An Orange County businessman and his son have been assessed $4.9 million in back wages and penalties for underpaying 187 workers at their auto towing companies in Anaheim and Oakland, the California Labor Commissioner announced Wednesday, July 26.
Noel Yaqo, owner of Irvine Auto Towing which operated Pride Towing and Recovery in Anaheim, along with his son Aram Yaco, typically paid tow truck drivers, dispatchers and mechanics $110 a day, although they generally worked 12-hour shifts with no meal or rest breaks, the commissioner’s office reported.
Drivers and mechanics also incurred unlawful deductions and were charged for uniforms and for any accidents or damages incurred while working in the field, according to the commissioner’s citations.
“This is an egregious case of wage theft affecting a large group of workers who were denied a just day’s pay and forced to work without meal or rest breaks,” said Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su.
Employers who cheat workers, she added, “gain an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competitors.”
Irvine Auto and Yaco Investments, its sister company which owns Stride Towing and Recovery in Oakland, have appealed the citations, according to the labor commissioner.
Noel Yaqo, reached late Wednesday evening, declined to comment. AramYaco (who spells his name differently) did not respond to a message.
Last week, two drivers, Kristopher Stirn and Jose Acebedo, both based in Riverside County, filed a class action suit against Yaqo and his companies in Orange County Superior Court. According to the complaint, they were paid a flat rate of $120 a day for working 12 or more hours without overtime pay, meal or rest breaks.
Yaqo also made them work “off the clock,” falsified their pay stubs and failed to reimburse them for work-related expenses, such as cell phone calls, according to the complaint.
Yaqo has not yet filed a response in court.
Wage theft is a growing issue in California and nationwide. The U.S. Department of Labor reported in 2014 that the minimum wage law is violated in California 372,000 times per week and more than one in 10 workers in California is paid less than the minimum wage.
A May study by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, reported some 2.4 million workers in the nation’s 10 most populous states lose $8 billion a year to minimum wage violations.
California accounts for nearly $1.97 billion of the total, according to the study which analyzed U.S. Census data, comparing earnings to the minimum wage laws in each state.
Both state and federal labor agencies investigate wage theft.
Last year, federal officials analyzed wages at 77 randomly selected Southern California garment contractors and found 85 percent were cheating workers, paying on average $7 an hour — far below the 2016 minimum wage of $10 an hour.
The contractors were forced to pay $1.3 million in back wages and damages to 865 workers, covering a period of three months of work.
Since 2011, the labor commissioner has assessed a reported $35 million in back wages and penalties in 300 cases brought by truck drivers serving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. One 2015 decision awarded $6.9 million to 39 drivers in one of the largest recent Southern California investigations.
Most cases, however, involve far fewer employees and far smaller amounts. From Orange County alone, the labor commissioner received more than 16,000 wage theft complaints between 2010 and 2016, according to a database provided to the Register.
The U.S. Labor Department has assessed six-figure sums against several Orange County companies in the last two years for paying less than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, including a rock supplier, a chain of assisted living homes, a construction firm, two recyclers, a tool manufacturer and a recruiter for Christian universities.
At Anaheim’s Pride Towing, 129 workers were denied minimum wage, overtime and meal and rest provisions during the period of investigation between June 2014 and February 2017, according to the state labor commissioner. They were awarded $3.2 million in back wages and the company was assessed $139,600 in penalties.
At Oakland’s Stride Towing, 58 workers experienced violations between August 2015 and February 2017. They were awarded $1.2 million in back wages and the company was assessed $80,750 in penalties.
The state commissioner has launched a website, wagetheftisacrime.com, to inform workers of their rights and employers of their responsibilities. Employees with work-related questions or complaints may contact the agency’s call center in English or Spanish at 844-LABOR-DIR (844-522-6734).