The COVID-19 pandemic did not slow down the pace of new California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) letters being filed with the state Labor Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), according to filing data. Instead, there was a significant increase in the filing of PAGA letters during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
California’s PAGA, which was enacted in 2004, enables employees to bring representative claims to enforce violations of the California Labor Code on behalf of other allegedly aggrieved employees with the same employer.
The data shows that PAGA filings increased in 2020-2021 compared to the prior two years—a trend that appears to have an even steeper upward curve since the start of the pandemic.
The filing data shows a 25 percent increase in PAGA letters filed with the California LWDA, over the past five years, from 2017 to 2021, increasing from 4,984 in 2017, to 6,502 in 2021. When comparing the two-year period before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2018-2019, to the two-year period from 2020 to 2021, the data shows a notable increase in filings per month in eight of the 12 months each year.
The highest filing increases were in the months of March of 2020 and 2021, which saw an almost 20 percent increase in filings between the two periods, and July of 2020, which saw a 22 percent increase. March 2021 has the distinction of having the most PAGA filings in a single month ever with 647, surpassing the prior record of...
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