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City attorney outlines use of AB 594, recent cases and grant bids to expand wage‑theft enforcement
Summary
City Attorney officials described how AB 594 supplements existing enforcement tools, summarized recent impact litigation and said the office has applied for a second year of a state prosecutor grant to expand capacity.
The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office told the Economic and Jobs Committee it is using state Assembly Bill 594 as an additional enforcement tool but that the office long has enforced wage and hour laws by borrowing state statutes under the Unfair Competition Law.
The public rights branch’s interim chief, Senior Assistant City Attorney Michael Bostrom, said the branch focuses on “impact litigation” in cases that require substantial resources and aim to change employer business practices. He told the committee the office litigated a high‑profile case at the Port Complex over misclassification of trucking drivers, won a published Court of Appeal decision affirming that California’s AB‑5 is not preempted by federal trucking regulations, and obtained about $500,000 in penalties in that matter.
Bostrom said the city filed a separate action late last year against a janitorial staffing company and two grocery chains over alleged systemic wage theft covering about 80 grocery locations and seeking redress for roughly 400 employees over the statute of limitations period. He described those cases as resource‑intensive and said defendants often “vigorously fight” such suits.
Deputy City Attorney Dania Minassian, of the workers rights division, explained distinctions among the city attorney’s branches and the Office of Wage Standards (OWS). She said local administrative enforcement expanded in 2021 and that some local agencies can now pursue additional labor‑law violations under local ordinance and the Labor Code provision discussed in the meeting.
Bostrom told the committee the city has used grant funding to expand enforcement capacity: last year the city applied for $750,000 in state prosecutor grant funds, received about $312,000, and used that money to backfill a deputy city attorney position that enabled the janitorial/grocery litigation to move from investigation to active prosecution. He said the city has applied for the second year of that state grant (again requesting $750,000) and expects award decisions by July 1.
On remedies, Bostrom said the city historically enforces labor violations via the Business and Professions Code (the Unfair Competition Law) and that AB 594 expands the remedies available to local prosecutors, including additional statutory penalties and, in some cases, attorney fees. He said those increased remedies make certain actions more practicable for the city.
Committee members asked whether the city previously enforced only local minimum wage violations and whether meal, rest‑break and overtime claims were within the city’s enforcement scope. Minassian said the different enforcement entities have different statutory powers: the public rights branch brings actions “in the name of the people of the state of California” under the Unfair Competition Law, while OWS exercises local administrative enforcement under the City’s ordinance framework and the Labor Code provisions that authorize local enforcement.
Bostrom and Minassian both emphasized that larger, systemic cases require substantial office resources and that the city prioritizes matters where its branch can achieve the greatest impact. The committee asked for an updated report from the City Attorney’s Office on grant funding and awards for the coming cycle; the committee continued the item pending that report back.
