Julie Su doesn’t back down from fights when she thinks employers are cheating their workers. In her two years as California’s top labor law enforcer, Su has taken on scores of unscrupulous businesses. As state labor commissioner, she inherited an understaffed state agency that she recalled was overwhelmed with complaints of worker abuse, unpaid overtime and management retaliation. "I set out to make the promise of a just day’s pay for a hard day’s work a reality in every workplace in California," Su said in a status report to Gov. Jerry Brown being released Wednesday. Marshaling limited resources, Su has focused much of her enforcement efforts on working conditions for the often immigrant and first-generation Americans who pick crops, sew garments, build houses, clean buildings, wash cars, bus tables and perform other back-breaking tasks. Su has filed criminal charges and civil lawsuits and issued citations that identified more than $185 million in unpaid wages and other compensa…
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