in place while the case is being appealed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, García-Brower’s office sued the ride-sharing companies, accusing them of “systemic wage theft” for misclassifying workers and failing to meet their obligations under California law, including paying minimum wage and overtime, providing rest breaks and other requirements. That suit also remains outstanding, but the debate over worker classification is now a national one: On October 11, the Biden administration released a proposal that would make it easier for contract workers to be classified as employees, giving them federal labor protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>505 days\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California, García-Brower, who was appointed by Newsom, has continued the pro-worker philosophy of her agency. She was a former executive director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a Los Angeles-based organization that investigates wage theft and other abuses in the janitorial industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My No. 1 goal is to improve our ability to enforce the law, to make workers’ protections real in a very practical way for the poorest workers, for those vulnerable communities,” García-Brower said in an interview with CalMatters last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most pressing for García-Brower is addressing backlogs for those workers waiting to have their wage claims heard. For workers who don’t drop or settle their cases, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/08/wage-theft-california-car-wash/\">the state averages 505 days to decide an individual worker’s wage claim\u003c/a>, data from 2017 to 2021 shows. That is much longer than the 135-day maximum set by state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalra, the Assembly member, said California needs to quickly address those wait times by staffing the commissioner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re having these massive budget surpluses. If we can’t give them the resources now, then it may just show that it’s not a priority,” he said. “I really hope that’s not the case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters staff reporters Lil Kalish and Grace Gedye contributed to this report. Julie Watts is an investigative journalist at CBS13 in Sacramento. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article is part of the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/projects/california-divide/\">California Divide\u003c/a> project examining income inequality and economic survival in California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The union representing Kaiser Permanente mental health care workers in Northern California on Tuesday reached a tentative four-year agreement with the health care giant, potentially ending a two-month strike among thousands of workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"kaiser-strike\"]The tentative agreement would benefit patients and “drive collaborative efforts aimed at improving access to mental health care, while at the same time recognizing and better supporting mental health therapists” in their work, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/NUHW/status/1582454798242050053\">joint statement by Kaiser and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The day is going to come where the people of this country … truly have access to behavioral health care and mental health care that they need, that they deserve,” NUHW President Sal Rosselli told striking workers on Friday, speaking from the steps of Kaiser’s downtown Oakland offices, where he announced that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg had agreed to mediate negotiations. “And when that day comes, historians are going to point to this strike, this union strike, as the catalyst that made it happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The day is going to come where the term ‘mental health care’ no longer exists — it’s simply ‘health care,’ because of your sacrifice,” Rosselli added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/HeterodoxThis/status/1582471048334671872\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some 2,000 Kaiser Bay Area and Central Valley mental health workers — including therapists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11922524/kaiser-mental-health-workers-in-northern-california-begin-open-ended-strike-over-staffing-shortages\">began their open-ended strike on August 15\u003c/a>, to ask for increased staffing, a wage hike and better health care access for patients. Striking employees described widespread burnout, retention issues and unsafe therapist-to-client ratios that meant patients sometimes had to wait as long as three months to see a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early on in the strike, Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker in Kaiser’s psychiatry department in Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923034/were-drowning-why-kaiser-mental-health-workers-are-striking\">told KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> that there were 2,600 patients for every mental health worker in the Northern California Kaiser system. She said burnout and poor working conditions were contributing to dismal retention rates among employees, and making it difficult for the company to recruit new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser,” Marcucci-Morris said. “We get into this field to help people, and it’s hard to recruit therapists when Kaiser’s reputation is known to make people wait so long for therapy sessions. It’s really, really not ethical.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Union leaders \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925882/one-month-into-grinding-strike-negotiations-break-down-between-kaiser-permanente-and-mental-health-workers\">rejected a previous contract\u003c/a> offer from Kaiser last month that included wage increases, but did not meet the union’s demands for increased staffing and more time allotted for administrative work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The striking workers garnered support over the last two months from notable state lawmakers including Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More details on the tentative agreement are expected to be available after a two-day ratification vote among workers later this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Emma Silvers and Matthew Green, and Bay City News.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The tentative agreement would benefit patients and “drive collaborative efforts aimed at improving access to mental health care, while at the same time recognizing and better supporting mental health therapists” in their work, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/NUHW/status/1582454798242050053\">joint statement by Kaiser and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The day is going to come where the people of this country … truly have access to behavioral health care and mental health care that they need, that they deserve,” NUHW President Sal Rosselli told striking workers on Friday, speaking from the steps of Kaiser’s downtown Oakland offices, where he announced that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg had agreed to mediate negotiations. “And when that day comes, historians are going to point to this strike, this union strike, as the catalyst that made it happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The day is going to come where the term ‘mental health care’ no longer exists — it’s simply ‘health care,’ because of your sacrifice,” Rosselli added.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Some 2,000 Kaiser Bay Area and Central Valley mental health workers — including therapists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11922524/kaiser-mental-health-workers-in-northern-california-begin-open-ended-strike-over-staffing-shortages\">began their open-ended strike on August 15\u003c/a>, to ask for increased staffing, a wage hike and better health care access for patients. Striking employees described widespread burnout, retention issues and unsafe therapist-to-client ratios that meant patients sometimes had to wait as long as three months to see a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early on in the strike, Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker in Kaiser’s psychiatry department in Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923034/were-drowning-why-kaiser-mental-health-workers-are-striking\">told KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> that there were 2,600 patients for every mental health worker in the Northern California Kaiser system. She said burnout and poor working conditions were contributing to dismal retention rates among employees, and making it difficult for the company to recruit new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser,” Marcucci-Morris said. “We get into this field to help people, and it’s hard to recruit therapists when Kaiser’s reputation is known to make people wait so long for therapy sessions. It’s really, really not ethical.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Union leaders \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925882/one-month-into-grinding-strike-negotiations-break-down-between-kaiser-permanente-and-mental-health-workers\">rejected a previous contract\u003c/a> offer from Kaiser last month that included wage increases, but did not meet the union’s demands for increased staffing and more time allotted for administrative work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The striking workers garnered support over the last two months from notable state lawmakers including Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More details on the tentative agreement are expected to be available after a two-day ratification vote among workers later this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Emma Silvers and Matthew Green, and Bay City News.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "'They Can't Live on Their Desire to Serve Others': More Bay Area Nonprofit Workers Are Joining the Labor Movement",
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"content": "\u003cp>A growing number of Bay Area nonprofit workers have gone on strike or joined unions in recent months — a surge of labor organizing by the people who serve some of the region’s most marginalized residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff at Glide Foundation last week submitted a letter of intent to management stating that they planned to form a union, becoming the latest in a string of nonprofit employee groups to organize to ensure worker protections and a living wage. In doing so, workers at the nonprofit, which serves San Francisco’s unhoused community, joined their counterparts at Hamilton Families, Impact Justice and Episcopal Community Services, all Bay Area nonprofits that unionized with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 29.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11920638,news_11927383,news_11926218\"]Last month, employees of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic — already members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 — ratified a new contract that included an average 22% pay raise following nine months of bargaining and a first-of-its-kind, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11920638/tenderloin-housing-clinic-workers-strike-in-demand-for-higher-wages\">24-hour strike\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jane Bosio, union representative with OPEIU Local 29, said nonprofit workers have long been underpaid. That’s not only compared with employees in the private sector, she said, but also with city employees with whom these workers often collaborate to serve unhoused and otherwise marginalized populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current movement, Bosio said, is a result of nonprofit staff taking a stand against being treated like “second-class employees,” and demanding their employers — and the cities they contract with — pay more attention to the welfare of workers who are providing vital services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Workers are coming to realize that they’re in this work because they care about it, they care about the community … but they can’t live just on their desire to serve others,” she said. “They have to pay rent. They have to feed their kids. They have to be able to pay for gas and transit to get to work. And so they understand that they need a living wage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff at Glide and other nonprofits have reached out to workers at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank — who joined OPEIU Local 29 in 2019 — for guidance as they jump-start their own organizing efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emily Citraro, a veteran employee of the food bank who now serves as a union steward, said staff there began to organize following a growing consensus that the organization’s institutional problems were being ignored by management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People were just burnt out. There was tremendous turnover. It’s one thing when people leave, and it’s another thing when people just sit there and cry,” she said. “It was just such an unstable, unsustainable situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928374\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11928374\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a volunteer sorts donated food for the SF Marin food bank\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers sort donated apples at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. The organization’s workers voted to unionize in 2020, winning raises and worker protections, following a growing sense among employees that management was ignoring institutional problems. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since workers at the food bank ratified their contract, “people are really seeing that they have the ability to bring [an issue] to one of the stewards, and the stewards will escalate it and then they have the full force of the union behind them,” Citraro said. “And you just didn’t have any protection if you tried to do that before. There was always the chance that you would just be retaliated against.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, San Francisco approved a budget that includes $27 million in discretionary general fund money to be used for a cost-of-living adjustment for nonprofit workers — including caseworkers, property managers and maintenance workers — and to lower case manager-to-client ratios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Amy Huntley, case manager, Compass Family Services\"]‘Our workers aren’t getting paid enough … Basically anybody that works at this organization could end up in the situation that our clients end up in.’[/pullquote]But some nonprofit workers said the city’s efforts barely scratch the surface of their needs. Sam Meredith, a social worker with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said in July that the raise ranges presented by the city “still don’t really address what we’re fighting for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said it took the strike to get the city’s attention and their demands met. The contract that THC workers ratified in September included an average raise of 22%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees at Compass Family Services, another nonprofit that helps San Francisco residents find stable housing and economic stability, will vote in November on whether to form a union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our workers aren’t getting paid enough [and don’t have] good enough health benefits, child care and all that kind of stuff,” said Amy Huntley, a case manager at the organization. “Basically anybody that works [at] this organization could end up in the situation that our clients end up in.” She added that management has been discouraging workers from voting to unionize, arguing that a union would add an extra layer to the organization and drastically change how the organization works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saba Mwine, managing director at USC’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute, said many of the people who work in social service nonprofits also have experienced homelessness themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Folks working in this field are already going above and beyond. Just the fact that conditions are such that folks are needing to also organize on top of the work they’re doing is unfortunate for us as a society,” said Mwine. “We ideally would really support their work robustly, because without that community of workers, there’s no way that we’re going to be able to end or even meaningfully address our homelessness crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928380\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11928380\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A worker in a yellow jacket looks on at an unhoused person sleeping in a cardboard box on the street\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Glide employee tries to speak with a man who fell asleep on the street while waiting in line for a bed at the organization’s shelter in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Deborah Svoboda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People working on the front lines of the homelessness crisis can experience “secondary trauma” from the stories they hear and situations they witness, she added. Many workers also have valid concerns about their own physical safety and “a lack of training, professional development and advancement,” said Mwine, pointing to \u003ca href=\"https://homeforgoodla.org/app/uploads/2022/09/UW-Current-State-Assessment_-Deliverable-2_8.26.22.pdf\">a recent report about conditions and retention issues\u003c/a> at organizations that serve the unhoused population in Los Angeles. “I think there’s a sort of psychic weight, because you feel the weight of the fact that homelessness is increasing despite your everyday efforts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Locally, nonprofit workers’ efforts align with several recent organized labor actions in the private sector. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11928188/mass-janitor-layoffs-at-meta-offices-trigger-open-ended-strike\">J\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11928188/mass-janitor-layoffs-at-meta-offices-trigger-open-ended-strike\">anitors at Meta went on strike\u003c/a> last week in response to mass layoffs, while restaurant employees at San Francisco International Airport successfully won a $5 raise and family health care following their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11927383/pressure-from-sf-supes-helped-striking-sfo-restaurant-workers-win-a-deal\">three-day strike in September\u003c/a>. At Kaiser Permanente, some mental health care workers are entering Week 9 of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925882/one-month-into-grinding-strike-negotiations-break-down-between-kaiser-permanente-and-mental-health-workers\">an open-ended strike\u003c/a> over what union representatives call an unsustainable workload and unsafe therapist-to-client ratios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those actions are in line with a resurgence of labor organizing nationwide, including high-profile efforts at major corporations like Amazon and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1124680518/starbucks-union-busting-howard-schultz-nlrb\">Starbucks\u003c/a>. The National Labor Relations Board reported that workers filed more than 2,500 new union representation petitions in 2022 — a 53% spike from the 1,638 petitions filed by workers in 2021 and the highest number since 2016. And a recent Gallup poll found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120111276/labor-union-support-in-us\">support for unions in the U.S. is at a 57-year high\u003c/a>, with 71% of Americans stating they support labor unions, up from 64% in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Staff at organizations like Glide, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the SF-Marin Food Bank — nonprofits that serve marginalized populations — all have formed unions or gone on strike in recent months, demanding a living wage and better worker protections.",
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"title": "'They Can't Live on Their Desire to Serve Others': More Bay Area Nonprofit Workers Are Joining the Labor Movement | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A growing number of Bay Area nonprofit workers have gone on strike or joined unions in recent months — a surge of labor organizing by the people who serve some of the region’s most marginalized residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff at Glide Foundation last week submitted a letter of intent to management stating that they planned to form a union, becoming the latest in a string of nonprofit employee groups to organize to ensure worker protections and a living wage. In doing so, workers at the nonprofit, which serves San Francisco’s unhoused community, joined their counterparts at Hamilton Families, Impact Justice and Episcopal Community Services, all Bay Area nonprofits that unionized with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 29.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Last month, employees of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic — already members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 — ratified a new contract that included an average 22% pay raise following nine months of bargaining and a first-of-its-kind, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11920638/tenderloin-housing-clinic-workers-strike-in-demand-for-higher-wages\">24-hour strike\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jane Bosio, union representative with OPEIU Local 29, said nonprofit workers have long been underpaid. That’s not only compared with employees in the private sector, she said, but also with city employees with whom these workers often collaborate to serve unhoused and otherwise marginalized populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current movement, Bosio said, is a result of nonprofit staff taking a stand against being treated like “second-class employees,” and demanding their employers — and the cities they contract with — pay more attention to the welfare of workers who are providing vital services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Workers are coming to realize that they’re in this work because they care about it, they care about the community … but they can’t live just on their desire to serve others,” she said. “They have to pay rent. They have to feed their kids. They have to be able to pay for gas and transit to get to work. And so they understand that they need a living wage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff at Glide and other nonprofits have reached out to workers at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank — who joined OPEIU Local 29 in 2019 — for guidance as they jump-start their own organizing efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emily Citraro, a veteran employee of the food bank who now serves as a union steward, said staff there began to organize following a growing consensus that the organization’s institutional problems were being ignored by management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People were just burnt out. There was tremendous turnover. It’s one thing when people leave, and it’s another thing when people just sit there and cry,” she said. “It was just such an unstable, unsustainable situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928374\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11928374\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a volunteer sorts donated food for the SF Marin food bank\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS42171_005_KQED_SanFranciscoMarinFoodBank_03182020_9168-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers sort donated apples at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. The organization’s workers voted to unionize in 2020, winning raises and worker protections, following a growing sense among employees that management was ignoring institutional problems. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since workers at the food bank ratified their contract, “people are really seeing that they have the ability to bring [an issue] to one of the stewards, and the stewards will escalate it and then they have the full force of the union behind them,” Citraro said. “And you just didn’t have any protection if you tried to do that before. There was always the chance that you would just be retaliated against.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, San Francisco approved a budget that includes $27 million in discretionary general fund money to be used for a cost-of-living adjustment for nonprofit workers — including caseworkers, property managers and maintenance workers — and to lower case manager-to-client ratios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But some nonprofit workers said the city’s efforts barely scratch the surface of their needs. Sam Meredith, a social worker with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said in July that the raise ranges presented by the city “still don’t really address what we’re fighting for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said it took the strike to get the city’s attention and their demands met. The contract that THC workers ratified in September included an average raise of 22%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees at Compass Family Services, another nonprofit that helps San Francisco residents find stable housing and economic stability, will vote in November on whether to form a union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our workers aren’t getting paid enough [and don’t have] good enough health benefits, child care and all that kind of stuff,” said Amy Huntley, a case manager at the organization. “Basically anybody that works [at] this organization could end up in the situation that our clients end up in.” She added that management has been discouraging workers from voting to unionize, arguing that a union would add an extra layer to the organization and drastically change how the organization works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saba Mwine, managing director at USC’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute, said many of the people who work in social service nonprofits also have experienced homelessness themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Folks working in this field are already going above and beyond. Just the fact that conditions are such that folks are needing to also organize on top of the work they’re doing is unfortunate for us as a society,” said Mwine. “We ideally would really support their work robustly, because without that community of workers, there’s no way that we’re going to be able to end or even meaningfully address our homelessness crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928380\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11928380\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A worker in a yellow jacket looks on at an unhoused person sleeping in a cardboard box on the street\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS4660_homeless-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Glide employee tries to speak with a man who fell asleep on the street while waiting in line for a bed at the organization’s shelter in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Deborah Svoboda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People working on the front lines of the homelessness crisis can experience “secondary trauma” from the stories they hear and situations they witness, she added. Many workers also have valid concerns about their own physical safety and “a lack of training, professional development and advancement,” said Mwine, pointing to \u003ca href=\"https://homeforgoodla.org/app/uploads/2022/09/UW-Current-State-Assessment_-Deliverable-2_8.26.22.pdf\">a recent report about conditions and retention issues\u003c/a> at organizations that serve the unhoused population in Los Angeles. “I think there’s a sort of psychic weight, because you feel the weight of the fact that homelessness is increasing despite your everyday efforts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Locally, nonprofit workers’ efforts align with several recent organized labor actions in the private sector. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11928188/mass-janitor-layoffs-at-meta-offices-trigger-open-ended-strike\">J\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11928188/mass-janitor-layoffs-at-meta-offices-trigger-open-ended-strike\">anitors at Meta went on strike\u003c/a> last week in response to mass layoffs, while restaurant employees at San Francisco International Airport successfully won a $5 raise and family health care following their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11927383/pressure-from-sf-supes-helped-striking-sfo-restaurant-workers-win-a-deal\">three-day strike in September\u003c/a>. At Kaiser Permanente, some mental health care workers are entering Week 9 of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925882/one-month-into-grinding-strike-negotiations-break-down-between-kaiser-permanente-and-mental-health-workers\">an open-ended strike\u003c/a> over what union representatives call an unsustainable workload and unsafe therapist-to-client ratios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those actions are in line with a resurgence of labor organizing nationwide, including high-profile efforts at major corporations like Amazon and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1124680518/starbucks-union-busting-howard-schultz-nlrb\">Starbucks\u003c/a>. The National Labor Relations Board reported that workers filed more than 2,500 new union representation petitions in 2022 — a 53% spike from the 1,638 petitions filed by workers in 2021 and the highest number since 2016. And a recent Gallup poll found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120111276/labor-union-support-in-us\">support for unions in the U.S. is at a 57-year high\u003c/a>, with 71% of Americans stating they support labor unions, up from 64% in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Agreement Reached With Striking Janitors at Meta Offices",
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"content": "\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\">\u003ci>Updated Tuesday, 11 a.m.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Janitors who clean Meta’s offices reached an agreement with the contracting firm that hires them, ending a strike that started last week in response to mass layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"From the negotiations that happened over the weekend, we were able to reduce the amount of layoffs and increase sustainability of the workforce that is still there,\" said Sebastian Silva, communications coordinator for Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, the union representing many janitors in Silicon Valley. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"David Huerta, president, SEIU-USWW\"]'It is critical they remember that USWW members' work has always been — and will continue to be — essential and that workers deserve jobs with dignity.'[/pullquote]The agreement that was reached on Sunday night with SBM Management, the contractor that handles Meta’s janitorial services, includes severance pay and health care for impacted workers, Silva said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We also wanted to make sure the workload for the remaining workers is sustainable,\" he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers went on strike last week after more than 120 janitors were laid off by SBM.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The downsizing effort resulted in increased and excessive workloads for remaining employees, and fewer unionized workers, SEIU-USWW said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We thank Meta for listening to workers' demands for safer working conditions and covering wages and benefits for workers during the pandemic,\" David Huerta, president of SEIU-USWW, said in a statement. \"We also thank them for intervening and working towards a resolution with the site contractor, SBM. As employers, like Meta and SBM look ahead, it is critical they remember that USWW members' work has always been — and will continue to be — essential and that workers deserve jobs with dignity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us it’s a victory when you can tell workers that they can go back to their jobs, and that's a big win for us,” said Olga Miranda, president of SEIU Local 87.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miranda also said that despite the win at Meta, similar efforts to reduce janitorial staff are still happening at other tech companies, where her union is working to organize more workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928190\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11928190\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A person stands center frame shouting into a megaphone with another person standing just behind them and to the side clapping excitedly. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Huerta, SEIU-USWW president, addresses the crowd outside a Meta store in Burlingame, on Oct. 7, 2022. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"We will stand up to each and every form of corporate harassment and continue to intensify the fight for safe working conditions, as well as dignity and respect for Meta’s cleaning workers,” Huerta told striking workers at a rally on Friday outside Meta’s Burlingame offices.[aside postID=\"news_11928247\" label=\"Related Post\"]The crowd of largely Latinx workers shouted labor chants like, \"Arriba la union, abajo la explotación\" (which in English means, \"Up with the union, down with exploitation\") and \"SBM, escucha, estamos en la lucha\" (\"SBM, listen, we are in the fight\").\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928191\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11928191 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An upward-angled picture of several people in a crowd clapping\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Janitorial workers from two SEIU chapters, SEIU-USWW and SEIU Local 87, are striking in solidarity with each other. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Janitor Maria Garcia said her duties more than doubled after SBM began laying off employees, and as a single mother she struggles to be apart from her children for so long. Garcia said she also misses her co-workers who were let go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I keep my fingers crossed to see my brothers and sisters come back. I want that,\" said Garcia. \"I don’t ask for money. I want to see my people come back. And more respect. I want respect because when you have respect and love, everything goes more smooth.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928192\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11928192 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='A picket sign that reads \"Justice for Janitors\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of their negotiations, striking janitors are calling for their former co-workers who were laid off to be rehired. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta pointed out in a statement that they worked to ensure workers were paid throughout the pandemic, even when offices were shut down. While workers don’t contest that, they argue the recent layoffs with no advance warning fly in the face of Meta’s rhetoric during that time, when the Facebook parent company regarded its janitorial staff as essential and valued workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928193\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11928193 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a grey wide-brimmed hat and purple shirt reading justice for janitors faces the camera while holding a picket sign.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers say the layoffs have resulted in increased and excessive workloads for those who remain. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED's Juan Carlos Lara and Spencer Whitney contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\">\u003ci>Updated Tuesday, 11 a.m.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Janitors who clean Meta’s offices reached an agreement with the contracting firm that hires them, ending a strike that started last week in response to mass layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"From the negotiations that happened over the weekend, we were able to reduce the amount of layoffs and increase sustainability of the workforce that is still there,\" said Sebastian Silva, communications coordinator for Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, the union representing many janitors in Silicon Valley. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The agreement that was reached on Sunday night with SBM Management, the contractor that handles Meta’s janitorial services, includes severance pay and health care for impacted workers, Silva said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We also wanted to make sure the workload for the remaining workers is sustainable,\" he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers went on strike last week after more than 120 janitors were laid off by SBM.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The downsizing effort resulted in increased and excessive workloads for remaining employees, and fewer unionized workers, SEIU-USWW said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We thank Meta for listening to workers' demands for safer working conditions and covering wages and benefits for workers during the pandemic,\" David Huerta, president of SEIU-USWW, said in a statement. \"We also thank them for intervening and working towards a resolution with the site contractor, SBM. As employers, like Meta and SBM look ahead, it is critical they remember that USWW members' work has always been — and will continue to be — essential and that workers deserve jobs with dignity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us it’s a victory when you can tell workers that they can go back to their jobs, and that's a big win for us,” said Olga Miranda, president of SEIU Local 87.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miranda also said that despite the win at Meta, similar efforts to reduce janitorial staff are still happening at other tech companies, where her union is working to organize more workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928190\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11928190\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A person stands center frame shouting into a megaphone with another person standing just behind them and to the side clapping excitedly. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59142_DSC09718-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Huerta, SEIU-USWW president, addresses the crowd outside a Meta store in Burlingame, on Oct. 7, 2022. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"We will stand up to each and every form of corporate harassment and continue to intensify the fight for safe working conditions, as well as dignity and respect for Meta’s cleaning workers,” Huerta told striking workers at a rally on Friday outside Meta’s Burlingame offices.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The crowd of largely Latinx workers shouted labor chants like, \"Arriba la union, abajo la explotación\" (which in English means, \"Up with the union, down with exploitation\") and \"SBM, escucha, estamos en la lucha\" (\"SBM, listen, we are in the fight\").\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928191\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11928191 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An upward-angled picture of several people in a crowd clapping\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59110_DSC08166-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Janitorial workers from two SEIU chapters, SEIU-USWW and SEIU Local 87, are striking in solidarity with each other. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Janitor Maria Garcia said her duties more than doubled after SBM began laying off employees, and as a single mother she struggles to be apart from her children for so long. Garcia said she also misses her co-workers who were let go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I keep my fingers crossed to see my brothers and sisters come back. I want that,\" said Garcia. \"I don’t ask for money. I want to see my people come back. And more respect. I want respect because when you have respect and love, everything goes more smooth.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928192\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11928192 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='A picket sign that reads \"Justice for Janitors\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59127_DSC09516-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of their negotiations, striking janitors are calling for their former co-workers who were laid off to be rehired. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta pointed out in a statement that they worked to ensure workers were paid throughout the pandemic, even when offices were shut down. While workers don’t contest that, they argue the recent layoffs with no advance warning fly in the face of Meta’s rhetoric during that time, when the Facebook parent company regarded its janitorial staff as essential and valued workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11928193\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11928193 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a grey wide-brimmed hat and purple shirt reading justice for janitors faces the camera while holding a picket sign.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/RS59160_DSC09864-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers say the layoffs have resulted in increased and excessive workloads for those who remain. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED's Juan Carlos Lara and Spencer Whitney contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Many California Workers Win Judgments for Wage Theft — But Still Don't Get Paid",
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"headTitle": "Many California Workers Win Judgments for Wage Theft — But Still Don’t Get Paid | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Manuel Chavez, a former front-desk manager at the Stuart Hotel in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park neighborhood, was elated when he won a wage claim victory of more than $200,000 against his old boss in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Labor Commissioner ruled Chavez had worked thousands more hours than his employer paid him for over a three-year period — \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Chavez-v-Patel-Labor-Commissioner-ODA.pdf\">a clear case of wage theft\u003c/a>, the state decided after administrative hearings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt good, very content, after so much work and so much suffering,” Chavez said about his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than paying Chavez, his former employer countersued, taking the case to appeals courts multiple times and trying and failing to get it heard by the U.S. Supreme Court — twice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez hasn’t been compensated. His experience may be unusual, but it underscores a plight common for thousands of California workers who win wage theft claims: Many bosses don’t pay, even after courts order them to.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Paper victories\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Only 1 in 7 employers who were issued court judgments in wage claim cases in 2017 have paid their workers the full amount of the claims five years later, according to data from the Labor Commissioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the state’s best estimate; a disclaimer on the agency’s website reads, “Defendants often make payments to claimants directly without the knowledge of the Labor Commissioner’s Office.” In other words, the agency admits it doesn’t always know whether those judgments are paid, although state law says the office “shall make every reasonable effort to ensure that judgments are satisfied.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, California’s wage claim system is so backlogged it takes nearly four times longer than state law permits for the average case to reach a decision, according to a CalMatters analysis of state data. Most workers drop or settle their claims before a hearing. Judgments are issued if a worker persists and wins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower, through a spokesperson, refused to be interviewed about her office’s work on wage theft, which is the failure to pay employees what they’re legally owed.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>505 days\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wage theft has been a significant focus of California policymakers for years given \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11906414/did-the-pandemic-create-more-income-inequality-in-california\">the state’s high income inequality\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a worker files a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11920425/heres-how-californians-can-get-their-money-back-when-employers-steal-wages\">wage claim\u003c/a> with the California Department of Industrial Relations, the Labor Commissioner’s Office holds a settlement conference with the employer. If the claim isn’t settled, a deputy commissioner holds a hearing. If they decide the employer owes the worker wages and the employer doesn’t pay or appeal the decision, that debt becomes a judgment filed in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner, whom the governor appoints, does seek payment of wage judgments on behalf of some workers. In general, workers are directed to \u003ca href=\"https://wagetheftisacrime.com/Legal-Tools.html\">collect these debts on their own\u003c/a>, like any other creditor might.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the power disparities between workers and employers means California’s worker-versus-employer claim system is flawed, said UCLA labor researcher Tia Koonse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot play whack-a-mole with wage theft,” Koonse said. “It is not an effective strategy to go after every actor on a complaint basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Chavez filed his claim in 2015, he was making $425 a week, and working every day at the Stuart Hotel, case records show. It took him 16 months to get his case heard by a Labor Commissioner’s hearing officer and another six months to get a winning decision.\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10646865/embed\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\nThe wait for the average California worker who files a wage theft claim has grown since then, according to Labor Commissioner data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For workers who didn’t drop or settle their cases, the state averaged 505 days to decide an individual worker’s wage claim, data from 2017 to 2021 shows — a violation of the 135 days’ maximum set by law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Battling backlogs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Erika Monterroza, a spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner, told CalMatters last month \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924013/wage-theft-car-wash-workers-still-await-millions-in-pay-3-years-later\">the office was addressing backlogs and had hired 288 people since January 2021\u003c/a>. She did not say how many people had left the office during that period. Nearly a third of the Labor Commissioner’s 733 positions were vacant as of May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paola Laverde, another spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner, wrote in an email that the office processes claims “diligently.”[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Tia Koonse, labor researcher, UCLA\"]‘You cannot play whack-a-mole with wage theft. It is not an effective strategy to go after every actor on a complaint basis.’[/pullquote]During the pandemic, the commissioner’s office closed in-person operations and shifted to virtual hearings, labor advocates said. Workers’ attorneys said the office appears to be increasing the frequency of hearings this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians filed 19,000 individual wage claims against employers last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koonse and other advocates said an alternative approach to wage theft enforcement may be better for workers than the individual claims route. They said that, since 2016, the Labor Commissioner has partnered with labor and worker groups to initiate \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924013/wage-theft-car-wash-workers-still-await-millions-in-pay-3-years-later\">company-wide wage investigations\u003c/a> through the agency’s field enforcement division. Advocates say these result in large-scale, sometimes multimillion-dollar citations, sending messages of deterrence to employers in targeted low-wage industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Accident or intent?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wage claim backlogs in general are a problem for businesses, too, said Jennifer Barrera, chief executive officer of the California Chamber of Commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would like to see claims handled in the most efficient way possible,” Barrera said. “The employer, as well, wants to have these claims resolved and dealt with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from wage claims, workers also can file lawsuits against their bosses through California’s Private Attorneys General Act — which gives workers the same powers as the state to sue and recover penalties on behalf of co-workers — and they can file class-action lawsuits and other kinds of suits using California’s regulations.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" tag=\"wage-theft\"]Barrera said only a fraction of California’s employers intentionally steal wages from their employees; many wage claims result from employers misunderstanding California’s evolving labor laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the most complex labor and employment laws, I would argue, in the country,” Barrera said. “We don’t really do a great job, once the laws are passed, educating employers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who misinterpret labor laws shouldn’t be considered guilty of wage theft, she said, although their workers should be repaid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The enforcement really should be focused on the bad actors who are intentionally stealing wages from employees,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A bit of satisfaction\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Despite its hurdles, the individual wage claim system still provides victories for some workers — often in the form of settlements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayra Perez, a former San Francisco office janitor, initially hoped to win a wage theft claim she filed with the state in January 2020 against San Mateo-based Eat My Dust Inc. Perez, an immigrant from El Salvador, claimed more than $38,000 in unpaid hours, untaken breaks, vacation owed, out-of-pocket expenses and other violations for two years and four months that ended May 30, 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its written response to her claim, Eat My Dust contended Perez had refused to use the company’s time-tracking software and that the company had no records of her complaining about not getting breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the case dragged on for more than two years, Perez settled for $20,000 on June 3 of this year, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An attorney for the company, Jeanine DeBacker, said it was an “amicable resolution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perez said she is satisfied with the money, because she believes she would have gotten less had she joined a class-action suit other workers brought against the company that recently was nearly settled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, she said, she would have liked to have faced her former direct manager at her wage theft hearing, but the pandemic robbed her of that opportunity; her hearing was scheduled as a Zoom call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did want to see him and see the expression he had,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925795\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11925795 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with dark clothing stands out of focus on the right side of the frame with her back to the camera in the middle of a large, mostly dirt lot with small patches of grass. The sun, out of frame to the right, illuminates her brown hair. The woman faces towards toward the backside of a home roughly 100 feet in front of her with a fence blocking the view of the home's first floor. Behind the home, far in the distance, the San Francisco skyline peaks out over the top of the fence. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayra Perez can see the financial district in San Francisco from outside her home on Treasure Island. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Manager’s hours\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Chavez had no such resolution after winning his case. The 60-year-old immigrant from Mexico had worked and lived at the Stuart Hotel since 2002, first working overnight and evening shifts, before becoming manager and working long days, he told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His duties included sweeping, cleaning rooms, collecting rent, making repairs and dealing with fights between tenants, he told the Labor Commissioner’s Office at his wage claim hearings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent interview, Chavez said there were always loiterers in the building and tenants coming and going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My son would tell me, ‘Don’t be stupid, Dad. You work too much, and they pay you too little, and you never rest,’” Chavez told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Chavez filed his claim, hotel owner Balubhai Patel sued Chavez, accusing him of stealing from the business. Patel later dropped the suit. He said afterward, during a wage claim hearing, that Chavez did not work overtime and often spent time in his room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner in 2017 ordered Patel and his company to pay Chavez $202,000: about $115,000 in wages for about 5,800 overtime hours, plus meal and rest breaks, and the rest in damages and penalties workers can claim under state law. The state also awarded Chavez $33,000 from Stuart Union, a company that managed the hotel for four months before Chavez left.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘A cottage industry’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Neither Patel nor Stuart Union paid. Instead, a few months later, Patel and the new manager jointly sued Chavez and the Labor Commissioner in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging false testimony and civil rights violations. They sought $10 million as well as a reversal of the state’s decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent phone interview, Patel said Chavez did not deserve the money because he didn’t work nearly the number of hours he claimed. The money would be a “donation,” Patel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s damn lies,” Patel said. “I’ve been doing business a long time. I never cheat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Weiser, a lawyer representing Patel, said his client is a leader among local Indian immigrant motel operators. He also called wage claims a “cottage industry” for workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The laws are so skewed in favor of employees you do see some abuse,” Weiser said, though he acknowledged Chavez had won his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We lost, fair and square,” Weiser said. Payment is still being disputed in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez’s situation demonstrates how some employers choose to fight or ignore Labor Commissioner decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner asks courts to enforce unpaid wage theft decisions, and the commissioner’s office maintains a public database reporting those judgments.\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/11125127/embed\" width=\"800\" height=\"650\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\nAn analysis of five years of the agency’s public data (2017 through 2021) by CalMatters revealed that 9% of court judgments were recorded as satisfied, or paid in full. Another 16% of those judgments were paid in part or in installments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three-quarters of workers were recorded as receiving no payment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those employers who received judgments against them in 2017 — and therefore had five years to pay workers — paid in full 14% of the time, the data shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commissioner’s office did not answer questions about the database nor about CalMatters’ analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>State’s scorecard\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>State law allows the agency to recover money on behalf of workers but doesn’t require it to do so in every judgment. In 2021, a Labor Commissioner unit dedicated to enforcing court judgments collected $2.8 million in wage claims on behalf of 311 workers, spokesperson Laverde wrote in an email. The same unit collected $6.2 million on behalf of the commissioner’s field enforcement division.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By comparison, the state recorded more than 2,300 wage judgments totaling $50.5 million that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a business does not pay a judgment against it, the Labor Commissioner can file liens on an employer’s property and garnish money from the employer’s bank accounts on behalf of workers. The commissioner last year filed 1,328 levies, Laverde wrote.\u003cbr>\n[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Jan Collatz, staff attorney, Wage Justice Center\"]‘There’s this assumption that once you get a judgment, you’ve won. Ultimately, a judgment is just a piece of paper.’[/pullquote]The commissioner’s office staff informs workers of this option, and they regularly offer assistance filing levies to workers who prevail in the wage claim adjudication process, Laverde wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency also can order a business to stop operating if it doesn’t pay workers. But many businesses would not have the cash or assets to pay workers if they weren’t operating, said Jan Collatz, staff attorney at the Los Angeles-based Wage Justice Center, which assists workers and the Labor Commissioner in collecting wage claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Criminal cases also can complicate collections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eugene Lee, a Los Angeles attorney who represented Chavez, also won wage theft claims for 13 workers at a Los Angeles soccer merchandise store in 2018. Court dockets do not reflect any payments: Neither A-1 Soccer Warehouse, nor its owner, Enyinnaya Ojogho, have paid the workers despite court judgments against both, Lee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California attorney general’s office has accused Ojogho of \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-announces-charges-against-business-owner-alleged-tax\">stiffing the state $1.6 million\u003c/a> in a pending felony tax evasion case. Ojogho has pleaded not guilty. His defense attorney Robert Schwartz declined to comment on the wage judgments or on whether his client is in a financial position to pay them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Fear of law\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The legal system is set up to decide commercial disputes, Collatz said, but it is stacked against people with lower incomes who often can’t afford to pay attorneys or court filing fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s this assumption that once you get a judgment, you’ve won,” Collatz said. “Ultimately, a judgment is just a piece of paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San José Democrat who chairs his house’s labor committee, called the low payment of judgments unacceptable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The outcome of that is that employers don’t fear the law,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalra said he supports adding funding to the Labor Commissioner’s Office to increase staff. But in the face of the office’s current backlogs, he said workers may need to rely on local and county governments to enforce judgments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County, for instance, threatened to revoke the food permits of restaurants that haven’t paid judgments. County officials said all eight of the restaurants that were cited have paid or are on a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A life on hold\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the Stuart Hotel case, the years of countersuits and appeals have so far been “a long war of attrition,” said Lee, Chavez’s attorney. Chavez has prevailed in the trial and appellate courts, including getting the civil rights claims dismissed by the superior court. But Patel appealed all the way to the California Supreme Court, which declined to hear that case, and then he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also declined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After another round of appeals, the Supreme Court declined to hear another part of Patel’s case this April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2017, when Chavez first won his case, he told his son he might buy him a car or take him to Mexico to meet relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These days he hardly mentions the money, Chavez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently he celebrated his 60th birthday. He lives with his son in Downey and earns a $15-an-hour minimum wage at a temp agency. The appeals have put his entire life on hold, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just start thinking about it and I get sad,” Chavez said, “and then tell myself, ‘Oh, hopefully one day. Hopefully one day.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters’ Lil Kalish and CBS News’ Julie Watts contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Many California Workers Win Judgments for Wage Theft — But Still Don't Get Paid | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Manuel Chavez, a former front-desk manager at the Stuart Hotel in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park neighborhood, was elated when he won a wage claim victory of more than $200,000 against his old boss in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Labor Commissioner ruled Chavez had worked thousands more hours than his employer paid him for over a three-year period — \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Chavez-v-Patel-Labor-Commissioner-ODA.pdf\">a clear case of wage theft\u003c/a>, the state decided after administrative hearings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt good, very content, after so much work and so much suffering,” Chavez said about his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than paying Chavez, his former employer countersued, taking the case to appeals courts multiple times and trying and failing to get it heard by the U.S. Supreme Court — twice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez hasn’t been compensated. His experience may be unusual, but it underscores a plight common for thousands of California workers who win wage theft claims: Many bosses don’t pay, even after courts order them to.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Paper victories\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Only 1 in 7 employers who were issued court judgments in wage claim cases in 2017 have paid their workers the full amount of the claims five years later, according to data from the Labor Commissioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the state’s best estimate; a disclaimer on the agency’s website reads, “Defendants often make payments to claimants directly without the knowledge of the Labor Commissioner’s Office.” In other words, the agency admits it doesn’t always know whether those judgments are paid, although state law says the office “shall make every reasonable effort to ensure that judgments are satisfied.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, California’s wage claim system is so backlogged it takes nearly four times longer than state law permits for the average case to reach a decision, according to a CalMatters analysis of state data. Most workers drop or settle their claims before a hearing. Judgments are issued if a worker persists and wins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower, through a spokesperson, refused to be interviewed about her office’s work on wage theft, which is the failure to pay employees what they’re legally owed.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>505 days\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wage theft has been a significant focus of California policymakers for years given \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11906414/did-the-pandemic-create-more-income-inequality-in-california\">the state’s high income inequality\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a worker files a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11920425/heres-how-californians-can-get-their-money-back-when-employers-steal-wages\">wage claim\u003c/a> with the California Department of Industrial Relations, the Labor Commissioner’s Office holds a settlement conference with the employer. If the claim isn’t settled, a deputy commissioner holds a hearing. If they decide the employer owes the worker wages and the employer doesn’t pay or appeal the decision, that debt becomes a judgment filed in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner, whom the governor appoints, does seek payment of wage judgments on behalf of some workers. In general, workers are directed to \u003ca href=\"https://wagetheftisacrime.com/Legal-Tools.html\">collect these debts on their own\u003c/a>, like any other creditor might.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the power disparities between workers and employers means California’s worker-versus-employer claim system is flawed, said UCLA labor researcher Tia Koonse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot play whack-a-mole with wage theft,” Koonse said. “It is not an effective strategy to go after every actor on a complaint basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Chavez filed his claim in 2015, he was making $425 a week, and working every day at the Stuart Hotel, case records show. It took him 16 months to get his case heard by a Labor Commissioner’s hearing officer and another six months to get a winning decision.\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10646865/embed\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\nThe wait for the average California worker who files a wage theft claim has grown since then, according to Labor Commissioner data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For workers who didn’t drop or settle their cases, the state averaged 505 days to decide an individual worker’s wage claim, data from 2017 to 2021 shows — a violation of the 135 days’ maximum set by law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Battling backlogs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Erika Monterroza, a spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner, told CalMatters last month \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924013/wage-theft-car-wash-workers-still-await-millions-in-pay-3-years-later\">the office was addressing backlogs and had hired 288 people since January 2021\u003c/a>. She did not say how many people had left the office during that period. Nearly a third of the Labor Commissioner’s 733 positions were vacant as of May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paola Laverde, another spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner, wrote in an email that the office processes claims “diligently.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>During the pandemic, the commissioner’s office closed in-person operations and shifted to virtual hearings, labor advocates said. Workers’ attorneys said the office appears to be increasing the frequency of hearings this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians filed 19,000 individual wage claims against employers last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koonse and other advocates said an alternative approach to wage theft enforcement may be better for workers than the individual claims route. They said that, since 2016, the Labor Commissioner has partnered with labor and worker groups to initiate \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924013/wage-theft-car-wash-workers-still-await-millions-in-pay-3-years-later\">company-wide wage investigations\u003c/a> through the agency’s field enforcement division. Advocates say these result in large-scale, sometimes multimillion-dollar citations, sending messages of deterrence to employers in targeted low-wage industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Accident or intent?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wage claim backlogs in general are a problem for businesses, too, said Jennifer Barrera, chief executive officer of the California Chamber of Commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would like to see claims handled in the most efficient way possible,” Barrera said. “The employer, as well, wants to have these claims resolved and dealt with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from wage claims, workers also can file lawsuits against their bosses through California’s Private Attorneys General Act — which gives workers the same powers as the state to sue and recover penalties on behalf of co-workers — and they can file class-action lawsuits and other kinds of suits using California’s regulations.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Barrera said only a fraction of California’s employers intentionally steal wages from their employees; many wage claims result from employers misunderstanding California’s evolving labor laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the most complex labor and employment laws, I would argue, in the country,” Barrera said. “We don’t really do a great job, once the laws are passed, educating employers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who misinterpret labor laws shouldn’t be considered guilty of wage theft, she said, although their workers should be repaid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The enforcement really should be focused on the bad actors who are intentionally stealing wages from employees,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A bit of satisfaction\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Despite its hurdles, the individual wage claim system still provides victories for some workers — often in the form of settlements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayra Perez, a former San Francisco office janitor, initially hoped to win a wage theft claim she filed with the state in January 2020 against San Mateo-based Eat My Dust Inc. Perez, an immigrant from El Salvador, claimed more than $38,000 in unpaid hours, untaken breaks, vacation owed, out-of-pocket expenses and other violations for two years and four months that ended May 30, 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its written response to her claim, Eat My Dust contended Perez had refused to use the company’s time-tracking software and that the company had no records of her complaining about not getting breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the case dragged on for more than two years, Perez settled for $20,000 on June 3 of this year, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An attorney for the company, Jeanine DeBacker, said it was an “amicable resolution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perez said she is satisfied with the money, because she believes she would have gotten less had she joined a class-action suit other workers brought against the company that recently was nearly settled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, she said, she would have liked to have faced her former direct manager at her wage theft hearing, but the pandemic robbed her of that opportunity; her hearing was scheduled as a Zoom call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did want to see him and see the expression he had,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925795\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11925795 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with dark clothing stands out of focus on the right side of the frame with her back to the camera in the middle of a large, mostly dirt lot with small patches of grass. The sun, out of frame to the right, illuminates her brown hair. The woman faces towards toward the backside of a home roughly 100 feet in front of her with a fence blocking the view of the home's first floor. Behind the home, far in the distance, the San Francisco skyline peaks out over the top of the fence. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Mayra-Perez.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayra Perez can see the financial district in San Francisco from outside her home on Treasure Island. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Manager’s hours\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Chavez had no such resolution after winning his case. The 60-year-old immigrant from Mexico had worked and lived at the Stuart Hotel since 2002, first working overnight and evening shifts, before becoming manager and working long days, he told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His duties included sweeping, cleaning rooms, collecting rent, making repairs and dealing with fights between tenants, he told the Labor Commissioner’s Office at his wage claim hearings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent interview, Chavez said there were always loiterers in the building and tenants coming and going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My son would tell me, ‘Don’t be stupid, Dad. You work too much, and they pay you too little, and you never rest,’” Chavez told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Chavez filed his claim, hotel owner Balubhai Patel sued Chavez, accusing him of stealing from the business. Patel later dropped the suit. He said afterward, during a wage claim hearing, that Chavez did not work overtime and often spent time in his room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner in 2017 ordered Patel and his company to pay Chavez $202,000: about $115,000 in wages for about 5,800 overtime hours, plus meal and rest breaks, and the rest in damages and penalties workers can claim under state law. The state also awarded Chavez $33,000 from Stuart Union, a company that managed the hotel for four months before Chavez left.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘A cottage industry’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Neither Patel nor Stuart Union paid. Instead, a few months later, Patel and the new manager jointly sued Chavez and the Labor Commissioner in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging false testimony and civil rights violations. They sought $10 million as well as a reversal of the state’s decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent phone interview, Patel said Chavez did not deserve the money because he didn’t work nearly the number of hours he claimed. The money would be a “donation,” Patel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s damn lies,” Patel said. “I’ve been doing business a long time. I never cheat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Weiser, a lawyer representing Patel, said his client is a leader among local Indian immigrant motel operators. He also called wage claims a “cottage industry” for workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The laws are so skewed in favor of employees you do see some abuse,” Weiser said, though he acknowledged Chavez had won his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We lost, fair and square,” Weiser said. Payment is still being disputed in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chavez’s situation demonstrates how some employers choose to fight or ignore Labor Commissioner decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner asks courts to enforce unpaid wage theft decisions, and the commissioner’s office maintains a public database reporting those judgments.\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/11125127/embed\" width=\"800\" height=\"650\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\nAn analysis of five years of the agency’s public data (2017 through 2021) by CalMatters revealed that 9% of court judgments were recorded as satisfied, or paid in full. Another 16% of those judgments were paid in part or in installments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three-quarters of workers were recorded as receiving no payment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those employers who received judgments against them in 2017 — and therefore had five years to pay workers — paid in full 14% of the time, the data shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commissioner’s office did not answer questions about the database nor about CalMatters’ analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>State’s scorecard\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>State law allows the agency to recover money on behalf of workers but doesn’t require it to do so in every judgment. In 2021, a Labor Commissioner unit dedicated to enforcing court judgments collected $2.8 million in wage claims on behalf of 311 workers, spokesperson Laverde wrote in an email. The same unit collected $6.2 million on behalf of the commissioner’s field enforcement division.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By comparison, the state recorded more than 2,300 wage judgments totaling $50.5 million that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a business does not pay a judgment against it, the Labor Commissioner can file liens on an employer’s property and garnish money from the employer’s bank accounts on behalf of workers. The commissioner last year filed 1,328 levies, Laverde wrote.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The commissioner’s office staff informs workers of this option, and they regularly offer assistance filing levies to workers who prevail in the wage claim adjudication process, Laverde wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency also can order a business to stop operating if it doesn’t pay workers. But many businesses would not have the cash or assets to pay workers if they weren’t operating, said Jan Collatz, staff attorney at the Los Angeles-based Wage Justice Center, which assists workers and the Labor Commissioner in collecting wage claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Criminal cases also can complicate collections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eugene Lee, a Los Angeles attorney who represented Chavez, also won wage theft claims for 13 workers at a Los Angeles soccer merchandise store in 2018. Court dockets do not reflect any payments: Neither A-1 Soccer Warehouse, nor its owner, Enyinnaya Ojogho, have paid the workers despite court judgments against both, Lee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California attorney general’s office has accused Ojogho of \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-announces-charges-against-business-owner-alleged-tax\">stiffing the state $1.6 million\u003c/a> in a pending felony tax evasion case. Ojogho has pleaded not guilty. His defense attorney Robert Schwartz declined to comment on the wage judgments or on whether his client is in a financial position to pay them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Fear of law\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The legal system is set up to decide commercial disputes, Collatz said, but it is stacked against people with lower incomes who often can’t afford to pay attorneys or court filing fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s this assumption that once you get a judgment, you’ve won,” Collatz said. “Ultimately, a judgment is just a piece of paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San José Democrat who chairs his house’s labor committee, called the low payment of judgments unacceptable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The outcome of that is that employers don’t fear the law,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalra said he supports adding funding to the Labor Commissioner’s Office to increase staff. But in the face of the office’s current backlogs, he said workers may need to rely on local and county governments to enforce judgments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County, for instance, threatened to revoke the food permits of restaurants that haven’t paid judgments. County officials said all eight of the restaurants that were cited have paid or are on a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A life on hold\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the Stuart Hotel case, the years of countersuits and appeals have so far been “a long war of attrition,” said Lee, Chavez’s attorney. Chavez has prevailed in the trial and appellate courts, including getting the civil rights claims dismissed by the superior court. But Patel appealed all the way to the California Supreme Court, which declined to hear that case, and then he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also declined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After another round of appeals, the Supreme Court declined to hear another part of Patel’s case this April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2017, when Chavez first won his case, he told his son he might buy him a car or take him to Mexico to meet relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These days he hardly mentions the money, Chavez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently he celebrated his 60th birthday. He lives with his son in Downey and earns a $15-an-hour minimum wage at a temp agency. The appeals have put his entire life on hold, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just start thinking about it and I get sad,” Chavez said, “and then tell myself, ‘Oh, hopefully one day. Hopefully one day.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters’ Lil Kalish and CBS News’ Julie Watts contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Why California Is Facing a Mental Health Care Worker Shortage",
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"content": "\u003cp>The need for therapists, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists is greater than ever. Under relentless pressure from the pandemic and inflation, wildfires, gun violence, racism and war, Californians are crying out for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean they can get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In every corner of mental health right now, a similar story is being told: There simply aren’t enough providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patients receive lists of names from their insurers, only to learn none of the therapists on these so-called “ghost lists” will see them. Clinicians who do offer a spot often only accept cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonprofit mental health care providers report needing to have an offer letter ready at a job interview, fearing applicants will take another position if they wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser mental health care clinicians have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923034/were-drowning-why-kaiser-mental-health-workers-are-striking\">out on strike for weeks\u003c/a> now in Northern California, describing exhausting working conditions and long delays in care for their patients. Kaiser, for its part, points a finger at a familiar culprit: the mental health care provider shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalMatters spoke with more than two dozen mental health experts, public officials and providers around California to ask about the impacts of the mental health care provider shortage, and what can be done about it. Their responses ranged from desperate to hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All agree we are at a pivotal movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In part, that’s because Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is investing heavily in overhauling the state’s mental health care system. At the same time, the state recently enacted laws requiring insurers to provide timely access to mental health care. Some worry a lack of providers could jeopardize these bold new initiatives. Others see this as an opportunity to reimagine how mental health care in the state is delivered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what the experts had to say:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How big is the provider shortage problem?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It depends on what part of the elephant you’re looking at, said Catherine Teare, associate director of the California Health Care Foundation’s People-Centered Care team. County mental health departments are struggling to hire. So are commercial health plans. So are nonprofits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, she said, “the level of mental distress is increased.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For children or adults who need a lot, or need it urgently, it’s a scary time,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, told CalMatters that the number of licensed behavioral health care providers in the state increased by 20% between 2016 and 2020. But, that’s been offset by an increase in demand he calls “really unprecedented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For patients, how bad the shortage is depends, in part, on where you live, your insurance, your income, your age, the care you need and whether you want a clinician of color or one who speaks a language other than English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/publication/californias-current-future-behavioral-health-workforce/\">A report\u003c/a> published by the University of California, San Francisco in 2018 — even before the \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthmanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/HMA-NCMW-Issue-Brief-10-27-21.pdf\">pandemic sent need skyrocketing\u003c/a> — predicted that by 2028, demand for psychologists and other therapists would be 40% more than supply. For kids, the shortage is especially dire: Close to a third of California’s 58 counties have \u003ca href=\"https://www.aacap.org/aacap/Advocacy/Federal_and_State_Initiatives/Workforce_Maps/Home.aspx\">no child and adolescent psychiatrists at all\u003c/a>, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11924343,news_11924117,news_11923034\"]\u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/MentalHealthAlmanac2022.pdf\">A new report\u003c/a> from the California Health Care Foundation shows that the Bay Area has 19 licensed psychiatrists and 73 licensed psychologists per 100,000 people — significantly more than the state averages of 12 and 44. At the other end of the spectrum, the San Joaquin Valley has six psychiatrists and 16 psychologists for the equivalent number of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Dominguez, a licensed marriage and family therapist at Kaiser Richmond who is currently on strike, said the Bay Area has plenty of providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Throw a rock, you’re going to hit a therapist,” said Dominguez, who said she plans to leave the organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But others who work in the region, including Matthew Madaus, executive director of the Behavioral Health Collaborative of Alameda County, said “100% absolutely” there’s a shortage even in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you search for a behavioral health clinician on Indeed.com, Madaus said, it comes up with thousands of open positions within a 25-mile radius.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s extraordinary the level of demand,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One problem: It’s difficult to capture how many clinicians don’t accept any insurance at all, and thus aren’t accessible to the vast majority of patients who can’t pay out of pocket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What we do know: We need more and better data. For instance, some experts say the increase described by Ghaly does not reflect how many licensed providers are actually seeing patients, nor does it capture how many are seeing people who are uninsured or on Medi-Cal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco authored\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB964\"> a bill\u003c/a> this year that would require the Department of Health Care Access and Information to prepare a report for the Legislature by Jan. 1, 2024, describing the state of California’s behavioral health workforce, and how best to address the shortage. Senate Bill 964 is on the governor’s desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://workforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/San-Diego-Behavioral-Health-Workforce-Report-.pdf\">San Diego County has already researched the shortage.\u003c/a> Officials there estimate they currently have 17,000 behavioral health care workers and need an additional 8,100 to meet current demand. In the next five years, they anticipate needing another 10,000 workers, in part because so many will be retiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s causing the shortage?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mental health care leaders will tell you the shortage itself is nothing new. But the pandemic has aggravated the problems. More providers have left their jobs, citing burnout. Or they’ve left the state, citing cost of living. New telehealth start-ups specializing in mental health treatment offer good pay and flexible hours; many experts said they have added to the demand by siphoning off providers from the public sector.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Catherine Teare, associate director of People-Centered Care, California Health Care Foundation\"]‘For children or adults who need a lot, or need it urgently, it’s a scary time.’[/pullquote]In a 2018 report on the \u003ca href=\"https://healthforce.ucsf.edu/publications/california-s-current-and-future-behavioral-health-workforce\">behavioral health workforce shortage\u003c/a>, Janet Coffman of UCSF also raised the concern that 45% of psychiatrists and 37% of psychologists would likely be retiring within a decade. The pandemic has accelerated this trend, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many clinicians say they’re simply exhausted. It’s not just that more people need help, but that many of them are coming in sicker, with mental health issues that have gone untreated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our patient population has become so much more difficult to work with than it used to be a decade ago,” said Randall Hagar, legislative advocate and policy consultant for the Psychiatric Physicians Alliance of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As openings go unfilled, those who remain are left to carry more of the weight, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another problem Hagar and others mention: paperwork. Doctors spend some 40% of their time on paperwork, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many clinicians, especially providers of color, also say they are simply not getting enough emotional support from their employers. Dominguez, the Kaiser therapist, said she founded La Clinica, a nationally recognized pilot program to serve Spanish-speaking clients, in 2016. When tragedies happen in the community, she said, they affect clinicians, too. But, “you’re just expected to plug along and keep going,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Continually witnessing trauma can be exhausting, said Jeff Capps, a social worker with Pacific Clinics in Los Angeles. He emphasizes the need to make the work more sustainable for clinicians. That includes better pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes in our field, the assumption is that since you get value out of your work, you don’t need to be as compensated,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2019 report by the health care consulting firm Milliman found that commercial plans in California, when setting rates, \u003ca href=\"https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/addiction-and-mental-health-vs-physical-health-widening-disparities-in-network-use-and-p\">pay primary care providers an average 15% more\u003c/a> than they pay behavioral health care providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luke Bergmann, San Diego County’s director of behavioral health, said his county’s report on the provider shortage showed that, in some cases, people chose to work at Panda Express instead of substance use disorder clinics “because they simply cannot make as much.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People talk about loving the work,” he said. “For people to leave this work is an incredible emotional sacrifice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Candy Curiel, clinical director of Pacific Clinics for the Inland Empire, said inflation is making the situation even worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything is so costly at this point, people feel they need to seek more money,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Everyone is competing with everyone else. Is this a zero-sum game?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Michelle Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California, said the state’s mental health care system is so overwhelmed, everyone is poaching from each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let me be clear: It is a zero-sum game,” she said. “There’s only so many licensed or competent professionals in the state of California to do these jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In August, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced that he had secured funding to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr22/yr22rel39.asp\">hire 10,000 additional mental health clinicians\u003c/a> to serve the state’s students. That effort is key to the Department of Education’s push to increase mental health care provided in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adrienne Shilton, senior policy advocate for the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, called the $200 million to establish a new scholarship program for master’s-level clinicians “a big win.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Cabrera, the announcement “just puts fear at the heart of county behavioral health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wonders how counties can possibly compete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know that we’ve really had a reckoning yet on the degree to which demand so far exceeds the available supply of providers in our state,” she said.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Karen Larsen, CEO, Steinberg Institute\"]‘We finally have all of this money and transformation coming. All these amazing things … and it couldn’t come at a worse time in terms of our workforce.’[/pullquote]This is the vicious circle for workers who are salaried. Nonprofit providers often pay less than schools and counties. Schools and counties, in turn, pay less than Kaiser and some of the new telehealth start-ups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonprofit jobs that used to attract 40 or 50 applicants might only get two or three now, said Madaus, of the Behavioral Health Collaborative of Alameda County. Some nonprofits are looking at the possibility of providing free housing as an incentive, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as it contributes to burnout, the increasing demand has, in some ways, opened new doors for clinicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Torres, child and family clinical psychologist for Kaiser in San Leandro who is currently on strike, said that of 15 people on his team, six have left in the past year. Some are leaving to do telehealth, or to work in the private sector. Those positions can offer better work-life balance and more flexibility, he said. They also allow clinicians to see patients weekly or biweekly, he said, instead of every four to six weeks as often happens at Kaiser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923074\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923074\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='people in red shirts carrying signs that read \"patients over profits\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>How will the provider shortage affect the Newsom administration’s big mental health care initiatives?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coming into office, Newsom made clear that he wanted to prioritize mental health. Over the past few years, his administration has championed a number of bold new initiatives. These include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.chhs.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Children-and-Youth-Behavioral-Health-Initiative-Brief.pdf\">Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative\u003c/a>, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/KidsMentalHealthMasterPlan_8.18.22.pdf?emrc=6d3847\">$4.7 billion investment\u003c/a> meant to transform the children’s mental health care system.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>CalAIM, a major transformation of the state’s Medi-Cal system.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924117/governors-care-court-plan-passes-assembly-clearing-way-to-become-law\">CARE Court\u003c/a>, a controversial proposal to compel people with serious mental illness into care and housing.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers in recent years strengthened requirements that private insurers adhere to federal and state mental health parity laws — which require equal treatment of mental and physical health concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many of those tasked with implementing these efforts say they are worried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have that conversation all the time,” said Madaus, of the Behavioral Health Collaborative of Alameda County. As new funding sources come online, he said, nonprofit executives consistently tell him: “I can’t take any more funding because I can’t hire more staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Karen Larsen, chief executive officer of the Steinberg Institute, a nonprofit that advocates on mental health care policy, is also concerned. Prior to assuming her current role, Larsen spent two decades as head of Yolo County’s behavioral health department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We finally have all of this money and transformation coming,” she said. “All these amazing things … and it couldn’t come at a worse time in terms of our workforce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghaly says he shares that concern. But he adds that “incredible investments have been made,” not just in innovative programs, but in addressing the workforce shortage head-on.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How do we increase the number of providers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Josh Leonard, executive director of the East Bay Agency for Children, was struggling to fill openings for mental health clinicians. Over several months, the nonprofit — anticipating a bump in its contract with Alameda County — raised all clinicians’ salaries by at least 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It worked. At least for now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Leonard’s not considering the workforce crisis over, he knows that decision was important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Hernandez, a clinician there, agrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me it has helped out tremendously,” she said. “Now I want to stay longer.”[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Janet Coffman, University of California San Francisco\"]‘We’re making much bigger investments in the behavioral health workforce than we have since I started engaging in this field in the ’90s.’[/pullquote]To make the work more appealing and sustainable, providers say a lot needs to change. Besides pay, other factors are also critical, including reducing paperwork, offering more flexibility and providing more support to therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That last one has been key for Hernandez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re acknowledging that it’s really, really tough,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To meet growing need, new providers also must be brought in. Scholarships and loan repayment programs are helpful, but universities need more spots to train new clinicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffman, of UCSF, calls herself “cautiously optimistic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re making much bigger investments in the behavioral health workforce than we have since I started engaging in this field in the ’90s,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s budget allocates more than $360 million for the state to spend over the next three years on everything from recruiting high schoolers into behavioral health to expanding social work slots at public universities and helping psychiatry students with loan repayment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Newsom also emphasized workforce development in his recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/KidsMentalHealthMasterPlan_8.18.22.pdf?emrc=6d3847\">master plan for kids’ mental health\u003c/a>. Some of the $4.7 billion will go toward bringing in 40,000 new mental health care workers, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Can we reimagine how mental health care is provided?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, getting mental health care to everyone who needs it is going to require both expanding our idea of who should provide that care — and how they should do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you only see the system in the context of what it currently is, yeah, we’re stuck by the provider shortage,” said Alex Briscoe, head of California Children’s Trust, an initiative to change the state’s mental health care system for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I would say that we can’t let that stop us, and I actually think it represents an opportunity,” Briscoe said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Briscoe, this includes team-based models — already used by some nonprofits — involving a therapist, a case worker, a parenting coach or housing or employment specialist, and a peer provider who has lived with mental illness and is uniquely positioned to support others in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It includes more people with shared life experiences and those who live in the local community, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mental health care workers are often middle-class white women, while many of the people they serve — especially on Medi-Cal — are lower-income people of color, said Dr. Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician and public health advocate who works with Briscoe at the California Children’s Trust. She wonders: What if we expanded the provider class so that it included the people who cut or braid your hair? What if the people who offered you mental health care lived on your block?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of these things already exist informally, she said. What’s needed is a way to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s starting to emerge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, the state finally authorized a pathway to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2020/09/california-peer-mental-health/\">certify peer providers\u003c/a>, allowing organizations that employ them to bill Medi-Cal. California was the 49th state to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other new categories of workers are also being proposed. CalAIM created a job description called “community health workers,” trusted residents who do outreach in their own communities. And the state’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative is developing the role of behavioral health coaches, who work with young people on school campuses. Both would work in team-based models under the supervision of licensed providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffman and others say it’s also important to invest in career ladders, so people who enter the field as peer providers have the option to earn more advanced degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the opportunity California has in front of it,” said Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency. “And it’s going to start by how transformative, innovative and successful we are in creating not just the workforce that we know but the workforce that we’ve yet to discover.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The need for therapists, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists is greater than ever. Under relentless pressure from the pandemic and inflation, wildfires, gun violence, racism and war, Californians are crying out for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean they can get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In every corner of mental health right now, a similar story is being told: There simply aren’t enough providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patients receive lists of names from their insurers, only to learn none of the therapists on these so-called “ghost lists” will see them. Clinicians who do offer a spot often only accept cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonprofit mental health care providers report needing to have an offer letter ready at a job interview, fearing applicants will take another position if they wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser mental health care clinicians have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923034/were-drowning-why-kaiser-mental-health-workers-are-striking\">out on strike for weeks\u003c/a> now in Northern California, describing exhausting working conditions and long delays in care for their patients. Kaiser, for its part, points a finger at a familiar culprit: the mental health care provider shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalMatters spoke with more than two dozen mental health experts, public officials and providers around California to ask about the impacts of the mental health care provider shortage, and what can be done about it. Their responses ranged from desperate to hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All agree we are at a pivotal movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In part, that’s because Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is investing heavily in overhauling the state’s mental health care system. At the same time, the state recently enacted laws requiring insurers to provide timely access to mental health care. Some worry a lack of providers could jeopardize these bold new initiatives. Others see this as an opportunity to reimagine how mental health care in the state is delivered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what the experts had to say:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How big is the provider shortage problem?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It depends on what part of the elephant you’re looking at, said Catherine Teare, associate director of the California Health Care Foundation’s People-Centered Care team. County mental health departments are struggling to hire. So are commercial health plans. So are nonprofits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, she said, “the level of mental distress is increased.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For children or adults who need a lot, or need it urgently, it’s a scary time,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, told CalMatters that the number of licensed behavioral health care providers in the state increased by 20% between 2016 and 2020. But, that’s been offset by an increase in demand he calls “really unprecedented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For patients, how bad the shortage is depends, in part, on where you live, your insurance, your income, your age, the care you need and whether you want a clinician of color or one who speaks a language other than English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/publication/californias-current-future-behavioral-health-workforce/\">A report\u003c/a> published by the University of California, San Francisco in 2018 — even before the \u003ca href=\"https://www.healthmanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/HMA-NCMW-Issue-Brief-10-27-21.pdf\">pandemic sent need skyrocketing\u003c/a> — predicted that by 2028, demand for psychologists and other therapists would be 40% more than supply. For kids, the shortage is especially dire: Close to a third of California’s 58 counties have \u003ca href=\"https://www.aacap.org/aacap/Advocacy/Federal_and_State_Initiatives/Workforce_Maps/Home.aspx\">no child and adolescent psychiatrists at all\u003c/a>, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/MentalHealthAlmanac2022.pdf\">A new report\u003c/a> from the California Health Care Foundation shows that the Bay Area has 19 licensed psychiatrists and 73 licensed psychologists per 100,000 people — significantly more than the state averages of 12 and 44. At the other end of the spectrum, the San Joaquin Valley has six psychiatrists and 16 psychologists for the equivalent number of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Dominguez, a licensed marriage and family therapist at Kaiser Richmond who is currently on strike, said the Bay Area has plenty of providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Throw a rock, you’re going to hit a therapist,” said Dominguez, who said she plans to leave the organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But others who work in the region, including Matthew Madaus, executive director of the Behavioral Health Collaborative of Alameda County, said “100% absolutely” there’s a shortage even in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you search for a behavioral health clinician on Indeed.com, Madaus said, it comes up with thousands of open positions within a 25-mile radius.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s extraordinary the level of demand,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One problem: It’s difficult to capture how many clinicians don’t accept any insurance at all, and thus aren’t accessible to the vast majority of patients who can’t pay out of pocket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What we do know: We need more and better data. For instance, some experts say the increase described by Ghaly does not reflect how many licensed providers are actually seeing patients, nor does it capture how many are seeing people who are uninsured or on Medi-Cal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco authored\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB964\"> a bill\u003c/a> this year that would require the Department of Health Care Access and Information to prepare a report for the Legislature by Jan. 1, 2024, describing the state of California’s behavioral health workforce, and how best to address the shortage. Senate Bill 964 is on the governor’s desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://workforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/San-Diego-Behavioral-Health-Workforce-Report-.pdf\">San Diego County has already researched the shortage.\u003c/a> Officials there estimate they currently have 17,000 behavioral health care workers and need an additional 8,100 to meet current demand. In the next five years, they anticipate needing another 10,000 workers, in part because so many will be retiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s causing the shortage?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mental health care leaders will tell you the shortage itself is nothing new. But the pandemic has aggravated the problems. More providers have left their jobs, citing burnout. Or they’ve left the state, citing cost of living. New telehealth start-ups specializing in mental health treatment offer good pay and flexible hours; many experts said they have added to the demand by siphoning off providers from the public sector.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In a 2018 report on the \u003ca href=\"https://healthforce.ucsf.edu/publications/california-s-current-and-future-behavioral-health-workforce\">behavioral health workforce shortage\u003c/a>, Janet Coffman of UCSF also raised the concern that 45% of psychiatrists and 37% of psychologists would likely be retiring within a decade. The pandemic has accelerated this trend, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many clinicians say they’re simply exhausted. It’s not just that more people need help, but that many of them are coming in sicker, with mental health issues that have gone untreated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our patient population has become so much more difficult to work with than it used to be a decade ago,” said Randall Hagar, legislative advocate and policy consultant for the Psychiatric Physicians Alliance of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As openings go unfilled, those who remain are left to carry more of the weight, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another problem Hagar and others mention: paperwork. Doctors spend some 40% of their time on paperwork, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many clinicians, especially providers of color, also say they are simply not getting enough emotional support from their employers. Dominguez, the Kaiser therapist, said she founded La Clinica, a nationally recognized pilot program to serve Spanish-speaking clients, in 2016. When tragedies happen in the community, she said, they affect clinicians, too. But, “you’re just expected to plug along and keep going,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Continually witnessing trauma can be exhausting, said Jeff Capps, a social worker with Pacific Clinics in Los Angeles. He emphasizes the need to make the work more sustainable for clinicians. That includes better pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes in our field, the assumption is that since you get value out of your work, you don’t need to be as compensated,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2019 report by the health care consulting firm Milliman found that commercial plans in California, when setting rates, \u003ca href=\"https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/addiction-and-mental-health-vs-physical-health-widening-disparities-in-network-use-and-p\">pay primary care providers an average 15% more\u003c/a> than they pay behavioral health care providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luke Bergmann, San Diego County’s director of behavioral health, said his county’s report on the provider shortage showed that, in some cases, people chose to work at Panda Express instead of substance use disorder clinics “because they simply cannot make as much.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People talk about loving the work,” he said. “For people to leave this work is an incredible emotional sacrifice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Candy Curiel, clinical director of Pacific Clinics for the Inland Empire, said inflation is making the situation even worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything is so costly at this point, people feel they need to seek more money,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Everyone is competing with everyone else. Is this a zero-sum game?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Michelle Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California, said the state’s mental health care system is so overwhelmed, everyone is poaching from each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let me be clear: It is a zero-sum game,” she said. “There’s only so many licensed or competent professionals in the state of California to do these jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In August, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced that he had secured funding to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr22/yr22rel39.asp\">hire 10,000 additional mental health clinicians\u003c/a> to serve the state’s students. That effort is key to the Department of Education’s push to increase mental health care provided in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adrienne Shilton, senior policy advocate for the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, called the $200 million to establish a new scholarship program for master’s-level clinicians “a big win.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Cabrera, the announcement “just puts fear at the heart of county behavioral health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wonders how counties can possibly compete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know that we’ve really had a reckoning yet on the degree to which demand so far exceeds the available supply of providers in our state,” she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This is the vicious circle for workers who are salaried. Nonprofit providers often pay less than schools and counties. Schools and counties, in turn, pay less than Kaiser and some of the new telehealth start-ups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonprofit jobs that used to attract 40 or 50 applicants might only get two or three now, said Madaus, of the Behavioral Health Collaborative of Alameda County. Some nonprofits are looking at the possibility of providing free housing as an incentive, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as it contributes to burnout, the increasing demand has, in some ways, opened new doors for clinicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Torres, child and family clinical psychologist for Kaiser in San Leandro who is currently on strike, said that of 15 people on his team, six have left in the past year. Some are leaving to do telehealth, or to work in the private sector. Those positions can offer better work-life balance and more flexibility, he said. They also allow clinicians to see patients weekly or biweekly, he said, instead of every four to six weeks as often happens at Kaiser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923074\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923074\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='people in red shirts carrying signs that read \"patients over profits\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57894_032_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>How will the provider shortage affect the Newsom administration’s big mental health care initiatives?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coming into office, Newsom made clear that he wanted to prioritize mental health. Over the past few years, his administration has championed a number of bold new initiatives. These include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.chhs.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Children-and-Youth-Behavioral-Health-Initiative-Brief.pdf\">Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative\u003c/a>, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/KidsMentalHealthMasterPlan_8.18.22.pdf?emrc=6d3847\">$4.7 billion investment\u003c/a> meant to transform the children’s mental health care system.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>CalAIM, a major transformation of the state’s Medi-Cal system.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924117/governors-care-court-plan-passes-assembly-clearing-way-to-become-law\">CARE Court\u003c/a>, a controversial proposal to compel people with serious mental illness into care and housing.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers in recent years strengthened requirements that private insurers adhere to federal and state mental health parity laws — which require equal treatment of mental and physical health concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many of those tasked with implementing these efforts say they are worried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have that conversation all the time,” said Madaus, of the Behavioral Health Collaborative of Alameda County. As new funding sources come online, he said, nonprofit executives consistently tell him: “I can’t take any more funding because I can’t hire more staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Karen Larsen, chief executive officer of the Steinberg Institute, a nonprofit that advocates on mental health care policy, is also concerned. Prior to assuming her current role, Larsen spent two decades as head of Yolo County’s behavioral health department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We finally have all of this money and transformation coming,” she said. “All these amazing things … and it couldn’t come at a worse time in terms of our workforce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghaly says he shares that concern. But he adds that “incredible investments have been made,” not just in innovative programs, but in addressing the workforce shortage head-on.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How do we increase the number of providers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Josh Leonard, executive director of the East Bay Agency for Children, was struggling to fill openings for mental health clinicians. Over several months, the nonprofit — anticipating a bump in its contract with Alameda County — raised all clinicians’ salaries by at least 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It worked. At least for now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Leonard’s not considering the workforce crisis over, he knows that decision was important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Hernandez, a clinician there, agrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me it has helped out tremendously,” she said. “Now I want to stay longer.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We’re making much bigger investments in the behavioral health workforce than we have since I started engaging in this field in the ’90s.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>To make the work more appealing and sustainable, providers say a lot needs to change. Besides pay, other factors are also critical, including reducing paperwork, offering more flexibility and providing more support to therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That last one has been key for Hernandez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re acknowledging that it’s really, really tough,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To meet growing need, new providers also must be brought in. Scholarships and loan repayment programs are helpful, but universities need more spots to train new clinicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffman, of UCSF, calls herself “cautiously optimistic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re making much bigger investments in the behavioral health workforce than we have since I started engaging in this field in the ’90s,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s budget allocates more than $360 million for the state to spend over the next three years on everything from recruiting high schoolers into behavioral health to expanding social work slots at public universities and helping psychiatry students with loan repayment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Newsom also emphasized workforce development in his recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/KidsMentalHealthMasterPlan_8.18.22.pdf?emrc=6d3847\">master plan for kids’ mental health\u003c/a>. Some of the $4.7 billion will go toward bringing in 40,000 new mental health care workers, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Can we reimagine how mental health care is provided?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, getting mental health care to everyone who needs it is going to require both expanding our idea of who should provide that care — and how they should do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you only see the system in the context of what it currently is, yeah, we’re stuck by the provider shortage,” said Alex Briscoe, head of California Children’s Trust, an initiative to change the state’s mental health care system for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I would say that we can’t let that stop us, and I actually think it represents an opportunity,” Briscoe said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Briscoe, this includes team-based models — already used by some nonprofits — involving a therapist, a case worker, a parenting coach or housing or employment specialist, and a peer provider who has lived with mental illness and is uniquely positioned to support others in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It includes more people with shared life experiences and those who live in the local community, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mental health care workers are often middle-class white women, while many of the people they serve — especially on Medi-Cal — are lower-income people of color, said Dr. Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician and public health advocate who works with Briscoe at the California Children’s Trust. She wonders: What if we expanded the provider class so that it included the people who cut or braid your hair? What if the people who offered you mental health care lived on your block?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of these things already exist informally, she said. What’s needed is a way to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s starting to emerge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, the state finally authorized a pathway to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2020/09/california-peer-mental-health/\">certify peer providers\u003c/a>, allowing organizations that employ them to bill Medi-Cal. California was the 49th state to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other new categories of workers are also being proposed. CalAIM created a job description called “community health workers,” trusted residents who do outreach in their own communities. And the state’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative is developing the role of behavioral health coaches, who work with young people on school campuses. Both would work in team-based models under the supervision of licensed providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffman and others say it’s also important to invest in career ladders, so people who enter the field as peer providers have the option to earn more advanced degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the opportunity California has in front of it,” said Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency. “And it’s going to start by how transformative, innovative and successful we are in creating not just the workforce that we know but the workforce that we’ve yet to discover.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun",
"title": "Feeling the Heat: How Outdoor Workers Can Advocate for Safer Conditions on the Job",
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"headTitle": "Feeling the Heat: How Outdoor Workers Can Advocate for Safer Conditions on the Job | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955907/derechos-laborales-ola-de-calor\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Don’t have time to read the whole guide? Click on the links below to skip to a specific section:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#protections\">\u003cstrong>If I work outside in California, what protections do I have during dangerously hot weather?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#talk\">\u003cstrong>How should I talk to my employer about these protections?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#still\">\u003cstrong>What can I do if my employer still doesn’t provide these protections?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#report\">\u003cstrong>What can I do if my employer retaliated against me for speaking up?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#options\">\u003cstrong>What are my other options here?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is experiencing an intense heat wave this September with \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1567316722000207872\">several cities registering all-time record temperatures\u003c/a>. On September 6, San José reached 109 degrees, while Santa Rosa topped 115 degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although some residents are able to work in air-conditioned offices or homes to avoid the worst of the heat, many essential workers — including construction workers, farm laborers and delivery people — have to remain outdoors, exposed to the most intense heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, employers are legally required to provide all outdoor workers with four things to prevent heat-related illness: access to fresh water, shade, breaks and an emergency response plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But KQED has spoken to various outdoor workers who say that bringing up their rights with their employer isn’t so easy. For some, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">the risk of losing their job for speaking up against an unsafe workplace is always present\u003c/a> while others are unsure whether they are eligible for these protections due to their contract or immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s despite \u003ca href=\"https://www.99calor.org/english.html\">rules established by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board\u003c/a> (Cal/OSHA) that are meant to protect all outdoor employees in California, regardless of their immigration or employment status. But still, that doesn’t make some workers feel any more comfortable talking to their bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a real concern,” said David Hornung, Cal/OSHA’s heat and agriculture program coordinator: “workers not wanting to ask for their worker protections because of their concern of retaliation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re working outside during a heat wave and your employer isn’t providing you with the required protections, there are a number of things you can do, even if you don’t feel comfortable bringing things up directly with your supervisor.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"protections\">\u003c/a>What are the Cal/OSHA protections?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In July 2006, a major \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/epic/impacts-biological-systems/heat-related-mortality-and-morbidity\">heat wave in California resulted in at least 140 deaths\u003c/a> over two weeks, the highest fatality rate on record from a single heat event, prompting state regulators to strengthen protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label ='Related Coverage' tag='california-workers']“The employer must provide drinking water that is fresh, cool and free so that each worker has a sufficient amount to drink,” said Angela Yahaira Breining, a staff attorney with the Workers’ Rights program at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California defines a “sufficient” drinking supply as at least one quart of water per hour. And even if workers bring their own water bottles, employers must still have enough water available on site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When temperatures rise above 80 degrees, employers must also provide an area with enough shade to accommodate every worker on-site. But, Breining adds, workers also have the right to request breaks in the shade — regardless of temperature — whenever they feel the need to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when temperatures rise over 95 degrees, “employers or supervisors must observe these employees regularly,” Breining said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having a supervisor on-site, she explains, is key to setting up a communication system that can swing into action if a worker starts to feel sick. “If someone is getting a headache, having them sit down, making sure that there is a safe way of communicating with higher-ups, and having an emergency plan in place,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Setting up an emergency plan is the next requirement for employers, says Hornung from Cal/OSHA. That includes “training for all the employees so they recognize the signs and symptoms of heat illness in themselves or in their co-workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11886992\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11886992 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man, face concealed by a tarp, sit surrounded by bundles of dried red beans, shelling them into a bucket in his lap.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A vendor sitting in the back of a tarp-covered truck in San Francisco’s Mission District shells beans on Aug. 6, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Whom do these heat protections apply to?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A misconception Hornung says he often hears is that Cal/OSHA rules only apply to certain industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It applies to all outdoor workers, not just agriculture,” he said. “It applies to construction workers, gardeners, landscapers, maintenance people and anyone driving around in trucks that don’t have air-conditioning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another common misconception, Hornung adds, is that the protections apply only to citizens or employees with valid immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11878134\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/06/RS49883_GettyImages-1270893851-qut-1020x680.jpg\"]“California law for workplace safety is great because it protects all workers regardless of immigration status,” he said. “So whether you are here with the right papers or not, you are still protected by our regulations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for people who work informally, things are a bit trickier and often depend on the situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hornung explains that Cal/OSHA first needs to verify that there is an “employee-employer relationship” — in other words, that the worker has provided labor in exchange for payment. This can include workers who lack a formal contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If an employee is paid by an employer, then that establishes an employer-employee relationship,” said Hornung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the heat protections don’t apply to someone who is self-employed through an informal business, like fruit cart owners who sell their own produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"talk\">\u003c/a>If my boss is not following Cal/OSHA regulations, how should I bring it up?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Although it may be difficult for some workers to approach their supervisors, California labor laws prohibit employers from retaliating against workers who raise concerns about unsafe working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unlawful for an employer to retaliate against this — speaking about a workplace right they are entitled to,” said Breining, the workers’ rights attorney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recommends workers document in writing everything that’s going on, including keeping track of the dates and places that their bosses haven’t followed regulations. And she suggests workers also address their employers in writing, in the form of a text message, an email or a traditional letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Specifically say what it is that you are requesting,” she said. “Are you requesting for the employer to provide training, to see what the heat illness prevention plan is or to request these cooldown breaks?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documenting every time an employer does not follow heat regulations can be useful later on if a worker decides to file a complaint with Cal/OSHA, Breining says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Hornung suggests that workers who fear immediate retaliation first discuss the issue with their peers to build additional support. “So rather than you as an individual asking your boss, try to get your co-workers to ask as a group,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the fact that retaliation is illegal doesn’t prevent an employer from retaliating against workers who speak up against an unsafe workplace, says Cynthia Rice, director of litigation, advocacy and training at California Rural Legal Assistance, a group that provides free legal aid to agricultural workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never say the employer can’t retaliate against you because of course the employer can retaliate against you,” she told KQED. If you believe your employer fired you or cut your hours or wages because you spoke up for a safe workplace, \u003ca href=\"#report\">\u003cstrong>you can report this behavior to labor officials, who can start an investigation\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11887210\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11887210 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Clear plastic tubs of brightly colored fruit beneath an awning, with a city block in the background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A vendor sells cut fruit underneath an umbrella in San Francisco’s Mission District on Aug. 6, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"still\">\u003c/a>My boss didn’t listen to me. What do I do now?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If an employer is still unwilling to provide required heat protections, the next step may be to file a complaint with Cal/OSHA, a process that can be completed anonymously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency has several Bay Area field offices workers can contact directly to file a report, based on where their work sites are located.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>San Francisco workers can call (415) 557-0100.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>San Mateo County workers can call the Foster City office at (650) 573-3812. This office also accommodates workers in some Santa Clara locations, including Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Most workers in Santa Clara County can call the Fremont office at (510) 794-2521.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Alameda County workers can call the Oakland office at (510) 622-2916.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>North Bay workers — in Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Marin and Contra Costa counties — can call the American Canyon office at (707) 649-3700.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>There’s also a statewide heat help line, which offers assistance in both English and Spanish (and can connect workers to assistance in other languages): (833) 579-0927.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When filing a complaint, you’ll be asked questions about your employer or company, including the name, location and number of workers on site, how many hours you work in a day and what the safety issue is. This is when having a written record of past incidents or requests is especially useful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While providing your name is optional, Hornung from Cal/OSHA says that if you provide your contact information, you can be notified when the report was received and if Cal/OSHA will look into the situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Cal/OSHA takes up your case, the agency will assign an inspector to your work site who will speak to both employers and employees. Hornung says the inspection can take up to six months, although it often takes less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11887034\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11887034 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A close-up of a worker's hands shelling long beans.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A vendor takes shelter from the sun while shelling beans in San Francisco on Aug. 6, 2021. David Hornung from Cal/OSHA says that state heat protections apply to every person who works outdoors — not just agricultural workers. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If there were any violations of the California code of regulations,” he said, “then the employer would be cited for those violations and those citations would have a monetary penalty.” The employer would also have to resolve whatever issue is putting workers at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"report\">\u003c/a>If your employer decides to retaliate against you during this time and either threatens you, cuts your hours or fires you, that’s grounds for a retaliation complaint with the state Labor Commissioner’s Office. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/rci_osha_complaint.htm\">file a retaliation complaint online\u003c/a>; by calling (714) 558-4913; or through \u003ca href=\"mailto:oshaRetaliation@dir.ca.gov\">email\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If [your employer] retaliates against you, you have a remedy,” said Breining. “They can reinstate you, there’s penalties for retaliation, there’s back wages you can get.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are an agricultural worker, another option is filing an unfair labor practice charge against your employer with the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB). The ALRB investigates potential unfair labor practices including retaliation by an employer against a worker who reports unsafe working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least two workers must come together to file a charge with the ALRB. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/196/2018/05/alrb_form38_en.pdf\">file a charge using this form\u003c/a> and then send it, either though the mail or fax, to the closest ALRB office. In the Bay Area, \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/contact-us/\">the regional ALRB office is in Santa Rosa\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>606 Healdsburg Avenue\u003cbr>\nSanta Rosa, CA 95401\u003cbr>\nPhone: (707) 527-3256\u003cbr>\nFax: (707) 576-2360\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"options\">\u003c/a>What are my other options?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Last summer, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11875988/minimal-to-non-existent-safety-inspector-shortage-worsened-in-pandemic-leaving-california-workers-vulnerable\">workers at an Oakland fast food restaurant filed a workplace COVID-19 safety complaint\u003c/a> with Cal/OSHA against their employer, alleging unsafe working conditions Agency officials responded nine months later saying no violations had been found — even as the employees who filed the original report claim that inspectors never reached out to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11875988\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/06/RS49630_GettyImages-1231067411-qut-1020x600.jpg\"]\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/10/cal-osha-response-covid-complaints/\">Understaffing has plagued Cal/OSHA\u003c/a> for years, and that has only been exacerbated during the pandemic, limiting the agency’s ability to investigate claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/COVID19citations.html\">the agency has already issued hundreds of citations this year\u003c/a> to employers who have not adhered to workplace regulations — so filing a claim can in some cases produce an outcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are additional steps you can take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breining, the workers’ rights attorney, points out that there are multiple legal aid offices around the Bay Area that can support employees throughout the complaint process and offer additional legal assistance, most of the time at no cost — including her office, Centro Legal de la Raza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re more than happy to help [workers] make the complaint or help make them make a demand letter if they don’t really want to go through this more formal process,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breining adds that in many cases, workers reach out to her office after their employers have already retaliated against them or they have already suffered heat-related illness. While Centro Legal can still provide assistance, she encourages workers to seek aid before things go wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We prefer to help when it’s actually happening so that you don’t have to do some of the difficult legal processes after the fact,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some organizations that offer free legal aid to workers in the Bay Area:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://legalaidatwork.org/\">Legal Aid at Work\u003c/a>: (415) 864-8208\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.advancingjustice-alc.org/\">Asian Americans Advancing Justice/Asian Law Caucus\u003c/a>: (415) 896-1701\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.centrolegal.org/\">Centro Legal de la Raza\u003c/a> (Oakland): (510) 437-1554\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lrcl.org/\">La Raza Centro Legal\u003c/a> (San Francisco): (415) 575-3500\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tuwu.org/\">Trabajadores Unidos Workers United\u003c/a>: (415) 621-4155\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://streetlevelhealthproject.org/\">Street Level Health Project\u003c/a>: (510) 533-9906\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://crla.org\">California Rural Legal Assistance\u003c/a>: (800) 337-0690\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A version of this story was originally published on Sept. 8, 2021. This post includes reporting from KQED’s Farida Jhabvala Romero.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A step-by-step guide to asking your employer for protections against the heat. California law mandates protections for all outdoor workers — regardless of immigration status or work arrangement.",
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"title": "Feeling the Heat: How Outdoor Workers Can Advocate for Safer Conditions on the Job | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955907/derechos-laborales-ola-de-calor\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Don’t have time to read the whole guide? Click on the links below to skip to a specific section:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#protections\">\u003cstrong>If I work outside in California, what protections do I have during dangerously hot weather?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#talk\">\u003cstrong>How should I talk to my employer about these protections?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#still\">\u003cstrong>What can I do if my employer still doesn’t provide these protections?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#report\">\u003cstrong>What can I do if my employer retaliated against me for speaking up?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"#options\">\u003cstrong>What are my other options here?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is experiencing an intense heat wave this September with \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1567316722000207872\">several cities registering all-time record temperatures\u003c/a>. On September 6, San José reached 109 degrees, while Santa Rosa topped 115 degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although some residents are able to work in air-conditioned offices or homes to avoid the worst of the heat, many essential workers — including construction workers, farm laborers and delivery people — have to remain outdoors, exposed to the most intense heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, employers are legally required to provide all outdoor workers with four things to prevent heat-related illness: access to fresh water, shade, breaks and an emergency response plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But KQED has spoken to various outdoor workers who say that bringing up their rights with their employer isn’t so easy. For some, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">the risk of losing their job for speaking up against an unsafe workplace is always present\u003c/a> while others are unsure whether they are eligible for these protections due to their contract or immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s despite \u003ca href=\"https://www.99calor.org/english.html\">rules established by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board\u003c/a> (Cal/OSHA) that are meant to protect all outdoor employees in California, regardless of their immigration or employment status. But still, that doesn’t make some workers feel any more comfortable talking to their bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a real concern,” said David Hornung, Cal/OSHA’s heat and agriculture program coordinator: “workers not wanting to ask for their worker protections because of their concern of retaliation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re working outside during a heat wave and your employer isn’t providing you with the required protections, there are a number of things you can do, even if you don’t feel comfortable bringing things up directly with your supervisor.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"protections\">\u003c/a>What are the Cal/OSHA protections?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In July 2006, a major \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/epic/impacts-biological-systems/heat-related-mortality-and-morbidity\">heat wave in California resulted in at least 140 deaths\u003c/a> over two weeks, the highest fatality rate on record from a single heat event, prompting state regulators to strengthen protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The employer must provide drinking water that is fresh, cool and free so that each worker has a sufficient amount to drink,” said Angela Yahaira Breining, a staff attorney with the Workers’ Rights program at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California defines a “sufficient” drinking supply as at least one quart of water per hour. And even if workers bring their own water bottles, employers must still have enough water available on site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When temperatures rise above 80 degrees, employers must also provide an area with enough shade to accommodate every worker on-site. But, Breining adds, workers also have the right to request breaks in the shade — regardless of temperature — whenever they feel the need to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when temperatures rise over 95 degrees, “employers or supervisors must observe these employees regularly,” Breining said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having a supervisor on-site, she explains, is key to setting up a communication system that can swing into action if a worker starts to feel sick. “If someone is getting a headache, having them sit down, making sure that there is a safe way of communicating with higher-ups, and having an emergency plan in place,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Setting up an emergency plan is the next requirement for employers, says Hornung from Cal/OSHA. That includes “training for all the employees so they recognize the signs and symptoms of heat illness in themselves or in their co-workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11886992\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11886992 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man, face concealed by a tarp, sit surrounded by bundles of dried red beans, shelling them into a bucket in his lap.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50584_007_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A vendor sitting in the back of a tarp-covered truck in San Francisco’s Mission District shells beans on Aug. 6, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Whom do these heat protections apply to?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A misconception Hornung says he often hears is that Cal/OSHA rules only apply to certain industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It applies to all outdoor workers, not just agriculture,” he said. “It applies to construction workers, gardeners, landscapers, maintenance people and anyone driving around in trucks that don’t have air-conditioning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another common misconception, Hornung adds, is that the protections apply only to citizens or employees with valid immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“California law for workplace safety is great because it protects all workers regardless of immigration status,” he said. “So whether you are here with the right papers or not, you are still protected by our regulations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for people who work informally, things are a bit trickier and often depend on the situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hornung explains that Cal/OSHA first needs to verify that there is an “employee-employer relationship” — in other words, that the worker has provided labor in exchange for payment. This can include workers who lack a formal contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If an employee is paid by an employer, then that establishes an employer-employee relationship,” said Hornung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the heat protections don’t apply to someone who is self-employed through an informal business, like fruit cart owners who sell their own produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"talk\">\u003c/a>If my boss is not following Cal/OSHA regulations, how should I bring it up?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Although it may be difficult for some workers to approach their supervisors, California labor laws prohibit employers from retaliating against workers who raise concerns about unsafe working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unlawful for an employer to retaliate against this — speaking about a workplace right they are entitled to,” said Breining, the workers’ rights attorney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recommends workers document in writing everything that’s going on, including keeping track of the dates and places that their bosses haven’t followed regulations. And she suggests workers also address their employers in writing, in the form of a text message, an email or a traditional letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Specifically say what it is that you are requesting,” she said. “Are you requesting for the employer to provide training, to see what the heat illness prevention plan is or to request these cooldown breaks?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documenting every time an employer does not follow heat regulations can be useful later on if a worker decides to file a complaint with Cal/OSHA, Breining says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Hornung suggests that workers who fear immediate retaliation first discuss the issue with their peers to build additional support. “So rather than you as an individual asking your boss, try to get your co-workers to ask as a group,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the fact that retaliation is illegal doesn’t prevent an employer from retaliating against workers who speak up against an unsafe workplace, says Cynthia Rice, director of litigation, advocacy and training at California Rural Legal Assistance, a group that provides free legal aid to agricultural workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never say the employer can’t retaliate against you because of course the employer can retaliate against you,” she told KQED. If you believe your employer fired you or cut your hours or wages because you spoke up for a safe workplace, \u003ca href=\"#report\">\u003cstrong>you can report this behavior to labor officials, who can start an investigation\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11887210\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11887210 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Clear plastic tubs of brightly colored fruit beneath an awning, with a city block in the background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/RS50606_031_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A vendor sells cut fruit underneath an umbrella in San Francisco’s Mission District on Aug. 6, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"still\">\u003c/a>My boss didn’t listen to me. What do I do now?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If an employer is still unwilling to provide required heat protections, the next step may be to file a complaint with Cal/OSHA, a process that can be completed anonymously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency has several Bay Area field offices workers can contact directly to file a report, based on where their work sites are located.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>San Francisco workers can call (415) 557-0100.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>San Mateo County workers can call the Foster City office at (650) 573-3812. This office also accommodates workers in some Santa Clara locations, including Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Most workers in Santa Clara County can call the Fremont office at (510) 794-2521.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Alameda County workers can call the Oakland office at (510) 622-2916.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>North Bay workers — in Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Marin and Contra Costa counties — can call the American Canyon office at (707) 649-3700.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>There’s also a statewide heat help line, which offers assistance in both English and Spanish (and can connect workers to assistance in other languages): (833) 579-0927.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When filing a complaint, you’ll be asked questions about your employer or company, including the name, location and number of workers on site, how many hours you work in a day and what the safety issue is. This is when having a written record of past incidents or requests is especially useful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While providing your name is optional, Hornung from Cal/OSHA says that if you provide your contact information, you can be notified when the report was received and if Cal/OSHA will look into the situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Cal/OSHA takes up your case, the agency will assign an inspector to your work site who will speak to both employers and employees. Hornung says the inspection can take up to six months, although it often takes less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11887034\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11887034 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A close-up of a worker's hands shelling long beans.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50579_002_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A vendor takes shelter from the sun while shelling beans in San Francisco on Aug. 6, 2021. David Hornung from Cal/OSHA says that state heat protections apply to every person who works outdoors — not just agricultural workers. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If there were any violations of the California code of regulations,” he said, “then the employer would be cited for those violations and those citations would have a monetary penalty.” The employer would also have to resolve whatever issue is putting workers at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"report\">\u003c/a>If your employer decides to retaliate against you during this time and either threatens you, cuts your hours or fires you, that’s grounds for a retaliation complaint with the state Labor Commissioner’s Office. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/rci_osha_complaint.htm\">file a retaliation complaint online\u003c/a>; by calling (714) 558-4913; or through \u003ca href=\"mailto:oshaRetaliation@dir.ca.gov\">email\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If [your employer] retaliates against you, you have a remedy,” said Breining. “They can reinstate you, there’s penalties for retaliation, there’s back wages you can get.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are an agricultural worker, another option is filing an unfair labor practice charge against your employer with the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB). The ALRB investigates potential unfair labor practices including retaliation by an employer against a worker who reports unsafe working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least two workers must come together to file a charge with the ALRB. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/196/2018/05/alrb_form38_en.pdf\">file a charge using this form\u003c/a> and then send it, either though the mail or fax, to the closest ALRB office. In the Bay Area, \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/contact-us/\">the regional ALRB office is in Santa Rosa\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>606 Healdsburg Avenue\u003cbr>\nSanta Rosa, CA 95401\u003cbr>\nPhone: (707) 527-3256\u003cbr>\nFax: (707) 576-2360\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"options\">\u003c/a>What are my other options?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Last summer, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11875988/minimal-to-non-existent-safety-inspector-shortage-worsened-in-pandemic-leaving-california-workers-vulnerable\">workers at an Oakland fast food restaurant filed a workplace COVID-19 safety complaint\u003c/a> with Cal/OSHA against their employer, alleging unsafe working conditions Agency officials responded nine months later saying no violations had been found — even as the employees who filed the original report claim that inspectors never reached out to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/10/cal-osha-response-covid-complaints/\">Understaffing has plagued Cal/OSHA\u003c/a> for years, and that has only been exacerbated during the pandemic, limiting the agency’s ability to investigate claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/COVID19citations.html\">the agency has already issued hundreds of citations this year\u003c/a> to employers who have not adhered to workplace regulations — so filing a claim can in some cases produce an outcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are additional steps you can take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breining, the workers’ rights attorney, points out that there are multiple legal aid offices around the Bay Area that can support employees throughout the complaint process and offer additional legal assistance, most of the time at no cost — including her office, Centro Legal de la Raza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re more than happy to help [workers] make the complaint or help make them make a demand letter if they don’t really want to go through this more formal process,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breining adds that in many cases, workers reach out to her office after their employers have already retaliated against them or they have already suffered heat-related illness. While Centro Legal can still provide assistance, she encourages workers to seek aid before things go wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We prefer to help when it’s actually happening so that you don’t have to do some of the difficult legal processes after the fact,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some organizations that offer free legal aid to workers in the Bay Area:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://legalaidatwork.org/\">Legal Aid at Work\u003c/a>: (415) 864-8208\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.advancingjustice-alc.org/\">Asian Americans Advancing Justice/Asian Law Caucus\u003c/a>: (415) 896-1701\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.centrolegal.org/\">Centro Legal de la Raza\u003c/a> (Oakland): (510) 437-1554\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lrcl.org/\">La Raza Centro Legal\u003c/a> (San Francisco): (415) 575-3500\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tuwu.org/\">Trabajadores Unidos Workers United\u003c/a>: (415) 621-4155\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://streetlevelhealthproject.org/\">Street Level Health Project\u003c/a>: (510) 533-9906\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://crla.org\">California Rural Legal Assistance\u003c/a>: (800) 337-0690\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A version of this story was originally published on Sept. 8, 2021. This post includes reporting from KQED’s Farida Jhabvala Romero.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a nation-leading measure giving more than a half million fast-food workers more power and protections, despite the objections of restaurant owners who warned it would drive up consumers’ costs.[aside postID=news_11924154,news_11924068]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The landmark law creates a 10-member Fast Food Council with equal numbers of workers’ delegates and employers’ representatives, along with two state officials, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-minimum-wage-government-and-politics-822a69d5ad48eb2864d6a1e3b5b7a208\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">empowered to set minimum standards for wages, hours and working conditions\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom said he was proud to sign the measure into law on Labor Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is committed to ensuring that the men and women who have helped build our world-class economy are able to share in the state’s prosperity,” he said in a statement. “Today’s action gives hardworking fast food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table to set fair wages and critical health and safety standards across the industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law caps minimum wage increases for fast-food workers at chains with more than 100 restaurants at $22 an hour next year, compared to the statewide minimum of $15.50 an hour, with cost-of-living increases thereafter.[aside tag=\"labor, wage\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]The state Legislature approved the measure on August 29. Debate split along party lines, with Republicans opposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Brian Dahle, the Republican nominee for governor in November, had called it “a stepping stone to unionize all these workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters had said they hoped the measure would inspire similar efforts elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restaurant owners and franchisers cited an analysis they commissioned by the UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting and Development saying that the legislation would increase consumers’ costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The landmark law creates a 10-member Fast Food Council with equal numbers of workers’ delegates and employers’ representatives, along with two state officials, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-minimum-wage-government-and-politics-822a69d5ad48eb2864d6a1e3b5b7a208\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">empowered to set minimum standards for wages, hours and working conditions\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom said he was proud to sign the measure into law on Labor Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is committed to ensuring that the men and women who have helped build our world-class economy are able to share in the state’s prosperity,” he said in a statement. “Today’s action gives hardworking fast food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table to set fair wages and critical health and safety standards across the industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law caps minimum wage increases for fast-food workers at chains with more than 100 restaurants at $22 an hour next year, compared to the statewide minimum of $15.50 an hour, with cost-of-living increases thereafter.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The state Legislature approved the measure on August 29. Debate split along party lines, with Republicans opposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Brian Dahle, the Republican nominee for governor in November, had called it “a stepping stone to unionize all these workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters had said they hoped the measure would inspire similar efforts elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restaurant owners and franchisers cited an analysis they commissioned by the UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting and Development saying that the legislation would increase consumers’ costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "wage-theft-car-wash-workers-still-await-millions-in-pay-3-years-later",
"title": "Wage Theft: Car Wash Workers Still Await Millions in Pay, 3 Years Later",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Lea este artículo \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/calmatters-en-espanol/2022/08/robo-de-salarios-trabajadores-de-lavado-de-autos-en-caso-de-2-3-millones-aun-esperan-su-pago-luego-de-3-anos/\">en español\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Antonio Dominguez had never seen a car wash before moving to Los Angeles from Mexico in 1997. As a 24-year-old day laborer, he’d walk home each day, stop along a palm-lined boulevard and watch a team of mostly Mexican workers sponge, rinse, dry and polish a line of cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was charmed by the waiting customers who seemed pleased with how their vehicles were left gleaming. And he simply loved the cars. In his Mexican hometown, there were few paved roads and cars were luxuries. “I just wanted to touch those cars, those new cars,” Dominguez said. “They came out so pretty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11906889,news_11916303,news_11920425\"]Dominguez worked five years at his first car wash job, earning only cash tips, and then was put on the payroll, though his weekly check often didn’t pay him for all of his hours, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his next job, at the Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City, sometimes Dominguez and the other workers were told to wait in an alley for hours, uncompensated, or they were sent home with no pay, he and the state of California have said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019 the state Labor Commissioner’s office found Playa Vista had shortchanged Dominguez and 63 other workers in wages. It said it was fining the company more than $2.3 million in wage theft violations and penalties, its largest fine ever issued against a car wash business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years later, those workers have not been paid. Playa Vista appealed the fine. Last week the Labor Commissioner said both sides had reached a settlement agreement in principle, without describing the details.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An exercise in frustration\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Playa Vista’s owner, Hooman Nissani, in his appeal of the fines and citations has said the investigation was flawed and that an audit his company paid for indicates the car wash overpaid some of the staff. Through an attorney, he declined to comment to CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s enforcement of wage theft laws remains an exercise in frustration for workers and businesses alike, despite years of legislative efforts, some of America’s toughest labor laws, and some of the nation’s highest levels of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/income-inequality-in-california/\">income inequality\u003c/a>, many experts and advocates said. In California’s wage theft cases, workers can wait months or years to be repaid lost or stolen wages — even when state regulators step in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year California workers filed nearly 19,000 individual stolen wage claims totaling more than $338 million, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/when-employers-steal-wages-from-workers/\">database\u003c/a> provided to CalMatters by the Labor Commissioner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many claims did settle, the average case filed last year that got to a decision was 334 days old — well over the 135-day limit set by law — and thousands of cases filed in 2021 remain pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the timeline for investigations can be lengthy, improvements in our laws have given the Labor Commissioner’s Office … new tools to assist workers in recovering stolen wages,” said Erika Monterroza, a spokesperson, adding the state has made progress on hiring people to help enforce those laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Antonio Dominguez, car wash worker\"]‘I would tell myself that in this country, I was nobody.’[/pullquote]She did not comment on the Playa Vista car wash case. The Playa Vista action was brought not by individual workers but by a state enforcement office, yet it is involved, years later, in a quasi-judicial and a civil litigation process, according to state documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is one of many investigations aimed at targeting wage theft in specific industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The most vulnerable\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wage theft — or the failure by employers to pay employees what they are owed — typically affects the most vulnerable: people with the least education and financial means and fewest legal protections. Often they are immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924034\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924034\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a Latino man in a beige polo shirt\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antonio Dominguez, 48, started CleanWash Mobile with other car wash workers in Los Angeles. Nearby, the CLEAN Car Wash Center, a nonprofit, provides peer training, an auto detail program and information about health, safety and labor protections. ‘When one comes to this country, one thinks that it is normal to not be paid justly,’ said Dominguez, who has worked in the car wash industry for 23 years. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said he believes he was taken advantage of because he was ignorant of his rights. “I would tell myself that in this country, I was nobody,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now 48, Dominguez has graying black hair, bags under his eyes, deep wrinkles and a weary smile. He has described his experiences working at car washes to state investigators, in testimony and in interviews with CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He grew up the son of a small-plot farmer in the Mexican village of Molcaxac, which he said means “bird’s nest” in Náhuatl, the Aztec language. Dominguez remembers the countryside, situated in the central state of Puebla, as a semi-desert marvel of jaguars, eagles, coyotes, cacti, oak trees and cascading waterfalls. His childhood home was a sheet-metal house, and his father wore huaraches, a type of leather sandal, instead of shoes. They could only get by and never get ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had nothing,” Dominguez said. “We were poor by nature. There was only enough to eat, and just the essentials.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez migrated to Los Angeles, finding himself in Mar Vista, a neighborhood of midcentury homes and cramped apartment complexes east of Venice Beach. With few connections, Dominguez first found work as a day laborer. On his walk home each day, he passed a large full-service car wash. He got a job there, he said, after striking up a conversation with a car wash worker who coincidentally was from his village.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A low-paying industry\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said he worked at that car wash from about 1997 to 2005. For the first five years, he said, he made tips only, often little more than $15 a day, and in his final years he was paid with weekly checks that barely were enough to cover his expenses and send some money home to his family in Mexico, chiefly his mother and sister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez advanced in his car-washing skills, learning all aspects of the business, he said. But in 2005 he returned to Mexico after longing for home and feeling disillusioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You arrive at that moment where you say, ‘What am I doing here?’” Dominguez said. “Why suffer here if you’re better off over there?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the same time that Dominguez began working in the car wash industry, Victor Narro, now a law professor and project director at the UCLA Labor Center, began researching low-wage workers as an advocate for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, a Los Angeles nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups\" layout=\"responsive\" frameborder=\"0\" resizable src=\"https://calmatters-car-wash.netlify.app/industry-stats\" class=\"i-amphtml-layout-responsive i-amphtml-layout-size-defined\" role=\"button\" scrolling=\"yes\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2002, Narro helped UCLA law students interview 23 car wash workers for one of the earliest research papers on the industry in Los Angeles. Interviewers found several of the younger, more recently hired car washers were being paid only in tips, and many expressed the attitude of gratitude for the work — calling themselves propineros, a play on the Spanish word for “tip.” Narro presented the paper to Sacramento lawmakers as evidence that the industry needed regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was shocked when I was encountering that,” Narro told CalMatters. “It was a major practice, and we knew it was a crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Car wash laws\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Workers also were being paid per car, or daily rates, and some were being asked to work off the clock, Narro said. He found an ally in civil rights and antiwar activist Tom Hayden, a state senator who in 1999 authored \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=199920000SB1097\">a bill that would have required car wash businesses\u003c/a> to register with the Labor Commissioner and post surety bonds that could be used to recover unpaid wages and benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Gov. Gray Davis initially vetoed the bill in 2000 but \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=200320040AB1688\">signed an even more robust version three years later\u003c/a>, which, along with the registration requirement, created a restitution fund for car wash workers. The law required employers to carry surety bonds of at least $15,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2008 the United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO launched a mostly unsuccessful attempt to organize Southern California car wash workers. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013 \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1387\">signed a bill\u003c/a> that increased the bond car washes are required to carry to $150,000, but it exempted owners who signed bargaining agreements with unions. These days there are 28 Los Angeles car washes with United Steelworkers Local 675 members, two others in Orange County and one in San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Ash Kalra, assemblymember from San José\"]‘We are collectively failing our workers throughout the state in industries where they need us the most.’[/pullquote]Critics say California’s enforcement of its requirement that car washes register with the state has lacked enforcement, particularly during the pandemic. A report this year by UCLA graduate students found 770 car washes registered with the state in 2020. But there were 2,015 of these establishments operating in California, according to 2020 U.S. census figures. Los Angeles County alone had 576 car washes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10992949/embed\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" class=\"flourish-embed-iframe\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px;\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner issued only five citations in 2020 to car washes for not registering, and 13 in 2021. The agency had averaged 108 citations a year in the 10 years prior to the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More wage theft enforcement\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Ash Kalra, the San José Democrat who chairs the house’s Committee on Labor and Employment, said the Legislature needs to commit more funds to enforcement and the Labor Commissioner needs to deploy them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need more resources and more accountability, particularly in industries like the car wash industry,” he said. “We need to raise our voices and make it very clear that we are collectively failing our workers throughout the state in industries where they need us the most.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has added 288 people to the Labor Commissioner’s Office since January 2021, Monterroza said, including 116 in the Wage Claim Adjudication Unit and 63 in the Bureau of Field Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner also gained new authority last year to put liens on the properties of businesses that are the subject of the state’s Bureau of Field Enforcement actions, she said, to secure final payments for things such as wage theft. Recently, the commission office used this tool to collect $282,000 from another car wash business, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Getting a bad rap\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>David Murillo, executive director of the Western Carwash Association, said California’s enforcement of its car wash regulations puts those who comply at a competitive disadvantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The good actors are paying for the bad actors,” added Chris Buscaglia, a former board member of the association. “We get the bad rap; we pay all the money. It’s a thorn in our side.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10992981/embed\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" class=\"flourish-embed-iframe\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px;\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 100%!;margin-top: 4px!important;text-align: right!important\">\u003ca class=\"flourish-credit\" style=\"text-decoration: none!important\" href=\"https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/10992981/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/10992981\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 105px!important;height: 16px!important;border: none!important;margin: 0!important\" src=\"https://public.flourish.studio/resources/made_with_flourish.svg\" alt=\"Made with Flourish\"> \u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>By 2009, Dominguez, said he had returned to Los Angeles and was working a new job at Playa Vista, a full-service car wash with a gas station and convenience store on the corner of Centinela Avenue. With his years of experience, Dominguez said, he started at $10.25 an hour, which was $2.25 above the minimum wage then. He was content and proud, he said, to send money home to support his family in Mexico. He was later promoted to detailer and got a dollar-an-hour raise, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything was going so well,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, Nissani took over the business, and the pay and work environment changed, said Dominguez, as did other former Playa Vista workers interviewed by CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers described not getting paid for all their work, having to wait long hours off the clock and not being paid overtime, according to a state press release in 2019 describing citations the state issued against Playa Vista.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nissani appealed the state’s citations, saying some of the workers’ statements are untrue. Since then, COVID-19 and the administrative hearing process have made the case drag on for three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Hearsay evidence’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In July 2020, the Labor Commissioner also filed a lawsuit against the car wash, Nissani and general manager Keyvan Shamshoni in an attempt to compel them to pay the fines and back wages. Shamshoni also was named in the original citation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nissani filed objections to the suit, claiming the workers’ statements to the state inspector were hearsay and not backed by evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A trial in that civil case was postponed. During his appeal before the Labor Commissioner, Nissani has argued the investigation into his car wash was flawed and relied on anecdotal evidence. His appeal brief said the state’s investigator coaxed workers to sign “untruthful statements” and that the state’s fines and wage assumptions are “grossly inflated” and “riddled with erroneous, unfounded assumptions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924073\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1.jpg\" alt=\"a car wash\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City on July 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In August 2021 Playa Vista submitted evidence supporting its case, including its own audit by a Los Angeles consulting firm that concluded the car wash may have overpaid its workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two former Playa Vista workers interviewed by CalMatters, Cesar Jacobo and Luis Diaz, told a different story. They also have described the changes under Nissani in sworn statements in the Labor Commissioner’s court case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his statement, 47-year-old Jacobo said the following: Nissani called a worker meeting in November 2014. With one of the managers translating, Nissani introduced himself as the new owner and announced there would no longer be overtime pay. Nissani then asked workers to sign letters agreeing to no further overtime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924074\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1.jpg\" alt=\"a car wash\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City on July 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A few months later, Shamshoni told the staff they needed to report to work at 7:30 a.m. but workers would begin their shifts whenever managers decided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said that we could not walk or wait around the car wash, as that would disturb the clients that were waiting if they saw us and wanted us to work on their cars,” he continued in his statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Unpredictable hours\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The workers waited in alleys near the car wash, resulting in unpredictable work hours. When Jacobo complained, he said, he was given fewer hours in retaliation. Lunch also grew to be a problem, with workers asked to wait long stretches, sometimes two hours uncompensated, before returning to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In early 2018, Jacobo said that he was promoted to manager but asked to be demoted — in part because he felt uncomfortable choosing which workers would get work and which would not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his statement, Diaz, 56, said he was a manager who had worked at Playa Vista for 18 years when Nissani took over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924075\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1.jpg\" alt=\"a portrait of a middle-aged man posing by a green van\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz worked in the garment industry for eight years until a friend offered to teach him how to wash cars for a living. ‘I realized that the tips really helped double my pay, and ever since then, it has been 24 years since I got into the car-washing industry,’ Diaz said. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In their statements, both Diaz and Jacobo said the new managers refused to call in additional workers even when the car wash was backed up with clients, in an effort to cut costs. Business deteriorated and workers went past eight hours a day as a result, they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Under Hooman (Nissani), the car wash was almost always understaffed: The managers hired way fewer people to operate the car wash on a daily basis than the previous owners, but we still had the same number of cars to service,” Jacobo said. “Oftentimes, I was the only person working in the detailing section, or in other sections of the business, and leaving those sections to take a break would result in leaving a part of the business unattended.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Playa Vista’s attorneys in their appeal wrote that the car wash was undergoing renovations, getting new car-washing equipment, and “as a result, the need for manual labor by employees diminished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Lost earnings\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said he remembers no punch clock, no means provided to record his hours. Managers kept track of workers’ hours, he said, a point also made by Jacobo and Diaz in their sworn statements. Like Dominguez, they said workers were given no process to keep track of their hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than anything, those long waits in the alley stand out in Dominguez’s memory. At times they would begin work at 8 a.m., other times 10 a.m., other times later, he said. As they waited their turn to work, the workers chatted, rested, played various games, even an occasional match of pickup soccer, Dominguez said. But mostly, they sat in frustration, he said, because they weren’t earning money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Losing income when his family in Mexico depended on him plunged Dominguez into despair, he said. He worked other jobs on his days off, at times returning to day labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you lose a day, you have to make it up some other way,” Dominguez said. “There isn’t an option of being without work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2017, Alejandra Hernandez, an inspector with the Labor Commissioner’s Bureau of Field Enforcement, received a tip about the pay practices at the Playa Vista Car Wash, according to court filings and records in Nissani’s appeal. By then, with 18 years’ experience, Hernandez had worked on at least 600 audits, 200 workplace inspections and 100 citations. The Playa Vista referral came from the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, a nonprofit organization born out of the 2008 unionization efforts. Jacobo is now an employee of CLEAN, and Dominguez has done occasional outreach and education work for the nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The referral was one of many stemming from the state’s enforcement efforts to eliminate wage theft in certain low-wage industries, including car wash businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Ripple effects\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After years of individual workers struggling to navigate California’s lengthy wage claim process — often unsuccessfully — then-California Labor Secretary Julie Su began partnering with workers’ rights organizations in California to bring targeted, high-profile actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The theory of this partnership is that your average worker who works in janitorial or in a restaurant or even in agriculture, they’re not just going to go on their own to report the labor law violation,” said Amaya Jennifer Lin, a campaign manager for the National Employment Law Project who has worked with 17 worker centers and the Labor Commissioner’s office over the last six years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We hope to create, ideally, ripple effects across not just a worksite but across multiple employers and across industries,” Lin said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Business groups argue that the thousands of claims filed by workers last year are only a tiny fraction of California’s $3.5 trillion economy and that most businesses are trying to comply with labor laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924078\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24.jpg\" alt=\"a man's hand wrings out a yellow washcloth\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz rinses a cloth used to dry cars. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The vast majority … of California employers are compliant in paying wages timely and fairly while trying to untangle and decipher California’s complex and ever-growing body of employment law,” said Denise Davis, spokesperson for the California Chamber of Commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Economists who study the issue argue that such claims data doesn’t fully capture how much wage theft exists in the economy because so many workers simply don’t report these violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new inspection\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When CLEAN’s referral about Playa Vista came to Hernandez, the inspector began an investigation that included surveillance of Playa Vista, two on-site inspections — including an “inspection warrant” on March 9, 2018 — and 19 worker interviews, she said in court records. Jacobo was one of the workers interviewed, Hernandez said in a sworn statement. Dominguez also spoke to investigators, according to records obtained through a public records request from the Labor Commissioner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees, including Shamshoni, gave sworn depositions, and the Labor Commissioner’s office issued subpoenas for payroll records and other business documents after Nissani refused to cooperate, according to filings in the court case. A central part of Nissani’s defense has been challenging Hernandez’s audit, arguing she did not interview all of the workers and therefore the state’s citations were too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the audit was completed in March 2019, the state issued 12 citations against Nissani, Shamshoni and the business entity totaling $2.36 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state noted “workers were required to report to an alley next to the car wash 30 minutes before the business opened to be selected to work that day. Those not selected were typically sent home several hours later without being paid for the waiting time. Workers were also frequently required to take extended lunch breaks with no split shift premium, or worked up to 10 hours a day with no overtime pay. Managers regularly altered workers’ time cards to reduce total hours worked,” in a press release about its findings and citations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924080\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924080\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26.jpg\" alt=\"two men in beige shirts wash a car\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz (left) and Rodrigo Hernandez wash a car outside the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center in Los Angeles, an organization that fights for fair wages and health and safety protections for workers. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said the process has been frustrating, like the days he worked at the car wash and waited in the alley. For the case, he would show up some days at a state office to testify remotely on one of their computers, only to wait around and eventually be sent home, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A worker model\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While he awaits resolution of the case, Dominguez and four other car wash workers have launched a new venture. On a recent weekday in July, Dominguez awoke at 6 a.m., he said, left his Mar Vista apartment and drove east to Montebello, traversing much of the city before traffic set in. He parked near a garage where he and a team of other self-employed workers, some from the Playa Vista case, keep a van stocked with car-washing equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez, Diaz and some other car wash veterans started \u003ca href=\"https://www.cleancarwash.org/cooperative#cleanwashmobile\">CleanWash Mobile\u003c/a>, a worker-owned alternative to the car washes they’ve spent their lives in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before 7:30 a.m. Dominguez had pulled the CleanWash Mobile van up to the cracked, uneven driveway of CLEAN’s Los Angeles headquarters, a no-frills storefront with barred windows and a Farmers Insurance office as their back neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cooperative had 10 customers lined up for a range of car-washing services, including some detailing work. By 8:30 a.m. Diaz and Rodrigo Hernandez, another former Playa Vista worker, had arrived, donning broad-brimmed hats to protect them from the rising sun and light beige polo shirts over their work clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Future in his hands\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Their prices range from $40 for a sedan express wash to a full detail for $300. \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/04/27/governor-newsom-announces-appointments-4-27-22/\">Adonia Lugo\u003c/a>, a bicycle activist, university lecturer and recent appointee to the California Transportation Commission, got her car washed that day, saying she wanted to support the movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is worker-owned and these are people who are fighting to improve working conditions,” she said. “That’s totally a sustainable transportation issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic ended Dominguez’s time at Playa Vista, he said, and like many lower-income workers, he struggled during lockdowns. He and his sisters sold food out of their kitchen to make ends meet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bills don’t stop,” Dominguez said. “We all helped each other out, and that was the only way we survived.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924089\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924089\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31.jpg\" alt=\"a man in a beige shirt and bucket hat washes a car\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz washes a vehicle outside the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center in Los Angeles on July 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dominguez counts himself lucky. One of his co-workers, Eduardo Flores, who also was a party to the Playa Vista case, died of COVID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez has suffered his own losses. His sister died in July. His mother died a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost my mom, I lost my sister, and they depended a lot on me, so now only I depend on myself,” Dominguez said. “My future is in my own hands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more customers pulled their cars up, Hernandez, Díaz and Dominguez took turns lathering and scrubbing exteriors with sponges and neon-colored towels. The men’s movements were measured, their gaits slow. After a few hours all of the men’s cheeks were red and sweaty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez would work until 7 p.m., not unlike the hours he put in at a commercial car wash, but the pressure was different, he said, taking a break, watching cars zoom by on Washington Boulevard. Working for yourself, he said, you can set the pace, take your time, cast your thoughts back toward home, toward a little village to which you might one day return.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the work they do now, the men pay themselves $17.25 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters reporter Jeanne Kuang and data reporter Erica Yee contributed reporting.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The state said the case against the Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City would be the largest wage theft payout by a California car wash — but Antonio Dominguez and dozens of other car washers have yet to see their unpaid wages.",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/alejandro-lazo/\">Alejandro Lazo\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/lil-kalish/\">Lil Kalish\u003c/a>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Lea este artículo \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/calmatters-en-espanol/2022/08/robo-de-salarios-trabajadores-de-lavado-de-autos-en-caso-de-2-3-millones-aun-esperan-su-pago-luego-de-3-anos/\">en español\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Antonio Dominguez had never seen a car wash before moving to Los Angeles from Mexico in 1997. As a 24-year-old day laborer, he’d walk home each day, stop along a palm-lined boulevard and watch a team of mostly Mexican workers sponge, rinse, dry and polish a line of cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was charmed by the waiting customers who seemed pleased with how their vehicles were left gleaming. And he simply loved the cars. In his Mexican hometown, there were few paved roads and cars were luxuries. “I just wanted to touch those cars, those new cars,” Dominguez said. “They came out so pretty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Dominguez worked five years at his first car wash job, earning only cash tips, and then was put on the payroll, though his weekly check often didn’t pay him for all of his hours, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his next job, at the Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City, sometimes Dominguez and the other workers were told to wait in an alley for hours, uncompensated, or they were sent home with no pay, he and the state of California have said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019 the state Labor Commissioner’s office found Playa Vista had shortchanged Dominguez and 63 other workers in wages. It said it was fining the company more than $2.3 million in wage theft violations and penalties, its largest fine ever issued against a car wash business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years later, those workers have not been paid. Playa Vista appealed the fine. Last week the Labor Commissioner said both sides had reached a settlement agreement in principle, without describing the details.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An exercise in frustration\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Playa Vista’s owner, Hooman Nissani, in his appeal of the fines and citations has said the investigation was flawed and that an audit his company paid for indicates the car wash overpaid some of the staff. Through an attorney, he declined to comment to CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s enforcement of wage theft laws remains an exercise in frustration for workers and businesses alike, despite years of legislative efforts, some of America’s toughest labor laws, and some of the nation’s highest levels of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/income-inequality-in-california/\">income inequality\u003c/a>, many experts and advocates said. In California’s wage theft cases, workers can wait months or years to be repaid lost or stolen wages — even when state regulators step in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year California workers filed nearly 19,000 individual stolen wage claims totaling more than $338 million, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/when-employers-steal-wages-from-workers/\">database\u003c/a> provided to CalMatters by the Labor Commissioner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many claims did settle, the average case filed last year that got to a decision was 334 days old — well over the 135-day limit set by law — and thousands of cases filed in 2021 remain pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the timeline for investigations can be lengthy, improvements in our laws have given the Labor Commissioner’s Office … new tools to assist workers in recovering stolen wages,” said Erika Monterroza, a spokesperson, adding the state has made progress on hiring people to help enforce those laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I would tell myself that in this country, I was nobody.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>She did not comment on the Playa Vista car wash case. The Playa Vista action was brought not by individual workers but by a state enforcement office, yet it is involved, years later, in a quasi-judicial and a civil litigation process, according to state documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is one of many investigations aimed at targeting wage theft in specific industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The most vulnerable\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wage theft — or the failure by employers to pay employees what they are owed — typically affects the most vulnerable: people with the least education and financial means and fewest legal protections. Often they are immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924034\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924034\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a Latino man in a beige polo shirt\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_Dominguez_PU_CM_12-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antonio Dominguez, 48, started CleanWash Mobile with other car wash workers in Los Angeles. Nearby, the CLEAN Car Wash Center, a nonprofit, provides peer training, an auto detail program and information about health, safety and labor protections. ‘When one comes to this country, one thinks that it is normal to not be paid justly,’ said Dominguez, who has worked in the car wash industry for 23 years. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said he believes he was taken advantage of because he was ignorant of his rights. “I would tell myself that in this country, I was nobody,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now 48, Dominguez has graying black hair, bags under his eyes, deep wrinkles and a weary smile. He has described his experiences working at car washes to state investigators, in testimony and in interviews with CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He grew up the son of a small-plot farmer in the Mexican village of Molcaxac, which he said means “bird’s nest” in Náhuatl, the Aztec language. Dominguez remembers the countryside, situated in the central state of Puebla, as a semi-desert marvel of jaguars, eagles, coyotes, cacti, oak trees and cascading waterfalls. His childhood home was a sheet-metal house, and his father wore huaraches, a type of leather sandal, instead of shoes. They could only get by and never get ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had nothing,” Dominguez said. “We were poor by nature. There was only enough to eat, and just the essentials.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez migrated to Los Angeles, finding himself in Mar Vista, a neighborhood of midcentury homes and cramped apartment complexes east of Venice Beach. With few connections, Dominguez first found work as a day laborer. On his walk home each day, he passed a large full-service car wash. He got a job there, he said, after striking up a conversation with a car wash worker who coincidentally was from his village.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A low-paying industry\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said he worked at that car wash from about 1997 to 2005. For the first five years, he said, he made tips only, often little more than $15 a day, and in his final years he was paid with weekly checks that barely were enough to cover his expenses and send some money home to his family in Mexico, chiefly his mother and sister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez advanced in his car-washing skills, learning all aspects of the business, he said. But in 2005 he returned to Mexico after longing for home and feeling disillusioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You arrive at that moment where you say, ‘What am I doing here?’” Dominguez said. “Why suffer here if you’re better off over there?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the same time that Dominguez began working in the car wash industry, Victor Narro, now a law professor and project director at the UCLA Labor Center, began researching low-wage workers as an advocate for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, a Los Angeles nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups\" layout=\"responsive\" frameborder=\"0\" resizable src=\"https://calmatters-car-wash.netlify.app/industry-stats\" class=\"i-amphtml-layout-responsive i-amphtml-layout-size-defined\" role=\"button\" scrolling=\"yes\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2002, Narro helped UCLA law students interview 23 car wash workers for one of the earliest research papers on the industry in Los Angeles. Interviewers found several of the younger, more recently hired car washers were being paid only in tips, and many expressed the attitude of gratitude for the work — calling themselves propineros, a play on the Spanish word for “tip.” Narro presented the paper to Sacramento lawmakers as evidence that the industry needed regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was shocked when I was encountering that,” Narro told CalMatters. “It was a major practice, and we knew it was a crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Car wash laws\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Workers also were being paid per car, or daily rates, and some were being asked to work off the clock, Narro said. He found an ally in civil rights and antiwar activist Tom Hayden, a state senator who in 1999 authored \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=199920000SB1097\">a bill that would have required car wash businesses\u003c/a> to register with the Labor Commissioner and post surety bonds that could be used to recover unpaid wages and benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Gov. Gray Davis initially vetoed the bill in 2000 but \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=200320040AB1688\">signed an even more robust version three years later\u003c/a>, which, along with the registration requirement, created a restitution fund for car wash workers. The law required employers to carry surety bonds of at least $15,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2008 the United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO launched a mostly unsuccessful attempt to organize Southern California car wash workers. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013 \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1387\">signed a bill\u003c/a> that increased the bond car washes are required to carry to $150,000, but it exempted owners who signed bargaining agreements with unions. These days there are 28 Los Angeles car washes with United Steelworkers Local 675 members, two others in Orange County and one in San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We are collectively failing our workers throughout the state in industries where they need us the most.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Critics say California’s enforcement of its requirement that car washes register with the state has lacked enforcement, particularly during the pandemic. A report this year by UCLA graduate students found 770 car washes registered with the state in 2020. But there were 2,015 of these establishments operating in California, according to 2020 U.S. census figures. Los Angeles County alone had 576 car washes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10992949/embed\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" class=\"flourish-embed-iframe\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px;\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner issued only five citations in 2020 to car washes for not registering, and 13 in 2021. The agency had averaged 108 citations a year in the 10 years prior to the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More wage theft enforcement\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Ash Kalra, the San José Democrat who chairs the house’s Committee on Labor and Employment, said the Legislature needs to commit more funds to enforcement and the Labor Commissioner needs to deploy them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need more resources and more accountability, particularly in industries like the car wash industry,” he said. “We need to raise our voices and make it very clear that we are collectively failing our workers throughout the state in industries where they need us the most.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has added 288 people to the Labor Commissioner’s Office since January 2021, Monterroza said, including 116 in the Wage Claim Adjudication Unit and 63 in the Bureau of Field Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Labor Commissioner also gained new authority last year to put liens on the properties of businesses that are the subject of the state’s Bureau of Field Enforcement actions, she said, to secure final payments for things such as wage theft. Recently, the commission office used this tool to collect $282,000 from another car wash business, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Getting a bad rap\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>David Murillo, executive director of the Western Carwash Association, said California’s enforcement of its car wash regulations puts those who comply at a competitive disadvantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The good actors are paying for the bad actors,” added Chris Buscaglia, a former board member of the association. “We get the bad rap; we pay all the money. It’s a thorn in our side.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10992981/embed\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" class=\"flourish-embed-iframe\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px;\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 100%!;margin-top: 4px!important;text-align: right!important\">\u003ca class=\"flourish-credit\" style=\"text-decoration: none!important\" href=\"https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/10992981/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/10992981\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 105px!important;height: 16px!important;border: none!important;margin: 0!important\" src=\"https://public.flourish.studio/resources/made_with_flourish.svg\" alt=\"Made with Flourish\"> \u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>By 2009, Dominguez, said he had returned to Los Angeles and was working a new job at Playa Vista, a full-service car wash with a gas station and convenience store on the corner of Centinela Avenue. With his years of experience, Dominguez said, he started at $10.25 an hour, which was $2.25 above the minimum wage then. He was content and proud, he said, to send money home to support his family in Mexico. He was later promoted to detailer and got a dollar-an-hour raise, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything was going so well,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, Nissani took over the business, and the pay and work environment changed, said Dominguez, as did other former Playa Vista workers interviewed by CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers described not getting paid for all their work, having to wait long hours off the clock and not being paid overtime, according to a state press release in 2019 describing citations the state issued against Playa Vista.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nissani appealed the state’s citations, saying some of the workers’ statements are untrue. Since then, COVID-19 and the administrative hearing process have made the case drag on for three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Hearsay evidence’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In July 2020, the Labor Commissioner also filed a lawsuit against the car wash, Nissani and general manager Keyvan Shamshoni in an attempt to compel them to pay the fines and back wages. Shamshoni also was named in the original citation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nissani filed objections to the suit, claiming the workers’ statements to the state inspector were hearsay and not backed by evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A trial in that civil case was postponed. During his appeal before the Labor Commissioner, Nissani has argued the investigation into his car wash was flawed and relied on anecdotal evidence. His appeal brief said the state’s investigator coaxed workers to sign “untruthful statements” and that the state’s fines and wage assumptions are “grossly inflated” and “riddled with erroneous, unfounded assumptions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924073\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1.jpg\" alt=\"a car wash\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_39-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City on July 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In August 2021 Playa Vista submitted evidence supporting its case, including its own audit by a Los Angeles consulting firm that concluded the car wash may have overpaid its workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two former Playa Vista workers interviewed by CalMatters, Cesar Jacobo and Luis Diaz, told a different story. They also have described the changes under Nissani in sworn statements in the Labor Commissioner’s court case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his statement, 47-year-old Jacobo said the following: Nissani called a worker meeting in November 2014. With one of the managers translating, Nissani introduced himself as the new owner and announced there would no longer be overtime pay. Nissani then asked workers to sign letters agreeing to no further overtime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924074\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1.jpg\" alt=\"a car wash\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Playa_Vista_Car_Wash_PU_CM_42-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City on July 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A few months later, Shamshoni told the staff they needed to report to work at 7:30 a.m. but workers would begin their shifts whenever managers decided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said that we could not walk or wait around the car wash, as that would disturb the clients that were waiting if they saw us and wanted us to work on their cars,” he continued in his statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Unpredictable hours\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The workers waited in alleys near the car wash, resulting in unpredictable work hours. When Jacobo complained, he said, he was given fewer hours in retaliation. Lunch also grew to be a problem, with workers asked to wait long stretches, sometimes two hours uncompensated, before returning to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In early 2018, Jacobo said that he was promoted to manager but asked to be demoted — in part because he felt uncomfortable choosing which workers would get work and which would not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his statement, Diaz, 56, said he was a manager who had worked at Playa Vista for 18 years when Nissani took over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924075\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1.jpg\" alt=\"a portrait of a middle-aged man posing by a green van\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_05-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz worked in the garment industry for eight years until a friend offered to teach him how to wash cars for a living. ‘I realized that the tips really helped double my pay, and ever since then, it has been 24 years since I got into the car-washing industry,’ Diaz said. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In their statements, both Diaz and Jacobo said the new managers refused to call in additional workers even when the car wash was backed up with clients, in an effort to cut costs. Business deteriorated and workers went past eight hours a day as a result, they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Under Hooman (Nissani), the car wash was almost always understaffed: The managers hired way fewer people to operate the car wash on a daily basis than the previous owners, but we still had the same number of cars to service,” Jacobo said. “Oftentimes, I was the only person working in the detailing section, or in other sections of the business, and leaving those sections to take a break would result in leaving a part of the business unattended.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Playa Vista’s attorneys in their appeal wrote that the car wash was undergoing renovations, getting new car-washing equipment, and “as a result, the need for manual labor by employees diminished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Lost earnings\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said he remembers no punch clock, no means provided to record his hours. Managers kept track of workers’ hours, he said, a point also made by Jacobo and Diaz in their sworn statements. Like Dominguez, they said workers were given no process to keep track of their hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than anything, those long waits in the alley stand out in Dominguez’s memory. At times they would begin work at 8 a.m., other times 10 a.m., other times later, he said. As they waited their turn to work, the workers chatted, rested, played various games, even an occasional match of pickup soccer, Dominguez said. But mostly, they sat in frustration, he said, because they weren’t earning money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Losing income when his family in Mexico depended on him plunged Dominguez into despair, he said. He worked other jobs on his days off, at times returning to day labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you lose a day, you have to make it up some other way,” Dominguez said. “There isn’t an option of being without work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2017, Alejandra Hernandez, an inspector with the Labor Commissioner’s Bureau of Field Enforcement, received a tip about the pay practices at the Playa Vista Car Wash, according to court filings and records in Nissani’s appeal. By then, with 18 years’ experience, Hernandez had worked on at least 600 audits, 200 workplace inspections and 100 citations. The Playa Vista referral came from the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, a nonprofit organization born out of the 2008 unionization efforts. Jacobo is now an employee of CLEAN, and Dominguez has done occasional outreach and education work for the nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The referral was one of many stemming from the state’s enforcement efforts to eliminate wage theft in certain low-wage industries, including car wash businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Ripple effects\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After years of individual workers struggling to navigate California’s lengthy wage claim process — often unsuccessfully — then-California Labor Secretary Julie Su began partnering with workers’ rights organizations in California to bring targeted, high-profile actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The theory of this partnership is that your average worker who works in janitorial or in a restaurant or even in agriculture, they’re not just going to go on their own to report the labor law violation,” said Amaya Jennifer Lin, a campaign manager for the National Employment Law Project who has worked with 17 worker centers and the Labor Commissioner’s office over the last six years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We hope to create, ideally, ripple effects across not just a worksite but across multiple employers and across industries,” Lin said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Business groups argue that the thousands of claims filed by workers last year are only a tiny fraction of California’s $3.5 trillion economy and that most businesses are trying to comply with labor laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924078\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24.jpg\" alt=\"a man's hand wrings out a yellow washcloth\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_24-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz rinses a cloth used to dry cars. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The vast majority … of California employers are compliant in paying wages timely and fairly while trying to untangle and decipher California’s complex and ever-growing body of employment law,” said Denise Davis, spokesperson for the California Chamber of Commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Economists who study the issue argue that such claims data doesn’t fully capture how much wage theft exists in the economy because so many workers simply don’t report these violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new inspection\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When CLEAN’s referral about Playa Vista came to Hernandez, the inspector began an investigation that included surveillance of Playa Vista, two on-site inspections — including an “inspection warrant” on March 9, 2018 — and 19 worker interviews, she said in court records. Jacobo was one of the workers interviewed, Hernandez said in a sworn statement. Dominguez also spoke to investigators, according to records obtained through a public records request from the Labor Commissioner’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees, including Shamshoni, gave sworn depositions, and the Labor Commissioner’s office issued subpoenas for payroll records and other business documents after Nissani refused to cooperate, according to filings in the court case. A central part of Nissani’s defense has been challenging Hernandez’s audit, arguing she did not interview all of the workers and therefore the state’s citations were too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the audit was completed in March 2019, the state issued 12 citations against Nissani, Shamshoni and the business entity totaling $2.36 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state noted “workers were required to report to an alley next to the car wash 30 minutes before the business opened to be selected to work that day. Those not selected were typically sent home several hours later without being paid for the waiting time. Workers were also frequently required to take extended lunch breaks with no split shift premium, or worked up to 10 hours a day with no overtime pay. Managers regularly altered workers’ time cards to reduce total hours worked,” in a press release about its findings and citations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924080\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924080\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26.jpg\" alt=\"two men in beige shirts wash a car\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_Car_Wash_CleanOP_PU_CM_26-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz (left) and Rodrigo Hernandez wash a car outside the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center in Los Angeles, an organization that fights for fair wages and health and safety protections for workers. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dominguez said the process has been frustrating, like the days he worked at the car wash and waited in the alley. For the case, he would show up some days at a state office to testify remotely on one of their computers, only to wait around and eventually be sent home, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A worker model\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While he awaits resolution of the case, Dominguez and four other car wash workers have launched a new venture. On a recent weekday in July, Dominguez awoke at 6 a.m., he said, left his Mar Vista apartment and drove east to Montebello, traversing much of the city before traffic set in. He parked near a garage where he and a team of other self-employed workers, some from the Playa Vista case, keep a van stocked with car-washing equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez, Diaz and some other car wash veterans started \u003ca href=\"https://www.cleancarwash.org/cooperative#cleanwashmobile\">CleanWash Mobile\u003c/a>, a worker-owned alternative to the car washes they’ve spent their lives in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before 7:30 a.m. Dominguez had pulled the CleanWash Mobile van up to the cracked, uneven driveway of CLEAN’s Los Angeles headquarters, a no-frills storefront with barred windows and a Farmers Insurance office as their back neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cooperative had 10 customers lined up for a range of car-washing services, including some detailing work. By 8:30 a.m. Diaz and Rodrigo Hernandez, another former Playa Vista worker, had arrived, donning broad-brimmed hats to protect them from the rising sun and light beige polo shirts over their work clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Future in his hands\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Their prices range from $40 for a sedan express wash to a full detail for $300. \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/04/27/governor-newsom-announces-appointments-4-27-22/\">Adonia Lugo\u003c/a>, a bicycle activist, university lecturer and recent appointee to the California Transportation Commission, got her car washed that day, saying she wanted to support the movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is worker-owned and these are people who are fighting to improve working conditions,” she said. “That’s totally a sustainable transportation issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic ended Dominguez’s time at Playa Vista, he said, and like many lower-income workers, he struggled during lockdowns. He and his sisters sold food out of their kitchen to make ends meet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bills don’t stop,” Dominguez said. “We all helped each other out, and that was the only way we survived.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924089\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924089\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31.jpg\" alt=\"a man in a beige shirt and bucket hat washes a car\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/07212022_CleanOP_PU_CM_31-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Diaz washes a vehicle outside the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center in Los Angeles on July 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dominguez counts himself lucky. One of his co-workers, Eduardo Flores, who also was a party to the Playa Vista case, died of COVID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez has suffered his own losses. His sister died in July. His mother died a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost my mom, I lost my sister, and they depended a lot on me, so now only I depend on myself,” Dominguez said. “My future is in my own hands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more customers pulled their cars up, Hernandez, Díaz and Dominguez took turns lathering and scrubbing exteriors with sponges and neon-colored towels. The men’s movements were measured, their gaits slow. After a few hours all of the men’s cheeks were red and sweaty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dominguez would work until 7 p.m., not unlike the hours he put in at a commercial car wash, but the pressure was different, he said, taking a break, watching cars zoom by on Washington Boulevard. Working for yourself, he said, you can set the pace, take your time, cast your thoughts back toward home, toward a little village to which you might one day return.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the work they do now, the men pay themselves $17.25 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters reporter Jeanne Kuang and data reporter Erica Yee contributed reporting.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "the-fences-didnt-help-24th-street-mission-bart-vendors-brace-for-new-permit-system-amid-crackdown-on-sale-of-stolen-goods",
"title": "'The Fences Didn't Help': 24th Street Mission BART Vendors Brace for New Permit System Amid Crackdown on Sale of Stolen Goods",
"publishDate": 1661619522,
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"headTitle": "‘The Fences Didn’t Help’: 24th Street Mission BART Vendors Brace for New Permit System Amid Crackdown on Sale of Stolen Goods | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>The 24th Street BART plaza, in San Francisco’s Mission, is the beating heart of the city’s Latino Cultural District. Commuters riding the escalators up from the underground station are immediately immersed in the unmistakable aroma of carne asada sizzling in the nearby taquerias, the sounds of street ministers preaching in Spanish and the sight of people from all walks of life moving through this Bay Area crossroads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaza has traditionally served as a public space to congregate or rest, as well as an unofficial marketplace for street vendors. But in recent months, it’s become a point of contention among community members, amid the city’s ongoing efforts to combat the sale of stolen goods on its streets. In response to public safety concerns from San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the district, BART erected fences around the plaza in late July, keeping only a narrow corridor open for passengers to access the station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923861\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923861\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"24th Street and Mission BART in the background and a man pushing an ice cream cart in the foreground\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vendors sell goods on 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But on August 20, a group of self-described community members and vendors dismantled the fences in protest, lambasting the blockade strategy as an attack on lower-income people already struggling to survive. The fences have remained dismantled since then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ronen this week told KQED she has no intention of asking BART to reinstall them and said she regrets not having first held a town hall to gather community input before the original decision was made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You live and you learn and in the future we will do that,” said Ronen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Calle 24, a local community group, convened its own town hall this past Tuesday, an event that drew some 200 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923853\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923853\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands speaking with one arm raised, as several other people sit listening in the background\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maria Cristina Gutiérrez speaks during a town hall meeting filled with Mission residents, local vendors and members of community organizations about the fence that was put up at 24th and Mission BART, at the Latino Task Force health site in San Francisco on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What can we do to better protect the women who go out to work for their children?” asked Yolanda Dorado, a Mission resident who said she walks through the plaza before sunrise in order to get to work, and has been harassed there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The community needs more police to prevent people from selling drugs outside BART,” added Silvia Ferrusquía, who runs a nearby bridal and quinceañera dress shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some in attendance, particularly younger people, voiced concerns that more law enforcement presence in the neighborhood would likely lead to an uptick in police violence against people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You and your history have shown us how a community can protect itself,” said Rut Hernandez, who grew up in the Mission. “If the older generation thinks the police can be of help, it’s worth considering it. Even if we’re not in agreement about that, we can reach some sort of compromise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On August 20, within hours of the fences being dismantled, the plaza was once again packed with vendors as pedestrians gathered to watch a low-rider parade.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Joshua Baltodano, Mission resident\"]‘The fences didn’t help. If anything, they just created more of a problem.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fences didn’t help. If anything, they just created more of a problem,” said Joshua Baltodano, a nearby resident who helped create the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/missiondefence_sf/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mission DeFence\u003c/a>” Instagram page to organize resistance against the fences. “When the fences were here, there was no room for anybody. Now we have room to actually have some legitimate vendors out here selling their goods and services and trying to make a living.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltodano said BART tried to reinstall the fences later on Saturday morning but gave up when community members refused to leave the plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vendor Demetra Block, who has been selling used clothes on the streets for the past two years, said she came back and set up shop at the plaza shortly after the fences came down. She said she relies on the plaza not only to sell her wares, but also to buy basic necessities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sell my stuff for $1, $2 or $5. Which is very affordable. I also have to come here to get my laundry detergent,” she said. “I can’t afford no $20 laundry detergent at the stores. But I can come here and get it for 10 or 15 bucks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also pushed back against the assertion that open-air markets, like this one, are dangerous, and said in the time she has been coming here, she has never seen a fight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These people are trying to feed their families. They’re staying out of trouble. They’re not selling drugs,” Block said. “Why would they take this place from us?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Ronen said in the months leading up to the fences being erected, her office received numerous complaints from constituents that the plaza had become overcrowded and unruly, with an increasing number of people selling stolen goods and making it hard for seniors and people with disabilities to navigate the sidewalks. Meanwhile, nearby brick-and-mortar businesses complained that the street vendors created unfair competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ronen also said some longtime vendors who had sold in the neighborhood for decades reported being assaulted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People would come and rip their tablecloth off the table and have all of their wares flying away,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923854\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923854\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a hat stands next to a variety of wares with houses in the mission in the background\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jerome Allen sells items a block away from 24th and Mission streets to have more space, in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Stop and Shop’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Another vendor, Jerome Allen, used to sell goods at the plaza but was forced to move down Mission Street when the fences went up. His sidewalk spread, which he calls “Stop and Shop,” is among the larger ones in the vicinity. It stretches the entire length of a typical retail storefront, and is organized by wares, including shoes, clothes, tools, electronics and games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can name something I don’t have, I’ll give you something for free,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he tries to maintain a legitimate business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of the stuff, people donate to me,” he said. “They’ll just pull up in their car and give me a bag of stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Allen acknowledges that inevitably, some of what he and others sell may have originally been stolen before it reaches them — what he calls “boosting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the boosting has gotten a little out of hand, you know, they’re doing too much,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, viral videos of organized retail theft operations — including a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1G8cA_s9BI\">brazen robbery of a Louis Vuitton store\u003c/a> in the city’s upscale Union Square shopping district, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R09QamyK1YM\">a man in a Walgreens casually throwing items off a shelf\u003c/a> into a garbage bag and riding his bicycle out of the store — thrust San Francisco into the national spotlight, particularly galvanizing the attention of conservative media outlets, which pumped out headlines describing the city as “\u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-san-francisco-crime-attitude-of-lawlessness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lawless\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State and local politicians took notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Illegal street vending has posed a significant challenge to our city and our small businesses for quite some time now, and it has only gotten worse since the beginning of the pandemic,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a March press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unwanted publicity from retail theft spurred action from politicians and law enforcement agencies, who began to focus on cracking down not only on theft, but also the resale of the stolen goods. The BART plaza fence was another of these reactions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some of the vendors who spoke with KQED said they were in favor of the fences. Garcia is one of the vendors who continued selling alongside the fences while they were still up (he asked that his full name not be used because he fears for his safety). He said he actually welcomed the fences, because it prevented people from harassing him while he worked.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Hillary Ronen, San Francisco supervisor\"]‘I believe this law is essential to making change in the neighborhood, because once people realize that their goods are going to be confiscated, then it’s no longer going to be profitable to sell these stolen goods in the streets.’[/pullquote]Garcia said someone even recently stole the dolly he had used to transport his stuff. But he still returns to the plaza to sell his wares, and uses what he earns to pay his rent and send money home to his family in Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another vendor, Lourdes Villegas, who sells tamales and champurrado, a warm beverage, at the plaza, said that she supports the fences because they prevented people from hanging around her table at the plaza. She said the crowds made her food appear unhygienic and drove customers away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re protecting our area so that we can continue to maintain our livelihood. If we let it one person come, everyone will come,” said Villegas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923855\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923855\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Vendors on 24th and Mission BART plaza stand under red tends speaking to people\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susana Rojas (right), executive director of Calle 24, speaks with a vendor on 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The new rules\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The fences were a last resort, and were never intended to be the permanent solution to address the complaints about deteriorating conditions at the plaza. That was intended to be addressed by a controversial \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/apply-street-vending-permit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new street vendor permit\u003c/a> ordinance the city’s Board of Supervisors unanimously passed in March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wording of the\u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=10676767&GUID=38123A26-8DC6-42A9-89C5-9C18D4CE8AE7\"> measure\u003c/a> makes a clear connection between unregulated street vending and an increase in disturbances that require police intervention. It specifically cites an informal market of vendors at United Nations Plaza in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood that “fuels unlawful activity [and] leads to a high volume of 911 calls, incident reports, and arrests.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the new law had been slow to implement on the ground — the city’s Department of Public Works now plans to begin enforcing it on September 12, roughly six months after its passage. Ronen, who has tried to fast-track its implementation, said the department needed time to create the entire permitting process, and that the ordinance includes a mandatory outreach period to inform street vendors of the changes and allow them enough time to comply with the new rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susana Rojas, executive director of Calle 24 in the Mission, is one of the community organizers putting the word out about the new law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after spending several months trying to inform vendors about the imminent rule changes, she said many people are still confused about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s fear. This is the way that they make their money. Anytime that they think, ‘Oh my God, I’m not gonna be able to vend there,’ they kind of shut off. So we have to come back multiple times until they understand what it is,” she said. “For us, what is important is that they do understand and they are ready so that they don’t end up getting moved and lose income with something that’s preventable if we all work together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new rules, vendors will be required to register for a business license, and pay a $430 fee to get a permit. They’ll also need to show proof of original purchase if they’re selling products that appear to be new. Without that proof, their goods can be confiscated by city enforcement officers; if they continue selling without permits, they could face fines of up to $1,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923857\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923857\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A variety of different items seen through a fence\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Goods for sale on 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2022. \u003ccite>(Bath LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ronen said she sees this new law as the “ultimate solution” to ending the sale of stolen goods on city streets, and the allegedly unsafe conditions that accompany them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe this law is essential to making change in the neighborhood, because once people realize that their goods are going to be confiscated, then it’s no longer going to be profitable to sell these stolen goods in the streets,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also acknowledges that many people who take to selling goods on the street are simply trying to earn a basic income, and notes that the new rules do not carry any criminal penalties for vending without a license.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do believe that the vendors themselves, even the vast majority of the vendors selling the stolen goods, are not criminals themselves. They’re trying to survive,” she said. “This is the result of living in an expensive city with minimum-wage jobs, rising inequality and all these deep-rooted social problems that we have in San Francisco not allowing people to make ends meet.”[aside tag=\"mission, BART\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]Susana Rojas, with Calle 24, said that the nonprofit reluctantly supported the fences being erected. She said they did so because the number of complaints from community members made them feel that they had run out of options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never said that the fence was perfect. The fence was a little barrier to protect the vendors and to provide some kind of relief. That’s what the fences are, and to also give us an opportunity to create the process so that our vendors can have the BART plaza back,” said Rojas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Going forward, she hopes that the future of the plaza will be community led.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hoping that we can come up with a community solution to make it better and to really have the steps that are going to support people … and addressing the root issues,” said Rojas, adding that her organization is now working to help some vendors fill out their paperwork and pay the new fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But opponents of the new vendor law say it will just make life harder for people already struggling to make ends meet, and will ultimately further displace longtime residents of the Mission by removing a crucial source of income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked whether she plans on getting a permit to sell her goods, vendor Demetra Block scoffed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t afford $430. They know that we can’t pay that,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Dan Brekke and Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The 24th Street BART plaza, in San Francisco’s Mission, is the beating heart of the city’s Latino Cultural District. Commuters riding the escalators up from the underground station are immediately immersed in the unmistakable aroma of carne asada sizzling in the nearby taquerias, the sounds of street ministers preaching in Spanish and the sight of people from all walks of life moving through this Bay Area crossroads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaza has traditionally served as a public space to congregate or rest, as well as an unofficial marketplace for street vendors. But in recent months, it’s become a point of contention among community members, amid the city’s ongoing efforts to combat the sale of stolen goods on its streets. In response to public safety concerns from San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the district, BART erected fences around the plaza in late July, keeping only a narrow corridor open for passengers to access the station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923861\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923861\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"24th Street and Mission BART in the background and a man pushing an ice cream cart in the foreground\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57805_021_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vendors sell goods on 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But on August 20, a group of self-described community members and vendors dismantled the fences in protest, lambasting the blockade strategy as an attack on lower-income people already struggling to survive. The fences have remained dismantled since then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ronen this week told KQED she has no intention of asking BART to reinstall them and said she regrets not having first held a town hall to gather community input before the original decision was made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You live and you learn and in the future we will do that,” said Ronen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Calle 24, a local community group, convened its own town hall this past Tuesday, an event that drew some 200 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923853\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923853\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands speaking with one arm raised, as several other people sit listening in the background\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS58094_021_KQED_24thMissionTownHall_08232022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maria Cristina Gutiérrez speaks during a town hall meeting filled with Mission residents, local vendors and members of community organizations about the fence that was put up at 24th and Mission BART, at the Latino Task Force health site in San Francisco on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What can we do to better protect the women who go out to work for their children?” asked Yolanda Dorado, a Mission resident who said she walks through the plaza before sunrise in order to get to work, and has been harassed there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The community needs more police to prevent people from selling drugs outside BART,” added Silvia Ferrusquía, who runs a nearby bridal and quinceañera dress shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some in attendance, particularly younger people, voiced concerns that more law enforcement presence in the neighborhood would likely lead to an uptick in police violence against people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You and your history have shown us how a community can protect itself,” said Rut Hernandez, who grew up in the Mission. “If the older generation thinks the police can be of help, it’s worth considering it. Even if we’re not in agreement about that, we can reach some sort of compromise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On August 20, within hours of the fences being dismantled, the plaza was once again packed with vendors as pedestrians gathered to watch a low-rider parade.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘The fences didn’t help. If anything, they just created more of a problem.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fences didn’t help. If anything, they just created more of a problem,” said Joshua Baltodano, a nearby resident who helped create the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/missiondefence_sf/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mission DeFence\u003c/a>” Instagram page to organize resistance against the fences. “When the fences were here, there was no room for anybody. Now we have room to actually have some legitimate vendors out here selling their goods and services and trying to make a living.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baltodano said BART tried to reinstall the fences later on Saturday morning but gave up when community members refused to leave the plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vendor Demetra Block, who has been selling used clothes on the streets for the past two years, said she came back and set up shop at the plaza shortly after the fences came down. She said she relies on the plaza not only to sell her wares, but also to buy basic necessities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sell my stuff for $1, $2 or $5. Which is very affordable. I also have to come here to get my laundry detergent,” she said. “I can’t afford no $20 laundry detergent at the stores. But I can come here and get it for 10 or 15 bucks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also pushed back against the assertion that open-air markets, like this one, are dangerous, and said in the time she has been coming here, she has never seen a fight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These people are trying to feed their families. They’re staying out of trouble. They’re not selling drugs,” Block said. “Why would they take this place from us?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Ronen said in the months leading up to the fences being erected, her office received numerous complaints from constituents that the plaza had become overcrowded and unruly, with an increasing number of people selling stolen goods and making it hard for seniors and people with disabilities to navigate the sidewalks. Meanwhile, nearby brick-and-mortar businesses complained that the street vendors created unfair competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ronen also said some longtime vendors who had sold in the neighborhood for decades reported being assaulted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People would come and rip their tablecloth off the table and have all of their wares flying away,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923854\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923854\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a hat stands next to a variety of wares with houses in the mission in the background\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57817_005_24thMissionVendors_08102022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jerome Allen sells items a block away from 24th and Mission streets to have more space, in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Stop and Shop’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Another vendor, Jerome Allen, used to sell goods at the plaza but was forced to move down Mission Street when the fences went up. His sidewalk spread, which he calls “Stop and Shop,” is among the larger ones in the vicinity. It stretches the entire length of a typical retail storefront, and is organized by wares, including shoes, clothes, tools, electronics and games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can name something I don’t have, I’ll give you something for free,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he tries to maintain a legitimate business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of the stuff, people donate to me,” he said. “They’ll just pull up in their car and give me a bag of stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Allen acknowledges that inevitably, some of what he and others sell may have originally been stolen before it reaches them — what he calls “boosting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the boosting has gotten a little out of hand, you know, they’re doing too much,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, viral videos of organized retail theft operations — including a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1G8cA_s9BI\">brazen robbery of a Louis Vuitton store\u003c/a> in the city’s upscale Union Square shopping district, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R09QamyK1YM\">a man in a Walgreens casually throwing items off a shelf\u003c/a> into a garbage bag and riding his bicycle out of the store — thrust San Francisco into the national spotlight, particularly galvanizing the attention of conservative media outlets, which pumped out headlines describing the city as “\u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-san-francisco-crime-attitude-of-lawlessness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lawless\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State and local politicians took notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Illegal street vending has posed a significant challenge to our city and our small businesses for quite some time now, and it has only gotten worse since the beginning of the pandemic,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a March press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unwanted publicity from retail theft spurred action from politicians and law enforcement agencies, who began to focus on cracking down not only on theft, but also the resale of the stolen goods. The BART plaza fence was another of these reactions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some of the vendors who spoke with KQED said they were in favor of the fences. Garcia is one of the vendors who continued selling alongside the fences while they were still up (he asked that his full name not be used because he fears for his safety). He said he actually welcomed the fences, because it prevented people from harassing him while he worked.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I believe this law is essential to making change in the neighborhood, because once people realize that their goods are going to be confiscated, then it’s no longer going to be profitable to sell these stolen goods in the streets.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Garcia said someone even recently stole the dolly he had used to transport his stuff. But he still returns to the plaza to sell his wares, and uses what he earns to pay his rent and send money home to his family in Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another vendor, Lourdes Villegas, who sells tamales and champurrado, a warm beverage, at the plaza, said that she supports the fences because they prevented people from hanging around her table at the plaza. She said the crowds made her food appear unhygienic and drove customers away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re protecting our area so that we can continue to maintain our livelihood. If we let it one person come, everyone will come,” said Villegas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923855\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923855\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Vendors on 24th and Mission BART plaza stand under red tends speaking to people\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57792_009_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susana Rojas (right), executive director of Calle 24, speaks with a vendor on 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The new rules\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The fences were a last resort, and were never intended to be the permanent solution to address the complaints about deteriorating conditions at the plaza. That was intended to be addressed by a controversial \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/apply-street-vending-permit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new street vendor permit\u003c/a> ordinance the city’s Board of Supervisors unanimously passed in March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wording of the\u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=10676767&GUID=38123A26-8DC6-42A9-89C5-9C18D4CE8AE7\"> measure\u003c/a> makes a clear connection between unregulated street vending and an increase in disturbances that require police intervention. It specifically cites an informal market of vendors at United Nations Plaza in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood that “fuels unlawful activity [and] leads to a high volume of 911 calls, incident reports, and arrests.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the new law had been slow to implement on the ground — the city’s Department of Public Works now plans to begin enforcing it on September 12, roughly six months after its passage. Ronen, who has tried to fast-track its implementation, said the department needed time to create the entire permitting process, and that the ordinance includes a mandatory outreach period to inform street vendors of the changes and allow them enough time to comply with the new rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susana Rojas, executive director of Calle 24 in the Mission, is one of the community organizers putting the word out about the new law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after spending several months trying to inform vendors about the imminent rule changes, she said many people are still confused about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s fear. This is the way that they make their money. Anytime that they think, ‘Oh my God, I’m not gonna be able to vend there,’ they kind of shut off. So we have to come back multiple times until they understand what it is,” she said. “For us, what is important is that they do understand and they are ready so that they don’t end up getting moved and lose income with something that’s preventable if we all work together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new rules, vendors will be required to register for a business license, and pay a $430 fee to get a permit. They’ll also need to show proof of original purchase if they’re selling products that appear to be new. Without that proof, their goods can be confiscated by city enforcement officers; if they continue selling without permits, they could face fines of up to $1,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923857\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11923857\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A variety of different items seen through a fence\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57809_027_24thMissionVendors_08112022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Goods for sale on 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2022. \u003ccite>(Bath LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ronen said she sees this new law as the “ultimate solution” to ending the sale of stolen goods on city streets, and the allegedly unsafe conditions that accompany them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe this law is essential to making change in the neighborhood, because once people realize that their goods are going to be confiscated, then it’s no longer going to be profitable to sell these stolen goods in the streets,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also acknowledges that many people who take to selling goods on the street are simply trying to earn a basic income, and notes that the new rules do not carry any criminal penalties for vending without a license.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do believe that the vendors themselves, even the vast majority of the vendors selling the stolen goods, are not criminals themselves. They’re trying to survive,” she said. “This is the result of living in an expensive city with minimum-wage jobs, rising inequality and all these deep-rooted social problems that we have in San Francisco not allowing people to make ends meet.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Susana Rojas, with Calle 24, said that the nonprofit reluctantly supported the fences being erected. She said they did so because the number of complaints from community members made them feel that they had run out of options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never said that the fence was perfect. The fence was a little barrier to protect the vendors and to provide some kind of relief. That’s what the fences are, and to also give us an opportunity to create the process so that our vendors can have the BART plaza back,” said Rojas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Going forward, she hopes that the future of the plaza will be community led.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hoping that we can come up with a community solution to make it better and to really have the steps that are going to support people … and addressing the root issues,” said Rojas, adding that her organization is now working to help some vendors fill out their paperwork and pay the new fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But opponents of the new vendor law say it will just make life harder for people already struggling to make ends meet, and will ultimately further displace longtime residents of the Mission by removing a crucial source of income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked whether she plans on getting a permit to sell her goods, vendor Demetra Block scoffed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t afford $430. They know that we can’t pay that,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Dan Brekke and Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
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}
},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/code-switch-life-kit",
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},
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
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