What's at stake?
The Fresno City Attorney wants to take companies to civil or criminal court over wage theft cases — much to the applause of workers and dismay of the local business community.
The Fresno City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a new program to combat wage theft in the city.
Councilmember Tyler Maxwell and City Attorney Andrew Janz emphasized that the program would not target small businesses that make accounting errors — it would instead go after egregious instances of companies refusing to pay workers the wages they deserve.
“We will not be coming after small mom-and-pop shops that make honest mistakes — we will use those as educational moments for those folks,” Maxwell said on the dais. “We will be coming after the Bitwises of the world, the Cheesecake Factories of the world, who lie and cheat their honest employees out of their hard-earned money.”
The program drew criticism in a letter from Fresno’s Chamber of Commerce, which has a membership of over 1,200 local businesses. Councilmember Luis Chavez said he received 18 phone calls from Chamber members, describing those conversations as “animated.”
The Chamber of Commerce’s President and CEO Scott Miller said his organization is against wage theft, but it does not think a city program is the best way to address the issue. He added that the current system of investigating wage theft in Fresno is operating just fine.
“Our position as a chamber is that we don’t think that there are a lot of examples of wage theft that go unanswered if they are reported to the state or to any attorney because the enforcement actions are pretty robust,” Miller told Fresnoland, adding that the program was announced without consulting the business community.
Councilmember Mike Karbassi said he understood the hesitation from local businesses, but, after speaking with the city attorney’s office, he said it’s clear that only the worst offenders would be held accountable.
Since Fresno’s wage theft program “left some people uncomfortable,” Karbassi proposed amending it to end in July 2026, instead of January 2029, as initially proposed. The program could be renewed in the future at the city attorney’s request and via council approval. Maxwell accepted the amendment before the resolution got support from everyone on the dais.
During public comment at the city council meeting Thursday, a handful of local union representatives and workers spoke in support of creating the program. Some said they are still trying to recoup wages going back several years, and that the current process to report wage theft to the state is not timely or effective.
Fresno’s wage theft program is structured to first refer any local wage theft claims to the California Labor Commissioner’s Office. Up until this year, only that state agency could investigate wage theft claims in California. A new state law, AB 594, allows for public prosecutors, including city attorneys, to take companies to civil or criminal court over wage theft cases.
If the commissioner’s office does not take action on local wage theft claims within 30 days, the city attorney’s office would then take up the case. Janz said the program would be modeled after the city’s eviction protection program.
Councilmember Miguel Arias noted that the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office already has a team focused on wage theft, but added that if they were effective at their job, there wouldn’t be so many workers in Fresno trying to obtain the wages they worked for and deserve.
Arias also took issue with the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to Fresno’s wage theft program, mentioning a letter he and his colleagues on the council received yesterday. He went on to list several local businesses and organizations with representatives on the Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors.
“Frankly, I think they should be ashamed of their position in objecting to workers being paid and thieves being held accountable,” Arias said. “Not only have they objected to this proposal, but they’ve engaged in political threats against members of this body for doing our basic job.”
Miller said comments about political threats were likely referring to a message he left Maxwell that mentioned how the Chamber of Commerce may consider reevaluating political endorsements.
“We’ve had a couple of members ask us to put it on the agenda to reconsider an endorsement — not for all of them, just for one of them,” Miller said. “That’s not a threat. It was a, ‘Hey, this is really serious to our members. Would you please call me back?’”
In other Fresno City Council news
The Fresno City Council moved forward with a $142,287 contract for 222 new street signs in the Cesar Chavez Boulevard renaming project. Several community members showed up to speak during public comment in opposition to the effort, noting how litigation over the matter is still ongoing.
Additionally, city staff moved a hearing to the Feb. 22 City Council meeting that would consider issuing a permit for a new warehouse project near the intersection of Marks and West Nielsen Avenues.
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