A hand tied up and barcode is tattooed. (Nanzeeba Ibnat/Getty Images )

Villela is policy director of Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School and lives in Sacramento. Sanchez is policy advocate at Western Center on Law and Poverty, and lives in Sacramento.

With corporations making record profits and inflation at 40-year highs, dignified labor and safe working conditions remain top priorities among union leaders, worker advocates and government officials. But with labor trafficking present in communities across California, how do we keep the most vulnerable populations safe from predatory employers and labor trafficking?

In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring July 30 as World Day Against Trafficking in Persons to raise awareness about victims of human trafficking and the promotion and protection of their rights. These rights include having government officials combat all forms of human trafficking.

Labor trafficking in California is pervasive and impacts numerous industries. A 2017 report from the International Labor Organization and the Walk Free Foundation found that 82 percent of labor trafficking survivors work in manufacturing, hospitality, construction, mining and agriculture and as domestic workers in households. Victims often are people from vulnerable communities who lack access to stable housing, employment or social safety nets, work visas or union memberships that would safeguard them from exploitation. Up until now, California has done very little to track or prevent labor trafficking.

According to a recent report by Polaris, a nonprofit resource and advocacy center combating human trafficking, 15,886 victims of labor trafficking overall were identified through the U.S. National Trafficking Hotline in a three-year span between 2018 and 2020. Ninety-two percent of those victims were foreign nationals, 60 percent of labor trafficking foreign national victims shared their visa status when calling the hotline, and 59 percent of victims across temporary work visa categories reported threats of immigration used to keep them working against their will.

Overall, more than half of the victims of labor trafficking reported to the hotline during this period whose immigration status was identified were foreign nationals holding legal visas of some kind, including temporary work visas. In 2019, California reported the most human trafficking cases — 1,507 — to the U.S. Human Trafficking Hotline. This obviously represents only reported cases. A study by the Little Hoover Commission found that it is difficult to track the rate of labor trafficking in California because the government lacks the infrastructure to identify and record instances. The prime reason? The state has no entity responsible for the search for or prosecution of labor traffickers.

The Little Hoover Commission found that California often is most focused on sex trafficking, which is important, but very few labor trafficking instances are received on state hotlines or reported to labor oversight and enforcement agencies.

California often is viewed as a national leader on workers’ rights, stringent labor laws and safe workplace conditions. But the state has fallen short on its promise to protect the most vulnerable workers.

Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno, is proposing a legislative solution.

Assembly Bill 1820 seeks to remedy the gaps in reporting and data collection involving labor trafficking and provide the state’s Department of Industrial Relations with the authority to investigate labor trafficking claims. If passed, the bill would create a Labor Trafficking Unit within the Department of Industrial Relations that would streamline the process for civil and criminal charges being brought against labor traffickers.

The bill also promises new protocols for survivors looking to report instances of labor trafficking and would ensure that those making reports are informed about available resources. It prioritizes the safety of survivors by ensuring they would not be victimized or compromised by the process of reporting trafficking.

Passing this bill would be just the first step in addressing and preventing labor trafficking across California. When we discuss trafficking, many people think only of sex trafficking. We often fail to consider Californians who are victims of wage theft, coerced labor, forced labor, shady subcontracts and cumbersome enforcement of labor rights laws.

Many survivors of labor trafficking are either immigrants, domestic workers, Black and Brown workers, and low-income and/or formerly incarcerated workers. While Assembly Bill 1820 would not eradicate the root causes of labor trafficking, it would position the state to be much more aggressive in its approach on prevention and identification.

As a state that boasts about universal protections through social programs, civil rights and support of organized labor, California has many shortcomings on labor trafficking. As unbearable inflation continues to hit working families hardest, the least the state can do is ramp up enforcement and oversight of pre-existing anti-trafficking laws meant to ensure a balance of power between vulnerable workers and predatory employers. Workers’ livelihood and economic stability depend on it.