Wage Claims at State Labor Office

Re “Many Find Labor Office Slow to Act,” Jan. 13:

Since 1980, California has become home to 5 million new immigrants. To maintain minimum labor standards for all Californians, the adjudication of wage claims must fall primarily on my division (Division of Labor Standards Enforcement).

We attempt to resolve each wage claim informally on a first-come-first-served basis. As to each of the 44,000 claims, we must serve all equally, whether a $200 claim or a $2,000 claim. In 1994 approximately 35,000 cases were resolved in a timely manner without the need for formal hearings.

For the more complex cases, DLSE held 11,000 formal hearings. This process is heavily reliant upon the schedules of both parties to the claim and the timely provision of documentation by each. Nearly one-third of DLSE staff is bilingual, and in addition, contract translators are used to ensure that both employees and employers understand the claims process.

As you reported, immigrant labor accounts for 96% of the sewing machine operators and 91% of California farm workers. Both industries have had a long history of labor law violations. To correct this tendency the Targeted Industries Partnership Program (TIPP) was begun in 1992. Rather than blaming a reduction of wage claims on the realignment of DLSE offices, the article should have taken into account TIPP’s intervention, which precluded the filing of thousands of wage claims by employees in these industries. TIPP aided those employees who, because of their cultural tendency to distrust governmental systems, would never have come forward to file a wage claim.

ROBERTA E. MENDONCA

State Labor Commissioner

San Francisco