Terri Gerstein, director of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative, has been working to build a resilient web of state and local enforcers to protect workers’ rights. In a conversation, Gerstein discussed the growing role of state attorneys general in enforcing workers’ rights, citing the surge in state attorney general activity on workers’ rights over the past decade.
She explained that state and local governments can often respond to new developments faster than federal agencies and are more tailored in their approach to conditions close to the ground. She noted that some state and local governments have passed higher minimum wages, paid sick leave, and paid family and medical leave, as well as protections for workers excluded from federal law, including farmworkers and domestic workers, and collective bargaining rights for public employees and gig workers.
State Attorneys General and Workers’ Rights
There are now at least 12 attorney general offices with dedicated worker protection units, up from just three a decade ago.
These offices bring real power to workers’ rights enforcement, and she cited examples of successful cases, including a $272.5 million settlement with Lyft for misclassifying workers from 2016 to 2020.
The director also discussed the importance of cooperation among states to protect workers. Her work has helped attorneys general become involved in workers’ rights enforcement and has facilitated the growth of a community of attorney-general lawyers focused on this issue. This community has helped new offices take on the work and has enabled the sharing of ideas and potential cases.
She emphasized the need for state and local governments to work together, citing the example of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, which forced the national health-club chain Equinox to stop imposing non-compete agreements on its workers, also recovering nearly $2 million in the process.
Criminal Prosecution of Wage Theft
Gerstein discussed the use of the criminal justice system to prosecute wage theft, noting that criminal prosecution is qualitatively different from civil enforcement. She argued that criminal prosecution has the potential to achieve significantly more deterrence than the current civil enforcement system, citing the example of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has been a national leader on this issue.
She explained that criminal prosecution increases the likelihood of detection and the consequences of detection, including reputational harm and difficulty in getting business loans or government contracts. She noted that many employers seem to find money to pay restitution in criminal cases more readily than in civil cases, and that prosecution can be especially relevant in certain jurisdictions where a district attorney may be the only realistic option for fighting wage theft.
The advocate also described the characteristics that make labor-standards offices most effective in changing conditions for workers, including adequate funding, strategic enforcement, partnerships with unions and community groups, and bold leadership.
She noted that the federal government’s retreat from labor enforcement has led to a growing need for state and local governments to step in and protect workers’ rights. Some state and local governments are creating and enforcing essential guardrails to ensure that corporations understand they are subject to laws and cannot run roughshod over workers. The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, for example, has been very effective in recovering tens of millions of dollars in penalties from scofflaws.
The director proposed that workers’ rights could be enforced using contingency-fee outside counsel, which can bring great value as a force multiplier. This model can enable a state or local agency to bring cases that they would not otherwise be able to, and can help build a close inside-outside relationship between government enforcers and non-governmental workers’ rights lawyers.
She noted that there are real economies of scale when states or localities coordinate together, citing the example of state agencies following up on each other’s closed cases involving a national employer committing workplace-wide violations.
Gerstein shared an example of a successful “piggyback” case, where the Office of the Illinois Attorney General brought a case involving non-competes at Equinox, following a similar case by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General in 2025. This approach can make enforcement easier and more effective, as it leverages the work already done by another agency and can lead to better outcomes for workers.