The Pomona City Council wants to crack down on wage theft in the city.

The council voted unanimously this week to work with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and file a joint application for grant funding from the California Labor Commission. The money — up to $750,000 — would be used to investigate and prosecute cases of wage theft in Pomona.

“When people are not paid, that has ripple effects — not just on their family, but on the community,” Mayor Tim Sandoval said before the vote at the Monday meeting. “This has a direct impact on the city.”

Wage theft includes any illegal failure to pay wages or benefits to an employee, including violating overtime or minimum wage laws, forcing employees to work off the clock, or illegally deducting their pay.

“When I heard some of these stories, I was appalled,” Councilmember Elizabeth Ontiveros-Cole said before the vote. “It really is inhumane.”

In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 594 into law. Until January 2029, the new law authorizes the state attorney general, district attorneys, city attorneys and county counsel to independently enforce California’s laws relating to the payment of wages.

On Monday, the council heard from about a dozen day laborers, domestic workers and community residents about the issue.

“This man hasn’t wanted to pay us for a year now,” day laborer Robert Aguilar said in Spanish, as translated by software used by the city. “It’s not a lot of money; it’s $400. It’s the job — we did it. … But it’s also used for rent, food.”

Trying to get workers back pay they’re owed can take two years or more according to Venus Alfaro, an organizer with the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center who works with domestic workers.

“These women are going to work, working full hours, long hours, and getting dismissed after a few months of work without getting their full pay,” she told the council. “They’re struggling to pay bills, they’re struggling to pay rent, they’re struggling to support their families.”

These aren’t isolated cases, according to Cal Soto, the workers rights director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

“The statistics are clear,” Soto told the council. “The Economic Policy Institute says an estimated $2 billion a year in the state of California are lost in stolen wages from workers.”

He cited a UCLA study that said 76% of day laborers experience wage theft, but less than 20% recover any of those lost wages.

In 2023, L.A. County recovered $1.4 million in unpaid wages, according to Soto. And in Sacramento, recovery of lost wages has gone up 40%, he said, although he didn’t specify the time frame.

The council voting to pursue the grant “is a message to all day laborers, domestic workers, in the city, that you have workers’ backs,” Soto said.

Pomona doesn’t currently employ any attorneys capable of prosecuting wage theft violations in criminal court, so they’ll be working with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office for that, but will be using existing investigators employed by Pomona.

“We’re going to try to make sure that all of the stories that we hear, that we heard tonight, get some measure of justice,” said District 3 Councilmember Nora Garcia, who had originally placed the resolution on the agenda.