Overview

To supplement often under-funded public enforcement and legal services agencies, states can also encourage unions and other workers' advocates to help bring legal actions against wage law violators.  

• Laws can be modeled on California's Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act, which allows present and former employees to collect not only damages for unpaid wages, but also twenty-five percent of the civil penalties that are normally paid to the state as well.
• San Francisco's city minimum wage ordinance authorizes community groups and unions to file complaints without having to show that the workers not being paid are their members.
• A number of states give outside labor advocates access to non-work areas of employer property to educate employees on their rights. Massachusetts, California(see §20900 of the CA Agricultural Labor Relations, Solicitation by Non-Employee Organizers regulations) and a few other states give farmworker advocates access to agricultural fields; states including California, Colorado and New Jersey require mall owners to give union organizers, as well as others, access to sidewalks, parking lots and interior public spaces.