Vol. 98, No. 3

Wage Theft in Los Angeles: Evaluating the Deputization of Worker Centers as an Enforcement Measure

Kalysa To*
Administrative Law, deputization, Labor Law, wage, wage theft
Notes

In 2023, Los Angeles County was called the “wage theft capital of the nation,” with up to $28 million stolen from workers every week. This form of theft especially places low-income workers at risk; 80% of low-wage Los Angeles County workers reportedly experience wage theft. In spite of this vast problem, however, government agencies tasked with the enforcement of wage theft have been overworked and underfunded. The under-resourcing of government agencies results in short-staffed labor offices, prolonging the time it takes to resolve wage theft claims and increasing the likelihood that victims of wage theft either drop their claim or fail to raise a claim at all.

To address this problem in Los Angeles City, deputization by the Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards could extend authority to worker centers—community-based workers’ rights organizations—to support the enforcement of wage theft. The Los Angeles Municipal Code could grant worker centers the power to advise workers on their rights, inspect employer records for wage violations, and ultimately expand the enforcement of the issue and thereby reduce wage theft. This Note provides the first analysis of deputization within this space and at this depth, introducing new legal analysis and proposing a new enforcement tool with which to address the massive issue of wage theft.

This Note argues that the deputization of worker centers fits within Los Angeles’s existing statutory framework and would be a constitutional delegation of the legislature’s power under the California Constitution. In so doing, this Note makes recommendations to bolster the constitutionality of the deputization of worker centers by the Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards so that more resources can be put in place to reduce the rampant wage theft problem throughout the city.

Introduction

Wage theft is a pervasive problem in the United States, affecting over two million workers¹ and costing as much as $50 billion in lost wages each year.² Wage theft is one of the most common crimes committed in the United States,³ with employers stealing more wages from workers each year than is stolen in “bank robberies, convenience store robberies, street and highway robberies, and gas station robberies combined.”⁴ A “form of fraud” that “occurs when employers do not pay their workers” what they are legally entitled to, wage theft encompasses a broad range of employers’ activities that deprive workers of earned compensation.⁵ Victims of wage theft include workers who are (1) paid less than the legally mandated minimum wage (affecting almost two million workers in the United States),⁶ (2) misclassified as “independent contractors” and not provided with the legal rights employees are entitled to,⁷ or (3) not properly paid for overtime or provided with meal breaks.⁸

The problem is particularly prevalent in Los Angeles. In 2023, the Los Angeles Worker Center Network called Los Angeles the “wage theft capital of the nation,” with $26 to $28 million stolen from workers every week in Los Angeles County.⁹ The study also found that workers who stand up for their rights against wage theft place themselves at risk of retaliation, facing consequences such as “reduced hours, increased workload, firing and threats of deportation.”¹⁰ In addition, a 2024 report found that the Los Angeles metropolitan area lost an average of $1.6 to $2.5 billion a year between 2014 and 2023 through minimum wage violations alone,¹¹ and that over 7% of workers were paid below California’s state minimum wage.¹²

Recent findings about the prevalence of wage theft in Los Angeles have led lawmakers to introduce new legislation to ameliorate the problem.¹³ In April 2024, California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office created the Workers’ Rights Enforcement Grant to provide a new funding source targeted at deterring wage theft and other workplace exploitations.¹⁴ The Workers’ Rights Enforcement Grant awards grants to California public prosecutors to “develop and implement a wage theft enforcement program.”¹⁵ The grants are to be used to fund staff salaries and benefits; $8,550,000 was awarded during the first grant cycle in 2024–2025 and another $8,550,000 will be awarded between 2025–2026, with a maximum grant of $750,000 per applicant.¹⁶

While there have been recent laws targeting wage theft, laws aimed at remedying this issue have been in existence for several years. Various administrative agencies are tasked with the enforcement of employment laws, including determining whether workers are being paid the legally mandated minimum wage, whether employees are properly compensated for overtime worked, and whether employers have violated other employment laws. On the federal level, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division monitors the enforcement of laws including the federal minimum wage.¹⁷ On the state level, California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office (known formally as the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement) combats wage theft and protects workers from retaliation.¹⁸ On the local level, some cities have established agencies that enforce local laws and ordinances. Within the city of Los Angeles, the Office of Wage Standards “is responsible for implementing and administering the guidelines of the Los Angeles Minimum Wage and Minimum Wage Enforcement Ordinances.”¹⁹

However, agencies tasked with the enforcement of employment and labor laws have been “chronically” underfunded.²⁰ A 2018 report by Politico found that, in fifteen states, 41% of lost wages were unrecovered.²¹ This underenforcement comes even as employers’ violations of these laws grow rampant. A 2021 report published by the nonprofit advocacy group National Employment Law Project found that, in 2019 alone, workers earning less than $13 an hour were prevented from recovering over $9.27 billion in stolen wages because of employer-forced arbitration.²² In spite of this, the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute (“EPI”) found that, between 2017 and 2020, only “$3.24 billion in stolen wages was recovered for workers” nationwide.²³ The underenforcement of minimum wage laws is a problem in California, where workers were owed $280 million in unrecovered claims from unpaid wages in 2017.²⁴ And these claims arise only when workers report these wage theft violations; underenforcement of these laws may mean there are a great number of workers who suffer wage theft but either choose not to report a violation or are not sufficiently informed of their rights to be aware that a violation has occurred.²⁵

The inefficiency of agencies enforcing wage theft has also become apparent in recent years. A report by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office found that, although state law requires wage claims to be adjudicated within 120 days, the average claim took nearly 400 days to be adjudicated in 2018.²⁶ These long wait times disadvantage victims of wage theft by discouraging affected workers from filing claims, increasing the likelihood that the worker will drop their claim before resolution, and potentially compelling workers “to settle their claims for smaller amounts.”²⁷

Wage theft has far-reaching and pernicious effects. Wage theft can cause economic insecurity by introducing financial uncertainty and causing workers to fear the repercussions of speaking up.²⁸ In addition, a 2014 study from a nonprofit public health organization found that wage theft reduces the income that is necessary to provide for an employee’s family, which gives way to downstream effects: employees’ children are “less likely to succeed in school,” and workers’ increased stress causes them to feel more anxious and experience poor mental and socioemotional health.²⁹ Wage theft also has effects on society at large, such as creating unfair competition with businesses that do comply with the law, increasing the need for safety-net and welfare programs, and “reducing needed tax revenues.”³⁰

Given the seriousness of wage theft and the inadequacy of its current enforcement, deputization offers a solution. Deputization would endow private citizens with the authority extended to governmental wage theft authorities. The rights granted to private citizens could vary widely, ranging from entering work sites and advising workers of their rights to accessing employer records to inspect wage violations. However, more rigorous embracing of deputization would lead to more momentum for addressing the enforcement of wage and hour law and decreasing the instances of wage theft suffered by workers.

I. Deputization

Despite the enormity of the wage theft problem in the U.S., the enforcement and containment of the issue is limited. Victims of wage theft currently have a few potential avenues of recourse: (1) file a complaint with the relevant federal, state, or local labor agency;³¹ (2) file a private lawsuit under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”); (3) file a private lawsuit under state or local wage and hour standards; or (4) do all three.³² Filing a private lawsuit is burdensome and sometimes out of the question for low-income and marginalized workers (whom wage theft disproportionately affects and who may face difficulty finding attorneys interested in taking low-dollar cases).³³

However, leaving the enforcement of wage theft up to the designated government entities is not a solution either—most state and local governments lack sufficient resources to investigate and enforce workplace standards.³⁴ In recent years, the California Labor Commissioner’s office has reportedly been “too short-staffed to do its job,” an issue that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting labor shortage.³⁵ In 2023, employees at the California Labor Commissioner’s office cited a 30%–40% vacancy rate in the office and reported that these vacancies caused employee burnout, stress, lowered morale, and sometimes the decision to leave the office altogether.³⁶ A high vacancy rate, overworked staff, and the resulting “exodus of talented workers” result in an office that is poorly equipped to handle the sheer volume of wage theft claims.³⁷

One way to address this problem is to deputize private citizens to provide them with the same authorizations that a governmental entity is granted under relevant statutes. Deputized citizens could help the agency more effectively use its authority to enforce the laws among a greater number of affected employers and employees. In particular, private citizens may be deputized to investigate wage theft such that they could enter worksites, speak with employees, and inspect employer records. Sharing the responsibilities of wage theft enforcement with private citizens would reduce the workload of government employees, allowing them to focus their resources on the other stages of resolving a wage theft claim, such as settlements, hearings, and recommendations.

A. What Is Deputization?

Deputization occurs when a principal party “empowers an agent” (“deputizes” the agent) to perform some agreed-upon function,³⁸ authorizing the agent to act on the principal’s behalf in limited ways.³⁹ Throughout history, deputization has taken many forms and currently exists in many different contexts.⁴⁰ The judiciary has engaged in deputization; as early as the 19th century, federal courts deputized employer-hired private security personnel to enforce federal injunctions against striking workers.⁴¹ Today, the deputization of private attorneys by local prosecutorial agencies to head criminal prosecutions is still common.⁴² The federal government has also deputized state and local officials to enforce laws; for instance, the legislature authorizes state and local law enforcement agencies to perform immigration law enforcement functions through the Immigration and Naturalization Act.⁴³

In addition to deputization of government officials, existing examples of deputization also involve private individuals. The Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) is a model of deputization which gives authority to private citizens under California law,⁴⁴ meaning that an official government entity is not needed to litigate these violations. This statute “deputizes” private citizens by “authoriz[ing] aggrieved employees to file lawsuits to recover civil penalties on behalf of the State of California for Labor Code violations.”⁴⁵ PAGA was passed in response to deficiencies in the state’s ability to “effectively investigate and prosecute” labor law abuses,⁴⁶ especially as there was an increasing “disparity between California’s large labor force” and the “finite” resources of California’s enforcement agencies.⁴⁷ The statute essentially deputizes private citizens to “step into the shoes” of the state and prosecute employers’ statutory labor violations.⁴⁸ In allowing private citizens to act as “attorneys general,” PAGA enables these private citizens to “recover civil penalties for Labor Code violations” committed against them, with the official enforcement agencies retaining “primacy” over the private enforcement efforts.⁴⁹ PAGA has been successful in recovering the stolen wages of employees, collecting “more than $88 million from lawbreaking corporations in 2019.”⁵⁰

Despite PAGA’s achievements and enforcement measures against lawbreaking corporations, PAGA has a large shortcoming: it only allows employees who have experienced or are experiencing the alleged Labor Code violation to bring the action. Aggrieved employees must bring actions “on behalf of the employee and other current or former employees.”⁵¹ Although PAGA permits employees to bring suit on behalf of other employees and form a class action–like group of employees as plaintiffs,⁵² many of these cases have been called “unmanageable” by courts when there are “a large number of allegedly aggrieved individuals who would require a multitude of individual assessments to prove liability.”⁵³ To proceed on the case following an “unmanageability” ruling by the court, the plaintiff must demonstrate liability of thousands of individually aggrieved employees,⁵⁴ which poses an immense obstacle for plaintiffs.

In addition to the barriers employees face when attempting to file PAGA suits, there may also be employees who are eligible to file a PAGA suit but simply do not do so. To commence an action, an aggrieved employee must give notice of the alleged violation to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, stating the provisions that they allege their employer violated and “the facts and theories support[ing] the alleged violation.”⁵⁵ This lengthy process may exclude employees who are both unfamiliar with the administrative process and with the law. Furthermore, not all employees who are “aggrieved” may be aware that their employer is violating a law or willing to file a suit through PAGA.

While PAGA has expanded the accessibility of enforcement remedies to aggrieved employees, some localities have also arranged for deputization of community organizations to enter work sites and perform outreach to inform workers of their rights. For example, the Santa Clara County Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (“OLSE”) has partnered with the Fair Workplace Collaborative (“FWC”), a coalition of dedicated community organizations and advocates who directly engage with employees through flyering, training, and legal services.⁵⁶ The FWC is made up of several community-based organizations, including the Pilipino Association of Workers & Immigrants,⁵⁷ the Vietnamese American Roundtable,⁵⁸ and the Day Worker Center of Mountain View,⁵⁹ among other organizations.⁶⁰ According to Ruth Silver-Taube, a member of Santa Clara County’s FWC and Supervising Attorney of Santa Clara County’s OLSE Legal Advice Line, as of December 2023, the FWC is made up of about twenty-five people, three of whom are attorneys; the others work through the organizations that compose the FWC.⁶¹ Since 2018, the FWC has formed yearly contracts with the Santa Clara County OLSE that authorize FWC members to enter work sites and perform outreach, advising employees of their rights.⁶² Bearing a Santa Clara County badge, the FWC members go into work sites and speak with employees to assess whether they have experienced wage theft.⁶³ The contracts also set out deliverables the FWC must achieve, and require the FWC to provide monthly updates and regularly check in with the OLSE regarding its progress on the deliverables.⁶⁴

The authority that the FWC gains through deputization comes from Santa Clara County’s Food Permit Enforcement Program.⁶⁵ The Program enforces wage theft judgments against employers by suspending food facility permits from businesses who have “outstanding wage theft judgments” from the state.⁶⁶ Each year, the FWC is provided a list of Santa Clara County food vendor employers (employers who require health permits) and the FWC enters those work sites and speaks with its employees.⁶⁷ The FWC speaks with employees to assess whether they may have experienced wage theft or whether they may be facing abuse in the workplace—asking them whether they have received paychecks, whether they have been compensated for overtime, and whether there is violence in their workplace.⁶⁸ But the outreach efforts of the FWC are not limited just to food vendor employers; they can and have entered workplaces and spoken with employees outside of the food industry.⁶⁹

In addition to checking on worksites and speaking with employees, the contract between FWC and Santa Clara County also requires FWC to perform outreach efforts. As a result, the FWC organizes and presents training programs, during which it educates workers on their rights in the workplace.⁷⁰ Silver-Taube, who leads these trainings, hosts at least one training a month, each tailored to the different organizations making up the FWC.⁷¹ In total, her training efforts have reached more than one hundred workers in one year, as she has hosted trainings in conjunction with the Pilipino Association of Workers & Immigrants, the Vietnamese American Roundtable, and the Day Worker Center.⁷²

Silver-Taube also supervises the Santa Clara County’s OLSE Legal Advice Line, another outreach effort that has emerged from the partnership between FWC and Santa Clara County OLSE.⁷³ Offered in six different languages, the advice line helps workers who have questions about their rights or are seeking legal advice.⁷⁴ Silver-Taube estimates that, in about 90% of the calls, workers identify some actionable violation that their employer committed.⁷⁵ The three FWC lawyers can file claims on behalf of employees who suffer an actionable violation or can, alternatively, refer these employees to other attorneys to pursue their claims.⁷⁶

Deputization under the Santa Clara OLSE and FWC partnership benefits employees, but the work that the partnership is authorized to perform is limited. The partnership’s members may speak with employees but cannot access employer records or more thoroughly investigate wage theft. In Los Angeles, deputization is even more constrained, as no program similar to the Santa Clara OLSE and FWC partnership currently exists. Initiating deputization in Los Angeles as well as expanding the deputized functions so that private individuals can perform enforcement actions like inspecting employer records could broadly bolster wage theft enforcement.

The enormity of the wage theft problem in Los Angeles City could be addressed by deputizing private citizens to enter work sites and inform workers of their rights as well as inspect employer records to determine whether wage theft has occurred. Deputization is effective and important for several reasons. First, deputization expands the quantity of people authorized to perform an important government function. State enforcers have said that having a “million eyes on the ground” in the form of private citizens has been especially successful in deterring unlawful action.⁷⁷ Additionally, deputizing private citizens to enter work sites and investigate wage theft violations would increase the number of people actively working to disincentivize employers’ illegal actions, increasing the likelihood that victims of wage theft could become more knowledgeable of their rights and learn how to seek redress.

B. Who Would Deputize?

1. California Bureau of Field Enforcement

As an investigator of minimum wage and overtime claims and a subsection of California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office, California’s Bureau of Field Enforcement (“BOFE”) could deputize private citizens to perform investigations of wage theft.⁷⁸ The BOFE investigates and enforces statutes covering minimum wage, overtime, “workers’ compensation insurance, child labor, cash pay, unlicensed contractors, [and] Industrial Welfare Commission orders.”⁷⁹ The BOFE investigates “on behalf of all affected workers,” meaning that when workers file a complaint, the BOFE performs site-wide investigations and accordingly issues citations for violations it discovers.⁸⁰ When a violation is discovered, the BOFE collects and distributes unpaid wages to affected workers, but keeps the remaining penalties and fines to account for the costs incurred while performing the investigation.⁸¹

Although the BOFE has not deputized people to perform labor investigations, it has formed partnerships with workers’ rights advocacy groups, including worker centers.⁸² Formed in 2016, the California Strategic Enforcement Partnership “is a collaboration between the Labor Commissioner’s Office, the National Employment Law Project, and 14 workers’ rights and legal advocacy organizations.”⁸³ The partnership was formed to boost California’s efforts against wage theft, and partnering with worker organizations was meant to encourage a culture of compliance with labor law.⁸⁴

The BOFE “investigates reports of widespread labor law violations by interviewing workers, inspecting workplaces, issuing citations for violations, and collecting unpaid wages for distribution to workers.”⁸⁵ In the 2015–2016 fiscal year, the BOFE conducted 2,424 inspections and assessed over $81 million in wages and penalties. The BOFE engages with worker organizations through the California Strategic Enforcement Partnership by (1) meeting regularly in teams to share knowledge, identify and address wage theft, and discuss emerging complaints, (2) convening annually to build skills and relationships throughout the partnership, and (3) facilitating monthly conference meetings to share strategies and cross-train on tools for labor law enforcement.⁸⁶ Worker centers support workers throughout “every step of the investigation process”⁸⁷ and can convince “groups of workers to testify in an investigation.”⁸⁸

The California Strategic Enforcement Partnership recognizes the importance of worker centers and labor organizations in the fight against wage theft. However, there may be untapped potential behind these worker organizations because they have not been deputized such that they can act with the same authority as the BOFE when it comes to enforcement of wage theft. According to a BOFE 2020–2021 fiscal year report, the department collected around $29 million across wages, penalties, and interest from employers who committed violations.⁸⁹ Although this number indicates that the BOFE has made strong enforcement progress, it still has a long way to go. This number encompasses several violation categories that the BOFE is responsible for (including wage theft categories like overtime and misclassification, but also adding up outside categories like workers’ compensation and child labor).⁹⁰ However, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office found that, in 2017, workers alleged a total of $320 million in unpaid wages alone, revealing a massive disparity.⁹¹ Expanding the BOFE’s partnership with worker centers such that worker centers are deputized with legal authority to investigate wage theft—entering work sites, inspecting employer records, interviewing employees, and ultimately identifying wage theft—could increase the BOFE’s capability to discover and address wage theft violations.

Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards

The Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards (“OWS”) is also well-positioned to deputize private citizens to combat wage theft within the city of Los Angeles. The OWS is a city government agency within the Bureau of Contract Administration of the Department of Public Works.⁹² The agency “enforces minimum wage, paid sick leave (PSL), and ban-the-box requirements for all employees who perform work in the City of Los Angeles.”⁹³ In the city of Los Angeles, the OWS is authorized to investigate violations of wage and hour laws.⁹⁴ Pursuant to the Los Angeles Municipal Code (“LAMC”), the OWS is statutorily authorized to enforce and implement several ordinances governing employment law in Los Angeles, including the Minimum Wage Ordinance (“MWO”),⁹⁵ the Fair Work Week Ordinance,⁹⁶ and the Hotel Worker Ordinance⁹⁷ (among others).

The OWS exists within the broader context of federal and state law. The federal government established standards for minimum wage, overtime pay, and employment standards for employees in the enactment of the FLSA in 1938.⁹⁸ The FLSA sets many wage and hour standards for employees, including restricting the employment of minors,⁹⁹ and establishing recordkeeping mandates that require employers to display an official poster outlining the requirements of the FLSA¹⁰⁰ and to keep employee time and pay records for at least three years.¹⁰¹ In addition, the FLSA offers overtime protection; the statute mandates that covered, nonexempt employees receive overtime pay for hours worked over forty per workweek at a rate of least one and one-half times the regular rate of pay.¹⁰²

The FLSA also governs the federal minimum wage, which promises employees a baseline pay for hours worked.¹⁰³ However, the federal minimum wage has remained $7.25 since 2007,¹⁰⁴ which, as inflation increases, is becoming less of a livable wage for earners. Many states have filled this gap by raising their state minimum wage well above the federal minimum wage. Effective January 1, 2025, California’s minimum wage was set at $16.50 per hour for all employers.¹⁰⁵ Within California, the city of Los Angeles updates its minimum wage annually based on the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (“CPI-W”) for the Los Angeles metropolitan area, which is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.¹⁰⁶ As of July 1, 2024, the minimum wage in the city of Los Angeles for all employers is $17.28 per hour¹⁰⁷ The Los Angeles Minimum Wage Ordinance, codified in Article 7 of Chapter XVIII of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, establishes that the City will pay higher than the California-mandated minimum wage and provide sick time benefits to employees.¹⁰⁸ The OWS is tasked with bearing administrative responsibilities under the MWO.¹⁰⁹

As of December 2023, the OWS has one Division Head and thirty employees.¹¹⁰ It is comprised of three sections: Outreach and Information (eight employees), Investigation and Compliance (sixteen employees), and Fair Work Week (six employees).¹¹¹ The first two sections (Outreach and Information and Investigation and Compliance) are, collectively, tasked with effectively implementing and enforcing the MWO.¹¹² The Investigation and Compliance Section “investigates complaints of wage underpayment” and sick time violations to assess where penalties may be applicable.¹¹³ The Information and Outreach Section informs businesses and employees about legal minimum wage and paid sick leave requirements, while helping with community outreach.¹¹⁴ On the outreach side, the OWS has attended outreach events, hosted training sessions for government staff, and made over 241 million media impressions since 2016.¹¹⁵

Within its investigation wing, from July 2016 to September 2023, the OWS received 1,084 complaints and closed 785 of them, collecting $540,600 in total penalties.¹¹⁶ The OWS’s investigation process generally follows five steps: (1) the complaint is vetted to ensure it falls within the OWS’s “jurisdiction and employee requirements are met”; (2) “the case is assigned to an investigator and additional information is obtained”; (3) “the employer is notified of the investigation and relevant records are requested”; (4) “the records are analyzed to determine whether the employer is complying with the MWO requirements”; and (5) “the case is then submitted to management for an evaluation of the investigative findings and recommendations.”¹¹⁷

In addition to the MWO, the third section of the OWS bears administrative responsibilities for the Fair Work Week Ordinance (“FWWO”), which provides a more predictable work schedule for retail workers.¹¹⁸ The FWWO requires that employers provide work schedules to employees before they begin employment.¹¹⁹ The FWWO also establishes “Predictability Pay,” which requires that employers compensate employees “with one additional hour of pay” for each change to a scheduled date, time, or location that either “does not result in loss of time to the” employee or “results in additional work time exceeding fifteen minutes.”¹²⁰ There are some exceptions to this predictability pay requirement, such as if the employee initiates the work schedule change or if the employer’s operations are compromised due to force majeure.¹²¹ However, in general, the FWWO aims to establish a more predictable work schedule with which retail employees can more accurately predict the sizes of their paychecks.

Furthermore, the LAMC’s Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards Ordinance, which was effective as of April 1, 2023, explicitly sets forth the OWS’s authority to enforce violations of wage theft and sick time benefits under the Los Angeles MWO and to enforce the rights and benefits provided to retail employees by the FWWO.¹²² The Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards Ordinance requires employers to retain employee records for at least four years and allows the OWS to access these records to monitor compliance with the MWO.¹²³ The Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards Ordinance also gives the OWS authority to investigate employers for possible violations of the Los Angeles MWO, Sick Time Benefits, and FWWO.¹²⁴

Given the vast amount of authority provided to the OWS to enforce wage and hour laws in Los Angeles, deputized private entities through this division could expand the OWS’s ability to investigate and enforce LAMC ordinances. Sharing the OWS’s investigative power with private individuals would enable them to broaden their capabilities, allowing them not only to identify more instances of illegal employer action, but also to seek remedies for employees who have been victims of wage theft.

The OWS serves as a robust starting point to analyze the potential of deputization within the City of Los Angeles. Because it exists within a defined statutory framework, the OWS’s legal structure can be examined to determine the possibility of deputization. Furthermore, because the OWS governs a city, it can pave the way for potential future applications to the BOFE and evaluations of deputization on a broader, statewide level.

C. Who Would Be Deputized?

There have not been any legal restrictions placed on who can be “deputized,” and previous examples of deputization in the law have provided for both private individuals (as in PAGA)¹²⁵ and nonprofit organizations (as in the worker centers in Santa Clara County’s FWC)¹²⁶ to be deputized. Since one of the benefits of deputization towards wage theft is to expand enforcement and ensure that more workers know about their rights and can seek redress when they have experienced wage theft, deputizing an organization would be more helpful than deputizing an individual. Organizations, which are generally equipped with more resources, can train their members to provide outreach and education to workers and can also gain rapport with workers so that workers have a resource to turn to.

Unions are organizations that have traditionally been thought of as advocates for workers’ rights, but they have seen “a significant decline in membership” in recent years.¹²⁷ The union membership rate was 10.0% in 2023.¹²⁸ The 2023 rate was very similar to the 10.1% rate in 2022, which was “down from 10.3% in 2021” and was the lowest union membership rate since 1983, the earliest year with comparable data on record.¹²⁹ Since the low union membership rate indicates that fewer workers can seek workplace protection through a union, a different source of workplace protection is needed. To meet this growing need, worker centers have become one of the most important means through which change is sought within the workplace.¹³⁰

Worker centers are nonprofit, community-led organizations aimed especially at supporting low-wage and immigrant workers.¹³¹ There are hundreds of worker centers throughout the United States, and California has forty-seven worker centers—more than any other state.¹³² Worker centers’ advocacy work ranges from lobbying and community organizing to direct engagement and research.¹³³ Some key characteristics define worker centers: (1) they mainly focus on low-income immigrant workers from a particular occupation or industry or from a particular ethnic group; (2) they place special focus on “organizing and leadership development” among their members; (3) they “provide a case management system for their members that focuses on labor violations,” including wage and hour claims; and (4) they lead “workshops on health and safety issues.”¹³⁴

The deputization of worker centers also carries many benefits because worker centers have distinct characteristics that enable them to serve the community. Worker centers have existed since the 1920s but grew enormously in the early 2000s.¹³⁵ Although worker centers have changed in scope and objectives throughout their history, they still maintain a focus on being community-led.¹³⁶ The members of worker centers are workers themselves—employees who are also seeking an improved workplace.¹³⁷ Furthermore, the cornerstone of worker centers is that they are made up of a “strong base of workers at the local level” who frequently play key roles in the “organizational decision-making” of their employers.¹³⁸

Worker centers use a combination of approaches, including: (1) “[s]ervice delivery, including legal representation to recover unpaid wages, English classes, worker rights education, and access to health clinics”; (2) advocacy, including researching employment conditions in low-wage industries and improving monitoring and grievance processes; and (3) organizing, including engaging in “leadership development.”¹³⁹ Because worker centers offer services, advocacy, and organizing, they provide unique services to help “low-wage immigrants navigate the world of work in the United States.”¹⁴⁰ Unlike labor unions, worker centers do not typically operate a dues-paying system;¹⁴¹ instead, they usually require people to become involved in the work or take courses on workers’ rights in order to join.¹⁴² Worker centers also engage in direct community outreach and educational workshops that can benefit people who are not members of the worker centers, making their services accessible to many.¹⁴³

Since worker centers provide a broad range of services and are accessible to workers, they are well-positioned to handle the authority that would come with deputization by a government agent. The efforts that worker centers engage in are wide-ranging; thus, they could absorb the responsibilities of being deputized by a government agent to enforce wage theft. Moreover, the deputization of Santa Clara County’s FWC is an example of successful deputization of worker centers. Most of the organizations that make up the FWC are worker centers that consist of members of the community and whose purpose is to serve a specific subset of marginalized workers.¹⁴⁴ The deputization of worker centers has seen success in Santa Clara County, and worker centers’ deputization to educate workers and investigate wage theft would also be impactful within the city of Los Angeles.

II. Deputization to Perform Outreach

Deputization of private citizens to assist in reducing the wage theft problem in Los Angeles can come in many forms, but two specific areas could benefit from deputization: outreach and investigation. Outreach is already contemplated through the LAMC. Under the LAMC, the OWS is given express statutory authority to develop an outreach program and inform employers and employees of minimum wage laws.¹⁴⁵ Section 188.12 of the LAMC states:

The Division shall establish a community-based outreach program to conduct education and outreach to Employers and Employees. In partnership with organizations involved in the community-based outreach program, the Division shall create outreach materials that are designed for Employers and Employees in particular industries.¹⁴⁶

Although the outreach program that the OWS has been charged with creating and implementing is not detailed in the statute, the OWS has taken several actions as part of its outreach efforts. As noted in its September 2023 Milestone Report, the OWS’s outreach included: (1) notifying businesses registered with the Office of Finance through mailed business tax statements, online renewals, and direct emails to business owners; (2) providing content for chambers of commerce & business associations, business improvement districts, and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment to include in member newsletters; (3) holding training sessions and delivering information materials to staff from the “Mayor’s Office, [c]ouncil [d]istricts, [p]ublic [l]ibraries, [a]nimal [s]helters, BusinessSource Centers, and WorkSource Centers”; (4) attending outreach events; (5) establishing a toll-free hotline, email, and website to field inquiries and provide information; and (6) issuing requests for quotes and establishing an on-call list of contractors who will “provide community outreach and other support services.”¹⁴⁷

Its mention of “partnership with organizations” and “community-based outreach” indicates that the authority extended to the OWS includes partnership with organizations like worker centers. Thus, express deputization of worker centers to perform outreach could be framed within LAMC section 188.12, allowing private parties to communicate directly with workers to educate them about their rights under the law.

III. Deputization to Investigate

In addition to outreach, the LAMC also gives the OWS authority to investigate violations of Los Angeles ordinances relating to wages:

The [OWS] shall be responsible for investigating possible violations of the Los Angeles Minimum Wage, Sick Time Benefits, Fair Work Week Ordinance, and this article by an Employer or other person. The Employer shall cooperate fully in any investigation by the Division. The Division shall have access to all business sites and places of labor subject to the Minimum Wage and Fair Work Week Ordinances during business hours to inspect and request copies of books and records, interview employees and any other relevant witnesses, investigate such matters necessary or appropriate and request the Board of Public Works to issue a subpoena for books, papers, records, or other items relevant to the enforcement of this article. The Employer is required to provide to the Division its legal name, address, and telephone number in writing.¹⁴⁸

Employees can submit complaints regarding violations of the MWO directly to the OWS.¹⁴⁹ Employees also have the option of filing separate or additional complaints through the State Labor Commissioner’s office.¹⁵⁰ According to its September 2023 milestone report, the OWS received 1,084 complaints and closed 785 of them (202 with violations) since July 2016, thus handling complaints at a rate of 72%.¹⁵¹ But even as the OWS addresses complaints submitted to it, data indicates that the complaints received encompass only a small proportion of Angelenos who have experienced wage theft. For example, Los Angeles Worker Center Network’s 2023 concept paper called Los Angeles the “wage theft capital of the nation”¹⁵² after a UCLA survey revealed that 88.5% of low-wage Los Angeles County workers in the sample experienced at least one type of pay-related workplace violation in the week of work before the survey.¹⁵³ According to 2023 Census Bureau data, 66.5% of Los Angeles City’s population of 3,820,914 were in the civilian labor force from 2019–2023.¹⁵⁴ These numbers indicate that over two and a half million working Angelenos are at risk of wage violations per year. Thus, even though the city provides a method for reporting complaints relating to wage violations through the OWS, many violations appear to be slipping through the cracks.¹⁵⁵

Given the magnitude of the wage theft problem in Los Angeles, deputizing private citizens through the OWS could identify more employees who are experiencing wage theft and, in doing so, disincentivize employers from stealing wages. Deputization to investigate would enable worker centers to access employer records to identify wage theft victims, speak directly with employees, and encourage them to file complaints to seek redress.

Currently, the enforcement power given to the OWS is explicitly limited to only designated OWS officials. The Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards Ordinance provides the OWS with the following investigative authority:

The head of the [OWS] or their designee shall have access to all business sites and places of labor subject to the Minimum Wage Ordinance, the Fair Work Week Ordinance, and [the Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards Ordinance] during business hours to inspect books and records, interview employees and any other relevant witnesses, and investigate such matters necessary or appropriate to determine whether an Employer has violated any provisions of the Minimum Wage Ordinance, the Fair Work Week Ordinance, or [the Los Angeles Office of Wage Standards Ordinance].¹⁵⁶

The OWS Ordinance grants broad discretion to the OWS and allows it to perform an extensive range of investigative functions, subject to several separate ordinances. Rules and regulations implementing the FWWO even extend this authority, allowing the OWS to “conduct inquiries and investigations into areas outside of the FWWO to determine compliance with the FWWO.”¹⁵⁷

Although the OWS’s powers are wide-ranging, the determination of who can exercise these powers has not been clearly defined. The OWS Ordinance expressly grants access and authority to the OWS’s head and the head’s designee. The “head” of the OWS can likely be straightforwardly pinpointed to the OWS’s “Division Manager,” who leads the Office.¹⁵⁸ However, the determination of who can be categorized a “designee” is not so clear. Although there are defined terms under both the FWWO section authorizing the OWS¹⁵⁹ and under the FWWO’s rules and regulations,¹⁶⁰ neither provide a definition for whom exactly a “designee” may be. This lack of clarity leaves open the possibility that the designee may not necessarily be a government entity employed with the OWS and may instead be a third party. Thus, private citizens could be deputized to investigate with authorization as a “designee” by the head of the OWS. However, whether the Division head of the OWS may grant such authority to the private citizens of a worker center is circumscribed by the California Constitution and relevant case law.

A. The Municipal Nondelegation Doctrine

The California Constitution restricts private persons from performing certain governmental functions. Los Angeles is a charter city, meaning the basic law of the city’s government is found in the City Charter, rather than in general law.¹⁶¹ While a general law city organizes itself with “local government provisions in the state constitution and state statutes,” a charter city like Los Angeles can design its own government, developing some “political and governmental autonomy.”¹⁶² The Los Angeles City Charter is the fundamental document of the city,¹⁶³ giving the city control over its own “municipal affairs.”¹⁶⁴ The California Constitution authorizes charter cities the ability to exercise plenary authority over municipal affairs, subject only to constitutional limitations.¹⁶⁵ The city charter “identifies the main governing bodies of the city, along with their powers and duties.”¹⁶⁶ No changes to the charter can be made “without a vote of the people.”¹⁶⁷

Still, all cities must comply with the state constitution; the California Constitution governs both county and city government within California.¹⁶⁸ Of particular relevance, the California Constitution includes a nondelegation doctrine in article XI, section 11: “The Legislature may not delegate to a private person or body power to make, control, appropriate, supervise, or interfere with county or municipal corporation improvements, money, or property, or to levy taxes or assessments, or perform municipal functions.”¹⁶⁹

This prohibition against legislative delegations of power to private entities was initially enacted as article XI, section 13 of the California Constitution on May 7, 1879.¹⁷⁰ On June 1970, California voters passed Proposition 2, a ballot measure aimed at revising the substance and language of the California Constitution.¹⁷¹ As part of this revision, Section 13 was redesignated as Section 11, and the section was amended to its current language.¹⁷² The provision went into effect on November 23, 1970.¹⁷³

Although the restriction against delegating municipal functions is a narrower subsection of the nondelegation doctrine, laws against delegating governmental power exist on a broader level. The nondelegation doctrine has been examined both within federal law¹⁷⁴ and state law. Under state law, the doctrine is applied in many different circumstances, spanning a wide range of applications such as “delegations to private parties, other state governments, and nearly all types of interbranch delegations.”¹⁷⁵ Yet, although state courts apply the nondelegation doctrine in more contexts than federal courts, scholarship on state nondelegation doctrine is scarce; only two to three studies about the state nondelegation doctrines have been published throughout the past few decades.¹⁷⁶ Furthermore, states frequently apply the nondelegation doctrine in many different contexts, resulting in little coherence.¹⁷⁷

The two most recently published treatments of state nondelegation doctrines both categorize California as a state with a more lenient nondelegation doctrine.¹⁷⁸ The first study is Gary Greco’s article, published in 1994, which grouped states into three categories. Eighteen states were categorized as “strict” nondelegation states, meaning these states require the legislature to “provide definite and clear standards with the delegation” of power in a statute.¹⁷⁹ Twenty-four states were categorized as a “loose standards” state, meaning that standards or safeguards must be provided by either the legislature or administrative agency, and the administrative agency is required to adopt “procedural safeguards” to follow when making a decision.¹⁸⁰ Greco’s final category, containing six states, was “procedural safeguards” states, which do not require even minimal statutory standards to uphold a delegation, leaving legislatures with less effect on policy.¹⁸¹ Greco categorized California as a procedural safeguards state.¹⁸²

The second, more recent study is Jim Rossi’s, published in 1999, which also places states into three separate categories to “update and refine” Greco’s summary of the state doctrines.¹⁸³ Rossi grouped twenty states into the “strong” nondelegation category, meaning these states have statutes which are “periodically struck on non-delegation grounds.”¹⁸⁴ Twenty-three states were categorized in Rossi’s “moderate” category, which “do not always require specific standards,” but can vary the standards necessary depending on the statute.¹⁸⁵ Rossi categorized seven states in the “weak” category; these states uphold delegations as long as the agency has “adequate procedural safeguards.”¹⁸⁶ California was grouped into Rossi’s “weak” category.¹⁸⁷ Although these studies and groupings are imperfect,¹⁸⁸ they provide a general framework to understand how California’s nondelegation doctrine compares to other states: California’s nondelegation doctrine is more lenient than several other states’ nondelegation doctrines.

California is not alone in restricting delegation of legislative power to municipal functions; more than a dozen states forbid their legislatures from delegating powers, including their municipal powers.¹⁸⁹ Colorado and Wyoming each forbid their state legislatures from delegating “any municipal function whatever” to private parties.¹⁹⁰ Similarly, Utah prohibits legislative delegations from “perform[ing] any municipal functions.”¹⁹¹

Importantly, this provision of the California Constitution does not preclude all delegation of the legislature’s power. Instead, the prohibition on delegation is cabined such that the legislature may not delegate the power to “perform municipal functions.” As a result, case law regarding the municipal nondelegation doctrine involves determining what constitutes a nondelegable activity, who the delegated party can be, and whether the delegation was proper.

Legislative Actions

Since California “prohibit[s] delegation of legislative power,”¹⁹² case law interpreting the nondelegation doctrine addresses the preliminary question of whether a legislative action was taken. In Kugler v. Yocum, Alhambra city residents contested a proposed ordinance by their city council which would set Los Angeles wage rates as the minimum for Alhambra firefighters’ salaries.¹⁹³ The court found that this proposed ordinance was a legislative action by the city council because wage rates were expressly provided for as a council power in the city charter; the city council was therefore acting in its “legislative” capacity.¹⁹⁴ Decisions about wage rates are an explicit authority of the council in Alhambra, making it a legislative action.¹⁹⁵

Like the wage rates of firefighters in Kugler, the investigative powers for wage theft are expressly left to the OWS under the Los Angeles City Charter. The Los Angeles City Charter states that all legislative power of the City is “vested in the Council and shall be exercised by ordinance.”¹⁹⁶ The LAMC is the ordinance granting authority to the OWS;¹⁹⁷ under the LAMC, the OWS is given specific duties under the MWO¹⁹⁸ and FWWO.¹⁹⁹ Thus, the passage of this local legislation is likely a legislative function. As a result, any delegations of these powers would likely be a legislative action subject to the nondelegation doctrine of the California Constitution.

Municipal Actions

In addition, California’s municipal nondelegation doctrine prohibits delegation of municipal functions. The determination of what constitutes a “municipal function” such that it cannot be delegated to private persons within the constraints of the California Constitution is a fact-specific inquiry. Courts must “decide, under the facts of each case, whether the subject matter under discussion is . . . municipal.”²⁰⁰ Article XI of the California Constitution, which sets forth the nondelegation doctrine, does not define “municipal functions.” To define this term, courts have looked to other provisions of the California Constitution to determine the responsibilities that the governing body is assigned.²⁰¹

The question of what constitutes a “municipal affair” has been addressed by courts when it comes to several different provisions of the California Constitution.²⁰² Within these contexts, courts generally view municipal functions as “problems which exhibit exclusively local characteristics at certain times in the life of a community.”²⁰³ Acknowledging that this view encompasses ever-changing characteristics, the California Supreme Court has said, “It is . . . settled that the constitutional concept of municipal affairs is not a fixed or static quantity. It changes with the changing conditions upon which it is to operate.”²⁰⁴ The subject matter of cases addressing the municipal nondelegation doctrine are diverse, but courts generally hold that municipal matters relate to “local function”—functions so limited in scope to a particular region that they can be “adequately handled by the municipal authorities of a single town.”²⁰⁵

In People ex rel. Younger v. County of El Dorado, the Tahoe Regional Planning Compact was created to plan for the future and preservation of Lake Tahoe.²⁰⁶ The Compact created an internal agency that made “plans for land use, transportation, conservation, recreation, and public services and facilities” throughout the entire Lake Tahoe region, which spanned California and Nevada.²⁰⁷ The Compact’s authority was challenged as an unconstitutional delegation of municipal power.²⁰⁸ The California Supreme Court held the Compact was constitutional because the delegation of power was not for municipal functions; the Compact was enacted to serve regional purposes, not just local purposes.²⁰⁹ The Compact did not have the authority to perform municipal functions such as building “local parks”; instead, it operated on a larger regional basis.²¹⁰ Because it served a regional and not a municipal function, the Compact did not violate the California Constitution.²¹¹

Applying that reasoning here, the deputization of worker centers by the OWS is likely a municipal function because it is limited in scope and region—affecting only workers in the city of Los Angeles. Since this deputization would likely be seen as both a legislative action and a municipal action, it would likely trigger application of the municipal nondelegation doctrine.

Private Parties

Legislatures may be prohibited from delegating municipal matters when such delegation lands in the hands of private parties. In Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Assn. v. Fresno Metropolitan Projects Authority, the Fresno legislature created the Fresno Metropolitan Projects Authority and gave it the ability to tax. The California Court of Appeal found that levying taxes was a legislative function because the California Constitution has explicitly identified the imposition of taxes as a function of local government.²¹² In addition, eleven of the Authority’s thirteen board members were individuals from private organizations with no “governmental subservience”; thus, they were private parties.²¹³ The court therefore found that the Authority was a private body to whom the legislature could not delegate its taxing power, a legislative function.

Simi Valley Recreation & Park, in which the legislature passed a statute that delegated decisions regarding undeveloped land to a local agency formation commission, serves as a contrast.²¹⁴ In this case, the California Court of Appeal found this delegation did not violate article XI, section 11 of the California Constitution because local agency formation commissions are government agencies, not “a private person or body” under the language of the constitution.²¹⁵ The court also noted that, prior to its amendment and while it was categorized as section 13, California’s nondelegation doctrine expressly precluded delegation to a “special commission.”²¹⁶ However, this language was repealed in the section 11 amendment in 1970.²¹⁷ Courts no longer apply the former section 13 language, and special commissions are no longer an indication of an unconstitutional delegation.²¹⁸

Worker centers are not government-affiliated and are thus private parties. Since this deputization structure would be a delegation of legislative power to a private party, it must meet the standards courts require for a proper delegation to avoid being banned under the municipal nondelegation doctrine. But this private aspect of worker centers is, in this context, actually a virtue. After all, one of the values of deputization is its separateness from resource-strapped government entities.

Standard for Delegation

Even when a legislature allows a private party to commit an action which is found to be legislative and municipal, such delegation may still be acceptable if a sufficient standard for delegation exists. In Kugler v. Yocum, the California Supreme Court set out the standard for determining whether legislative power is validly delegated.²¹⁹ The court stated that legislative power can be delegated if it is “channeled by a sufficient standard”; after the Legislature creates a policy and sets the standards for it, it may leave the “power to fill up the details” to executive or administrative officers by giving these officers the ability to prescribe rules and regulations that will effectuate the law.²²⁰ In addition, “[w]hile the legislative body cannot delegate its power to make a law, it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes or intends to make its own action depend.”²²¹

In Kugler, the court rejected the residents’ argument that a new ordinance tying Alhambra city firemen’s salaries to the Los Angeles salaries would be an unlawful delegation of legislative power to those parties who establish salaries for Los Angeles firemen.²²² Instead, the court concluded that the legislature’s decision to adopt the ordinance itself would “constitute the legislative body’s resolution of the ‘fundamental issue,’ ” and any subsequent steps taken to fill in the application and execution of policy is not legislative delegation.²²³

More recently, California courts have determined whether a sufficient standard for delegation exists by looking at whether the legislature is stripped of its ability to make final decisions.²²⁴ The California Court of Appeal stated: “The constitutionality of [a statute’s] factfinding provisions turns on whether the provisions divest the County of its final decision-making authority.”²²⁵ The California Supreme Court has not addressed whether final decision-making authority meets a sufficient standard for delegation. However, lower courts have relied on this principle, finding that a municipal function has not been improperly delegated when the Legislature leaves the task of achieving their goals to some other body—whether public or private—so long as it is the Legislature who makes the “fundamental policy decisions.”²²⁶ In general, California courts have been relatively generous in finding that an agency did not improperly delegate power so long as a county or city has not been divested of its authority to make final decisions.²²⁷ Courts are also deferential to the legislature, noting, “If there is any doubt as to the Legislature’s power to act in any given case, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the Legislature’s action.”²²⁸

The municipal nondelegation doctrine was not violated in California Renters Legal Advocacy & Education Fund v. City of San Mateo. In that case, the legislature added a provision to its Housing Accountability Act (“HAA”) allowing a reasonable person standard to determine compliance with a housing project.²²⁹ When a renters group’s residential project was denied by the City of San Mateo, it argued that this denial violated the HAA.²³⁰ The City of San Mateo challenged the HAA provision as unconstitutional, arguing it would allow a private person to place evidence into the record that a project is compliant with objective standards.²³¹ The City argued this was a violation of the nondelegation doctrine because a private person could force a local agency to approve the project, stripping the legislature of its decision-making function.²³² However, the court of appeal found this provision did not violate the municipal nondelegation doctrine. The court of appeal stated:

[The] city’s governing body retains broad authority, subject to judicial review, to exercise decisionmaking authority: to determine whether there is substantial evidence from which a reasonable person could conclude the project is consistent with the city’s applicable objective requirements; to deny or reduce the density of a project that does not meet such standards or that causes an unavoidable adverse impact on public health or safety; and to impose conditions of approval that do not reduce the project’s density where applicable objective standards are met.”²³³

In contrast, the municipal nondelegation doctrine was violated in County of Riverside v. Superior Court when a sheriff’s association ordered the county to binding arbitration to resolve economic issues arising from negotiations with unions representing firefighters or law enforcement officers.²³⁴ Analysis of nondelegation was triggered: the compensation of these individuals was a municipal function expressly provided to the legislature in the California Constitution,²³⁵ and the arbitrators of the issues were private entities, not public officials.²³⁶ The court ultimately held the statute unconstitutional because the arbitration it required, from which the results would be binding on the public agency,²³⁷ deprived the public agency of the ultimate power to make its own decisions.²³⁸

In sum, although deputization by the OWS to worker centers is a delegation of a municipal function by a legislative body to a private party, the municipal nondelegation doctrine is still likely not violated. As long as the OWS retains final decision-making authority, extending the authority granted to the Los Angeles OWS to private citizens within worker centers is likely permissible and not in violation of the municipal nondelegation doctrine. Entering worksites to perform investigations on employer wage practices and inspecting employer records does not bind the public agency of the OWS to any final decision. On the other hand, a worker center’s ability to take actions such as filing wage claims or arbitrating with employers would likely be characterized as final decisions. As to these binding choices, a worker center’s authority should be thoroughly constrained; the decision of whether or not to take these steps must belong to the OWS. However, when it comes to non-binding decisions, the deputization of worker centers under the LAMC is likely permissible under the California Constitution.

To further strengthen the constitutionality of this deputization, the reservation of this final decision-making authority should be made explicit in contracts between deputized entities and the OWS. In particular, all contracts between the OWS and the worker centers should precisely note that the deputized entities may not file suit, begin employment action, or make any final decisions without prior written approval of the OWS. Contracts should state expressly that the work product of deputized worker centers are subject to the approval of and final decisions are to be made by the OWS. This clarity and explicitness would bolster the legitimacy of the deputization relationship between the OWS and private citizens, preventing the relationship from being barred by the California Constitution’s municipal nondelegation doctrine.

Conclusion

The enormity of the wage theft problem affecting millions of American employees requires a solution beyond the underenforced laws currently in place. Located in the “wage theft capital of the nation,”²³⁹ the city of Los Angeles is particularly affected by this issue.

The deputization of private citizens by Los Angeles’s Office of Wage Standards offers a path through which the city government can more effectively enforce wage laws and hold employers accountable. Deputization could not only endow workers with knowledge about their rights through outreach, but would also enable private citizens to inspect employer records to identify victims of wage theft. Deputizing private citizens would broaden the enforcement powers available to the OWS and encourage workers to file complaints while discouraging employers from violating the law. Although deputization through the OWS would still result in some limitations on Los Angeles City’s enforcement abilities, its successes and drawbacks should be

studied to assess the potential of statewide deputization through a larger entity such as the BOFE.

Deputization of worker centers to perform worker outreach and investigate wage theft within work sites could provide greater enforcement of wage laws. However, such deputization is vulnerable to attack under the California Constitution’s municipal nondelegation doctrine. Deputization of worker centers would be a delegation of municipal action by the Los Angeles legislature to worker centers, a private party. Although these factors make the municipal nondelegation doctrine applicable, a clear standard for delegation would likely allow deputization to survive. In particular, unambiguous language that the OWS would retain ultimate control over any decision-making would help strengthen the legality of this deputization and prevent it from violating the California Constitution’s municipal nondelegation doctrine. This explicit language could be found in formal documentation of a deputization relationship, or in rules and regulations from the LAMC regarding the OWS.

Overall, with the proper boundaries and constraints, the deputization of worker centers by the OWS to perform outreach to employees and to investigate wage theft is likely permissible and constitutional. Taking advantage of the community ties and expertise of worker centers could enable the OWS to better serve the workers of Los Angeles while discouraging wage theft by employers. Deputization of worker centers offers a powerful avenue to combat Los Angeles’s enormous and persistent wage theft problem.

98 S. Cal. L. Rev. 725

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Kalysa To*

* Executive Senior Editor, Southern California Law Review, Volume 98; J.D. Candidate 2025, University of Southern California Gould School of Law; B.A. English & Psychology 2021, University of California, Los Angeles. My sincere gratitude to Professor Clare Pastore, Yvonne Medrano, Victor Narro, and Ruth Silver-Taube for providing their valuable insight. Thank you also to the editors of the Southern California Law Review for their work, and to my family for their support.