Economists estimate that wage theft costs California workers $2 billion a year in lost wages. In 2021, nearly 19,000 workers filed wage claims with the state, alleging wage theft totaling over $338 million.

These workers say employers failed to pay them for work they performed, didn’t pay them the minimum wage, prevented them from taking meal or rest breaks, didn’t pay them their tips, or misclassified them as contract workers. Yet just over 10% of workers recover their wages.

This widespread issue in California is a key focus of Irvine’s Fair Work initiative, which partnered with journalist Sarah Jackson in 2023 to document the problem of wage theft and spotlight the people fighting back through a series of articles and videos.

The project highlighted the growing network of worker centers throughout California that are taking a strategic approach to tackle the issue and ensure workers are paid for their work. Workers who belong to these organizations also shared their stories of speaking up and described the toll wage theft has taken on them and their families.

Money, said Andrea Gonzalez, who organizes car wash workers with the CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, “comes and goes,” but understanding your rights under the law and how to exercise them is, she said, “something that’s forever.”

“We want justice to prevail,” Daniel Reyes (not his real name to protect him from retaliation), a residential worker, said. “Because if not, they are going to do it again and again and again.”