Minimum Wage Attorney in San Francisco & California — Recovering What You Are Owed

Your employer pays you $15 an hour when the law requires $19.61. You receive tips but they argue that counts toward your wage. You are paid in cash with no accurate record of your hours. Or they shave time off your check — the time spent putting on your uniform, waiting for instructions, cleaning up at the end of your shift — that simply never appears in your paycheck.

All of this is a minimum wage violation. And in San Francisco — the city with the highest minimum wage in California — it is completely illegal regardless of the employer's size, the type of business, or whether you signed any agreement.

My name is Arlo Uriarte. I am an employment attorney at Liberation Law Group and I have spent over 20 years recovering wages for workers in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and throughout Northern California. We are a plaintiff's firm — we file cases, we fight for workers, and we do not defend employers. Our office is at 2760 Mission Street in the Mission District, three minutes from 24th Street BART. We speak Spanish, and we know exactly how to build a minimum wage case that results in maximum recovery for the worker.

If your employer is paying you less than the minimum wage, call today for a free consultation in Spanish or English. No cost, no obligation, regardless of immigration status.

The Three Minimum Wages That Protect You in San Francisco

In California, three levels of minimum wage apply simultaneously. The highest always controls.

If you work in San Francisco, your employer must pay you at least $19.61 per hour — with no exceptions for small businesses, part-time workers, or tipped employees. San Francisco's minimum wage applies to every person who works in the city, regardless of where the employer is incorporated. The federal $7.25 is legally irrelevant here.

San Francisco's minimum wage increases periodically. If you work in San Francisco and receive less than $19.61 per hour for any hour worked in 2024, your employer owes you money — and you can claim it retroactively for up to 3 years.

The Most Important Rule Many Workers Don't Know — Tips Do Not Count

In many states, employers can count tips received as part of the minimum wage — a practice called a "tip credit." In California, this practice is completely prohibited.

What this means in practice: if you are a server, bartender, or work in any tipped position in San Francisco, your employer must pay you the full $19.61 per hour — plus all of your tips. Tips are yours entirely. They cannot reduce your base hourly wage.

Also illegal in California:

• Tip pools that include managers or supervisors — only employees without supervisory authority may legally participate
• Withholding tips to cover business expenses — broken dishes, uniforms, or worker errors
• Deducting credit card processing fees from workers' tips
• "Service charges" the employer keeps instead of distributing to the worker who provided the service

Learn more about all forms of wage theft protected under California law.

The Most Common Minimum Wage Violations

The Agreement You Signed Is Not Valid

One of the most common concerns workers raise: "But I signed an agreement accepting that wage. Doesn't that affect my rights?"

The answer is no — that agreement has no legal validity. The minimum wage is a non-waivable legal floor. No contract, written agreement, negotiation, or signature can reduce a worker's pay below the minimum established by law. An employer cannot "get" a worker to waive this right, regardless of how the document is drafted or what pressure was applied.

This means that if you signed an agreement accepting $14/hour when the SF minimum was $19.61, you can still claim the difference retroactively for up to 3 years. The agreement is void in the part that violates the law.

These are real cases that have occurred in the Bay Area. If your situation is similar, call Arlo Uriarte for a free evaluation.