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Philly’s workers-rights office has gone from backwater to heavy hitter in just a few years

Philadelphia’s Office of Worker Protections recovered $328,000 for workers, more than double what it achieved the year before.

Workers attended "Philly Workers Fight Back" in November 2023 to share stories of retaliation by their employers, a major reason workers don't report labor law violations to the government. The event was hosted by the PA Domestic Workers Alliance and other Office of Worker Protections community partners.
Workers attended "Philly Workers Fight Back" in November 2023 to share stories of retaliation by their employers, a major reason workers don't report labor law violations to the government. The event was hosted by the PA Domestic Workers Alliance and other Office of Worker Protections community partners.Read moreTyger Williams / Staff Photographer

Philadelphia’s Office of Worker Protections — which enforces labor laws such as wage theft and paid sick leave — had its best year yet for getting workers money they were owed.

The $328,000 recovered for workers was nearly double the amount from the year before, according to a new report, and more than 15 times more than in 2018.

The difference is due to the Fair Workweek law and paid sick leave violations at large employers that affected many workers, said Candace Chewning, director of the Office of Worker Protections within the city Department of Labor. The Fair Workweek law, which went into effect in 2020, mandates consistent scheduling for retail, fast food, and hospitality workers at chain employers.

Chewning’s office saw more class-action complaints, meaning several workers at a single employer filed complaints.

Although wage theft complaints were the most commonly filed, representing more than half of the total 282 complaints, it was restitution due for Fair Workweek and paid sick leave violations that form the majority of the more than $300,000 recovered, according to the report, which was compiled by the city office.

The office often conducted full-scale investigations at larger employers with complaints of Fair Workweek and paid sick leave violations, rather than one-off investigations looking into a single worker’s case. The city’s paid sick leave requires employers to provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave to employees each year.

» READ MORE: Domestic workers to rally in Rittenhouse Square, highlighting continued rights violations, retaliation by employers

The office’s report also featured two new “bad actor” employers — a tool the office uses to shame employers into compliance. One was a homecare agency for seniors called Angel Companions of Philadelphia, which the city said violated the paid sick leave law. Another was cleaning company Making Life Easier, which the city said committed wage theft. Wage theft is when an employer does not pay a worker what it had agreed to.

BrightSpring Health Services, which runs some Angel Companions locations, said the Philadelphia location was a franchise owned by Mark Lamar.

Lamar did not respond to a request for comment.

A woman who identified herself as the owner of Making Life Easier, but who would not give her name, said that the allegations of wage theft were “totally false.” She said two workers filed the complaints “out of spite and jealousy” and called the city’s investigative process biased toward the workers.

“This is very frustrating because we’ve been in business for 17 years and we have never had a situation like this,” she said. “We don’t believe in taking people’s money.”

» READ MORE: These Philly community orgs are working with the city to educate workers on their rights, regardless of whether they’re unionized

The office’s report tracks a drastic overhaul in its operations. In five years, the Office of Worker Protections has gone from an overlooked backwater in the Mayor’s Office to a permanent department with a major charge: protecting low-wage workers’ rights in the city.

In 2019, it enforced three laws, employed three staffers, and recovered $21,000 for workers. Its budget was under $1 million.

In 2023, it enforced six laws and had tripled its staff, most of whom are investigators. The budget of the Department of Labor, where the office is housed, is nearly $5 million and the office is hiring six more staffers.

The change represents a growing interest in workers’ rights beyond unions — which represent only 6% of private-sector workers and do not include the most precarious, low-wage workers — and a greater reliance on city laws rather than state or federal. The changes are also a result of worker organizing, as workers have pushed for new labor laws and greater enforcement over the past few years.

Still, in Philadelphia —the poorest big city in the country — most of the labor violations go unchecked. For example, the office received 164 wage theft complaints last year, though Temple Law researchers estimate tens of thousands of workers experience wage theft every week in the city.