As part of a broader initiative to crack down on wage theft and other labor law violations, Santa Clara County is suing a string of Metro by T-Mobile stores that they say have been exploiting workers as young as 14.

The allegations against the five shops, which are located in East San Jose and Milpitas, date back to 2021. The county claims that a group of owners paid workers less than minimum wage, didn’t pay overtime, paid workers “under the table” and employed minors without the required permits and for long hours.

“The defendants win out by violating the law. The workers lose out by taking home less than they are rightfully earned, and the county pays out to catch folks in the safety net because they can’t afford the basics,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said at press conference on Thursday afternoon. “To make matters worse, the businesses that do comply with the law have to compete against low-road businesses that are content to play with a stacked deck.”

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court on May 28, owners and managers at the T-Mobile stores paid its teenage employees — who ranged from 14 to 17 years old — wages as low as $13 per hour and no more than $15 per hour through at least December 2024. The San Jose minimum wage in 2024 was $17.55 an hour.

Minors working at the stores also frequently had shifts up to 11 hours long on weekends and more than 4 hours long on school days — in violation of labor laws — the lawsuit alleges.

The county believes the five stores worked in concert with each other and had overlapping ownership and management. It was unclear on Friday who represents the ownership. In a statement, a T-Mobile spokesperson said that “Metro by T-Mobile stores are independently owned and operated by third-party retailers.”

“We require every retailer to comply with all laws, especially when it comes to employment practices,” the spokesperson said. “We take these concerns seriously and are looking into them.”

Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong, who served as the inaugural director of the county’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement from 2018 to 2020, said at the press conference that a majority of the accused stores are in East San Jose, where residents often make lower wages and have higher health disparities than the rest of the county. The area also has higher rates of non-English speaking households.

“This will not be tolerated here,” Duong said. “The store owners specifically targeted this community that has had fewer resources historically to fight against injustices.”

Ruth Silver Taube, a supervising attorney at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center, called the lawsuit a “groundbreaking effort by the county to combat wage theft, pervasive employment law violations and the egregious practice of child labor.”

“Now more than ever in these challenging times, it is so important for workers to report these kinds of workplace violations so that all of us can use the legal tools we have to put a stop to and deliver justice to those that are harmed,” Silver Taube said.

The county’s decision to step up enforcement of labor laws comes as the state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office has struggled to keep up with an overwhelming number of claims. At the end of the 2023-23 fiscal year, the office had 47,000 backlogged claims, according to 2024 report from the California State Auditor.

The audit found that wage theft claims often took more than two years to process, and that the office has been chronically understaffed and often unsuccessful in collecting judgements from employers committing wage theft.

LoPresti, the county counsel, said that over the last year his office has been able to quickly scale up its ability to enforce labor laws. The Labor Commissioner’s Office recently gave the county a grant that allowed them to hire more investigators. In the last year, the county has helped collect on more than $23 million of unpaid wage judgments locally.

“It’s the first of many lawsuits our office will be filing to enforce the labor code,” LoPresti said. “Employers should be crystal clear that we are willing, that we are able and that we are ready to go to court to ensure they pay a steep price if they exploit their workers.”