More cases of wage theft in Fresno to face criminal and civil court cases, officials say
The Fresno City Attorney’s Office was awarded a second round of state dollars to fight wage theft, according to labor officials.
The office is one of 16 agencies to get the grant from the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, and Fresno will get the full $750,000 eligible, the commission confirmed.
Assembly Bill 594 in 2023 authorized prosecutors to go after scofflaws who commit wage theft.
Fresno attorney Aida Macedo said she works as a consultant with the Fresno Attorney’s Office for the wage enforcement project funded by the Workers’ Rights Enforcement grants.
“We are going to come forward and file criminal cases or civil cases to make sure that workers are made whole,” she said. “So we are trying to get the word out about that, so that employers can comply and try to comply.”
The office filed its first wage theft case in May, when City Attorney Andrew Janz said Pinnacle Hospitality and Development, which operates the Holiday Inn at 7191 W. Kathryn Ave. in northwest Fresno, and a contractor had stolen $58,000 from workers.
The state office says it will enforce wage theft laws no matter the immigration status of the workers, which is significant in Fresno County, where the farmworker population is the largest of any county in the state.
Macedo said the office has a number of other ongoing investigations into claims of wage theft in Fresno, but those cases have not so far been filed.
She said complaints have come to the office from a number of service and other industries including construction workers, hotel staff and senior care providers. The wage theft can be more sophisticated than simply shorting an employee for hours worked.
“It sometimes is not as obvious as some may think, and some folks don’t know what their rights are, especially in the Valley,” she said.
The Labor Commissioner’s Office granted $8.55 million in the state, which is a repeat of last year’s amount of funding put toward the program. Fresno was the only city on the list in the Central San Joaquin Valley.
The agencies can seek civil or criminal cases.
The last two years of funding were a culmination of about two decades of advocacy for workers during multiple gubernatorial administrations, according to Lilia Garcia-Brower, the state’s labor commissioner from the Department of Industrial Relations.
She said wage theft affects workers, but it also creates a competition problem for reputable businesses and most often means an employer is not paying into other requirements like taxes and workers’ compensation.
“They can gain easily upward of a 40% advantage over a law abiding employer,” she said. “So wage theft also contributes to unfair competition, and that’s also a motivating reason why we want to have this grant program to protect those employers who are being undercut by this crime.”
She noted the office has plans to add a second location in Fresno.
Janz said the grant allowed the city to develop a unit focused on tackling wage theft.
“We want our residents to know that we will not tolerate bad actors stealing from hardworking people,” he said in a statement.
The city of Fresno takes wage theft claims at www.fresno.gov. The office can also be reached at 559-621-7599.
The Labor Commission’s number is 833-526-4636. To submit a claim online or for more, go to wagetheftisacrime.com.
This story was originally published July 23, 2025 at 9:53 AM.
