• Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara) announced a legislative oversight hearing in response to the recent state auditor’s report on wage theft, according to a June 13 statement from Hart’s office. The audit identified substantial deficiencies by the California Labor Commissioner’s Office in assisting Californians affected by wage theft. According to Labor Commissioner’s Office data, it had 47,000 backlogged claims at the end of fiscal year 2022-23. Its Wage Claims Adjudications Unit lacks a sufficient number of staff throughout its field offices and thus can neither process new wage claims in a timely manner nor efficiently reduce the extensive backlog of wage claims. It also lacks complete and accurate data to enable it to provide proper oversight and ensure compliance with statutory requirements, according to the audit. “The Labor Commissioner’s Office clearly needs to do a better job helping Californians who have been victims of wage theft. A backlog of 47,000 claims is unacceptable. A collection rate of 12 percent is unacceptable. Taking an average of more than two years to issue decisions on wage claims is unacceptable,” Hart said in the statement. “At the hearing, I want to hear real solutions to these problems from the labor commissioner. Californians who have been victims of wage theft deserve better.”
• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal visited the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office to highlight new funding he secured in this year’s federal budget to support replacing the dispatch system, according to a June 11 statement from Carbajal’s office. The $2 million in federal funds will help upgrade the hardware and software of the radio dispatch system, which handles the 10,000 annual calls and is the county’s largest 911 dispatch. The current system is set to expire in September 2024. This funding is part of $13.4 million secured by Carbajal for 14 Central Coast projects that the congressman championed over the course of the past year’s federal budget negotiations. The projects range from supporting the development of new affordable housing projects to water system upgrades. “I’m proud to have secured $2 million in federal funding to support the replacement of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office radio dispatch system,” Carbajal said in the statement. “This investment will help bring upgraded hardware and software, enhancing our community’s safety and response capabilities. It’s a testament to our commitment to ensuring our law enforcement has the tools they need to effectively serve and protect.”
• U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-California) and Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) introduced the Disaster Relief for Farm Workers Act to provide compensation for farmworkers who lose out on work and pay due to extreme weather, public health emergencies, and other disasters. California is home to up to 800,000 year-round and seasonal farmworkers who help power the state’s $59 billion agricultural economy, yet despite their contributions to the local, regional, and national economies, there are few protections for the farm workforce, according to a statment from Padilla’s office. The California agricultural economy faces $2.4 billion in damages from 2023 alone, and that’s before accounting for flooded farmworker homes in Pajaro or lost farmworker income. Existing federal disaster relief programs insufficiently compensate farmworkers when they lose wages as a result of conditions out of their control according to the senator’s office. “California’s farmworkers labor under extreme conditions to help put food on the table for hundreds of millions of Americans,” Padilla said in the statement. “But as farmworkers in Pajaro learned last year after extreme flooding, and those across the country know too well, natural disasters can devastate agricultural communities. We must protect the beating heart of our nation’s food supply by providing critical emergency assistance to these essential workers.”
