Lei Pan’s daughter’s 18th birthday approached. He went shopping that January day for a cake from Safeway and long noodles from a local grocery store in San Francisco’s Chinatown. In Chinese tradition, eating those noodles on a birthday harkens a long life for the celebrant. Pan found it harder to pay for his shopping — the previous May, he had stopped working for the Lee’s Deli restaurant chain.
The restaurant owners still owed him about $2,000 in unpaid wages. By spring, the last locations closed, ending the Bay Area chain’s 40-year history across about a dozen locations. The closure also ended his hopes that the owners would give him back pay, which had become more and more scant as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the restaurant.
Before Lee’s Deli closed, Pan’s workday began at 6 or 7 a.m. The 54-year-old started in Lee’s Deli’s Second Street kitchen, where he had been employed since he immigrated in 2005. Pan maintained three jobs to support his partner and two children in Chinatown.
Without his income as a chef at Lee’s Deli, he said through a translator, “It’s hard to imagine just how hard it was.”
As he shopped this January, Pan knew from former colleagues on WeChat that Lee’s Deli workers were discussing collective action to recoup their losses. He thought it must be luck that halfway between the grocery store and Safeway sits the Chinese Progressive Association’s office. Pan stopped at the CPA’s headquarters, less than a half-mile from the first Lee’s Deli at 343 Kearny St.
The CPA collaborates with the city’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement as part of the Workers’ Rights Community Collaborative. With six other member community organizations, it informs workers of their rights and guides them toward reconciliation.
Since mid-2022, the collaborative has assisted in the recovery of over $2 million in compensation, according to the CPA. However, the city administrator’s office said that departments across the city have to reduce costs in this year’s budget. This week, the Board of Supervisors is deciding if that includes cutting the collaborative’s funding roughly in half.
The Workers’ Rights Community Collaborative has individually consulted almost 1,000 San Franciscans in 10 languages, according to their estimates.
First: CPA’s Jenny Huang (left) speaks at a press conference about a settlement for lost wages for former Lee’s Deli workers while Andres Pomart of Trabajadores Unidos Workers United (TUWU) and Mei Mei Chan of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus look on, at the Chinese Progressive Association’s San Francisco office on June 6, 2024. Last: (From left to right) Jenny Huang, Andres Pomart, Mei Mei Chan, Selina Luo and Joyce Lam of the CPA.
“We have people who speak the same language, who come from the same culture, who can directly share with people,” explained Jenny Huang from the CPA, adding that their organization also has a more than 50-year reputation in Chinatown.
“Those are the things that really move people to action and it’s not just knowing that ‘Oh, there’s a law,’ or ‘Oh, there is some new protection,’” Huang said.
In the Bay Area, almost 5 percent of workers do not earn the state’s minimum wage, according to a Rutgers University study of the last decade.
“For mono-lingual, non-English speaking immigrant workers, they might not be comfortable coming to a government agency,” said Patrick Mulligan, director of the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement. “That’s the benefit in having a community liaison to engage workers.”
Wage theft could mean non- or under-payment, but could also include an employer who fails to provide mandated benefits like breaks or paid sick leave. Some employers do not accurately classify employees, account for their tips, or count the hours worked.
It doesn’t mean anything, to be honest, to just pass a law, right? It needs to be enforced. It needs to be talked about.
Jenny Huang, Chinese progressive association
Mulligan’s office staffs a hotline for each type of labor law inquiry, listed on the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement’s website. Mulligan said his office responds to each call within 24 hours.
“We have a lot of protections, we have a lot of laws,” Selina Luo, an outreach organizer, said Thursday at a press conference to discuss the workers’ settlement.
Luo said that in her experience and hearing from the community, “The relationships that I’ve built with people and that trust is actually crucial in us connecting people to their rights and to get services.”
The collaborative especially focuses on reaching Asian and Latino workers. According to the Rutgers study, wage theft predominately affects Bay Area employees without college degrees, people of color, women, youth and immigrants. Vulnerable people tend to work in private homes, restaurants, bars and laundries — often hourly or part-time.
“It doesn’t mean anything, to be honest, to just pass a law, right? It needs to be enforced. It needs to be talked about,” said Huang.
She explained that San Francisco leads the state and country on paper, but “regular working people that are most impacted need to understand, what are the ways that they can access these tools. And so that’s why we exist.”
The potential reduction in the collaborative’s budget comes on the heels of the California State Auditor’s report at the end of May. The auditor found that across the state, most wage theft cases in the last five years have not led to any recovered pay. Roughly one-quarter of cases led to any collection. Enforcement agencies in California recovered full wages for almost one case in eight. The auditor blamed, among other issues, staffing shortages.
Not a ‘big celebration’
Lee Quan, the owner of Lee’s Deli, settled with his former employees for roughly $60,000 with the help of the city and collaborative. For the 17 workers, that amount equaled the entirety of their back wages and one week of vacation compensation.
“It’s not like we will have a big celebration,” said Pan, “We will just use the money to pay for rent and daily things.”
Pan described a good working environment during his almost 20 years at Lee’s Deli.
Regarding the settlement, he said “I felt sorry that the business just went down and we got into the situation where we needed to fight back for the wages which we were supposed to get in the beginning.”
He saw his bosses struggling as much as their employees during the pandemic. Pan said he wished the government had done more to help small businesses.
Quan did not respond to Bay City News’ request for an interview.
Mulligan explained, “Just because we’ve had an enforcement action doesn’t mean they’re bad employers. It means they made a mistake and they paid a penalty.”
He said his office settled over 400 cases last year. Mulligan added that it is hard to count labor infractions unless workers reach out to his office.
“Workers respond to success,” Mulligan said, continuing that frustrated workers could be more likely to come forward if they see colleagues had a good experience with his office. “Workers are less concerned with precedent and more concerned with getting the money. It’s not lost on us, they need the money.”
The city administrator’s office acknowledged that the outreach collaborative’s budget could be halved. Its current budget is roughly $780,000. A representative expressed that they value the program.
Just because we’ve had an enforcement action doesn’t mean they’re bad employers. It means they made a mistake and they paid a penalty.
Patrick Mulligan, director of the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement
They explained, “Across the city, departments received instructions to identify 10% in general fund reductions to balance the city’s structural deficit. The City Administrator’s Office submitted over $6 million in reductions.”
If the budget cuts go through, the CPA will have to make hard decisions about the services it can provide.
“As the city thinks about recovering from the pandemic and revitalizing the economy, we need to prioritize the everyday, working Californians and San Franciscans,” said Joyce Lam, the CPA’s acting co-director.
She added that the government needs to keep these workers in mind and “think about what they need, because they are really the ones who are running our city.”
At 10 a.m. Wednesday at City Hall, the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee will discuss the budget allocation to the Workers’ Rights Community Collaborative. Members of the public can give comment without signing up beforehand.
