By Rachel Brahinsky

Immigrants from Mexico's Yucatán peninsula, the Cetina sisters bunk with six other adults and two children in a cramped two-bedroom Mission District apartment. Olga and Susy Cetina have young children, and for a while both say they worked about 50 hours each week as bartenders at Carlos's Club on 24th Street, earning the state hourly minimum of $6.75.

But last August, they told the Bay Guardian, they realized they were being shortchanged under the year-old city ordinance that guaranteed them at least $8.50 an hour. "We saw a paper that said the minimum was higher," Olga told us in Spanish. "[Owner] Carlos [Gutierrez] fired us before the city investigated." She said she suspected the firings took place because Gutierrez knew they were planning to complain.

Gutierrez denies this. "When they went to complain, they were no longer working for me," he told us in Spanish. "[Their complaint] was not the motive."

The Cetinas contacted the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, which pulled Carlos's books and found that eight employees were owed a total of $7,182 for eight months of lost wages. Gutierrez said he'd thought he qualified for the city's small-business exemption, which would have allowed him to pay less, but that when he learned he was incorrect, he immediately repaid his staff, including the Cetinas.

Gutierrez's bar is 1 of 15 businesses that have been dinged by the city for violations of the ordinance in the year since the law kicked in; another 11 are under investigation. The violations have occurred in many industries, from restaurants to retail to hotels and have included the Stemberga Retirement Home, Hunter Laboratories (a medical lab), Quality Sports, and the Furniture Store. Complaints are pending against King Tin Restaurant, M&M Luxury Airport Shuttle, Martha and Bros. Coffee Shop, and several hotels, including the Hilton San Francisco.

Some are accused of sticking with the state minimum wage; others, including King Tin, are accused of paying monthly lump sums that dip even further below government standards. One King Tin employee, for example, said she was paid as little as $3.50 an hour and was made to work 91 hours each week (see "Less Than Minimum," 9/22/04).

The OSLE complaint files reveal at least one common thread. "These are mainly people who depend on these jobs for their livelihoods," OLSE head Donna Levitt told us, noting that the stereotypical image of a minimum-wage worker is a teenager with few expenses. "They need these jobs."

As with Carlos's Club, many minimum-wage complaints against a business balloon once the city begins to investigate. That's because when a complaint is filed, the OLSE asks the accused employer for a full roster of payroll records, so it can turn up violations throughout the business. At Schroeder's Restaurant, a Front Street eatery that serves German and central European fare, 12 workers received $4,017 in back pay after just one server complained.

On the whole, although 23 workers filed claims, resulting city enforcement returned $40,011 to 109 workers. Another stack of claims, filed by 24 employees, is under investigation and could reveal more widespread abuse.

The law, which was passed by voters in November 2003, raised the wage floor for an estimated 56,000 minimum- and low-wage laborers citywide. Initially the San Francisco hourly minimum was set at $8.50; last month it rose to $8.62, believed to be the highest in the nation. Small businesses and nonprofits, which were exempt last year, now must pay $7.75 an hour.

As part of its campaign against the measure back in 2003, the local restaurant lobby charged that the law would send its industry spiraling downward and warned that it would be a job killer. But last August the San Francisco Chronicle reported the restaurant industry was in fact experiencing a renewed boom. And now, a year after the bill's implementation, even Golden Gate Restaurant Association executive director Kevin Westlye concedes that while profit margins are thinner, restaurants aren't closing en masse – as was predicted.

So far, Levitt told us, accused employers have been relatively cooperative with her, but it's possible this could shift as new complaints are filed for larger sums. Levitt said minimum-wage claims have no statute of limitations, which means that a claim filed 2 – or 10 – years after the law took effect could result in massive payouts, which employers are likely to fight. For information on the minimum-wage law or to file a complaint, call (415) 554-6292 or go to www.sfgov.org/olse.

E-mail Rachel Brahinsky