Wage Theft in San Francisco and my Options?
employment attorney California Aug 23, 2026
Location: San Francisco, CA i live and work remotely in San Francisco for a corporation based in SoCal (but recently moved its HQ to another state for tax reasons but idk if that's relevant) and have been on-call 24/7 (not allowed to leave the house at all unless I'm going somewhere with secure wifi because I handle medical data) every 4-6 weeks (108 hours a week) for the past six years. I have been desperately asking my now-former manager about standby or on-call pay the entire time because I have never received it and he and our CIO ignored me completely until I was being moved to a new team with a new manager and he finally told me to ask HR. To be fair, I should have thought to do that myself, but I have had only negative experiences with HR thus far. After SEVERAL months of requesting updates and sending case after case of the exact same complaint that went to the California Supreme Court and did NOT find in the company's favor, HR got back to me that I was indeed correct and am owed three years of backpay (the statue of limitations for wage theft is three years) but it's been over a month since I was notified and whenever I request an update of when I can expect said backpay and how much it will be, I am told it's "still in the works." I am concerned that they are trying to wait out the clock on the statue of limitations so they owe me less because I am unsure if the limitation includes the months they spent debating what was easily researchable or if it's just a blanket three years and not down to month/day. I'm also concerned they will bank on lack of legal knowledge on my part and underpay me. It is unclear to me whether standby time in California is beneath min wage, at min wage, my normal wage, or overtime/double-time as I haven't been paid overtime for my on-call either even when I'm dealing with an emergency in the middle of the night or on a weekend. It is also my understanding that wage theft backpay carries a 20% interest fee owed to me and I think the corporation would try to weasel their way out of that as well. I also found out that my only other hourly coworker, who has also not been paid for on-call, and I are not the only hourly employees on our team, as we were led to believe, but the only hourly members of every single IT department in the corporation. Which. Also doesn't seem legal. Coworkers who know less and perform fewer duties are being paid $20k/year more than I am and have been for years. My new manager says he will be pressing for the two of us to be made salary, but that brings up another concern. One of my salary coworkers lives in LA county, which has a higher min wage than the state, but is only being paid the state min wage for salary. He had previously reached out to HR about this and was told that he was wrong and he is only owed the state min wage, but the California Labor Commission website clearly states that when there is a discrepancy between federal/state/local min wage, the higher wage must be paid. Unless remote work is excluded from this, I think the corporation is just committing wage theft left and right. I would like legal advice but am not looking to sue because I cannot afford a lawyer, nor can I afford to lose 30-40% of whatever I do win if went to court pro bono. I have no idea what my options are here and would really appreciate some advice. Thank you so much.
