This week, Qwick, a platform for hospitality staffing, will send an initial payment of $750,000 to 6,500 California workers whom it incorrectly classified as independent contractors. Moreover, as part of the settlement, ultimately set at $2.1 million, those workers became employees at the end of June, with full rights and benefits.
The payment is the result of a settlement reached in February 2024, which was the first big win for a new four-member team at the San Francisco city attorney’s office that is laser-focused on workers’ rights, targeting firms for alleged wage theft, misclassification, and more.
The Qwick case opened the door to innumerable cringe-worthy puns. “Filing that motion put an enormous amount of pressure on Qwick, and they realized very quickly — um, sorry —” said Matthew Goldberg, the affable 52-year-old lawyer who leads the Worker Protection Team.
“We did a lot of that, it’s hard to stop,” interjected Ian Eliasoph, 45, a deputy city attorney and the squad’s litigator, during a recent interview with members of the nascent team.
But there’s nothing playful about the Worker Protection Team. Like its name, its mission is straightforward: To protect the rights of San Francisco workers.
Goldberg explained why there’s a need for his team in the city with “the strongest, most protective worker-protection laws in the country.”
To circumvent those laws, businesses simply require workers to waive their right to sue. Such agreements tie the hands of private attorneys.
The government, however, can take action. “We are not constrained by the arbitration agreement or any agreement that the worker entered into,” said Goldberg.
While the city has been investigating this area for a while, it was thought that creating a team focused on workers’ rights, and specifically misclassification, would be more effective. “David Chiu wants us to have as much impact as we can,” said Goldberg, referring to the city attorney. “All credit to David Chiu. This was sort of his brainchild and his idea.”
Chiu assumed office in November 2021, and “has a very longstanding commitment to worker rights,” which has resulted in settlements with DoorDash, Instacart and several restaurants, said Goldberg. So within months of taking office, he established the team, which has now grown to two attorneys, one legal assistant and one law fellow. It is the first of its kind in California.
Chiu’s first hire was Goldberg, whom he knew from past workers’ rights cases. Goldberg had 19 years of experience in the field, and served as chief advisor to California Attorney General Rob Bonta on workers’ rights.
While the group pursues allegations of wage theft and other abusive workplace practices, it spends roughly half of its efforts investigating and litigating instances of employee misclassification. The latter mostly involves classifying employees as independent contractors, a move that saves a company millions of dollars by avoiding the costs of providing benefits.
As Eliasoph puts it, “If you can misclassify a worker, it’s kind of a silver bullet to get out of all employment laws.”
And, with the onset of gig companies, the issue has been front and center. “We’ve seen a real growth in misclassification,” said Goldberg.
It is also one of Goldberg’s specialties. He is “a key architect in the legal strategy for combating misclassification,” said Eliasoph. Doing research on cases, Eliasophy often sees Goldberg’s name in “the first generation” of misclassification cases filed by the public sector, including a 2020 lawsuit against Uber and Lyft.
Eliasoph, who looks like Goldberg — glasses, loosely fitted blue suits, balding with graying stubble — spent most of his career in the U.S. Department of Labor as an attorney. His past cases include suing Google for underpaying women, and Palantir for discriminating against Asian job applicants.
To keep abreast of “what’s going on out in the world,” Eliasoph says, he chats up people in the workforce, as well as nonprofits, NGOs, “dozens and dozens of union officials” and other “friends in the private sector.”
His legal battles early in his career have given him a thick skin. He knows how his opponents will roll. “It is a very common tactic, when you have the facts against you and the law against you, to try to vilify the government investigators,” pretending they are singling out the company, he said.
Among its next targets is San Francisco-based temporary-staffing company WorkWhile, or Workforce as a Service, Inc. The team filed a lawsuit in June against the firm and its CEO and co-founder, Jarah Euston, charging misclassification and unfair competition. WorkWhile did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
A lot of misclassification cases “happen to be tech companies that have set up businesses that they refer to as gig companies,” said Goldberg. “We wanted to try to put a stop to this as early as we can, before it expands and takes over the way it has, for example, with Uber and Lyft.”
Progress can be slow, but the team is pleased to see that others are following in its footsteps. In the past year or so, the San Diego City Attorney’s office, the Los Angeles County Council and the Santa Clara County Council have all, in different ways, established teams focused on worker rights.