In 2007, Wage Justice Center was founded by Matthew Sirolly and Melvin Yee with seed funding from Echoing Green. But the need for the Wage Justice Center was identified much earlier. In 2004, Matt & Melvin were law school students at USC Gould School of Law. They witnessed the frustration of workers who had not been paid despite performing the work – and the greater frustration of workers who “won” wage theft judgments that went perennially unenforced.
Our current staff include:
Ana Cisneros Alvarez
Executive Director & Legal DirectorJan Collatz
Staff AttorneyJessica Guerrero
Asset InvestigatorTania Millan
Director of Finance and Administration
Our Challenge
Wage theft is when employers do not pay workers according to the law.
Examples of wage theft:
- Not paying at all
- Paying below minimum wage
- Not paying overtime
- Not allowing workers to take meal and rest breaks
- Not paying for required sick leave or taking workers’ tips
- Paying employees with invalid checks with insufficient funds
- Breaking promises to pay at a later date or forcing employees to record fewer hours than actually worked.
Los Angeles is the wage theft capital of the U.S.
