Op-ed: San Jose must act as “Slavery Towers” workers wait for protection

Nearly a decade has passed since the case now known as “Slavery Towers” exposed the human cost of San Jose’s failure to enforce basic worker protections.

In 2016, city officials were alerted that construction workers on a high-rise project were being denied pay. A year later, the U.S. Department of Labor confirmed more than a dozen workers had been trafficked and forced to work under abusive conditions by an unlicensed contractor. They were housed in a compound outside the city and transported daily to downtown San Jose to build residential towers that remain largely unoccupied and have done little to meet the city’s urgent housing needs or strengthen its property tax base.

The scandal shocked the community and drew national attention. In 2018 and 2019, workers and labor leaders stood with city councilmembers in front of those towers to demand action, safe job sites, fair pay and real protections against wage theft. The message was simple — never again.

Yet today, workers are still waiting.

In 2020, the mayor and City Council directed staff to develop a Responsible Construction Ordinance (RCO) to prevent labor trafficking, wage theft and unsafe working conditions by holding developers and contractors accountable. Despite that directive, progress stalled. Even as the city continued approving major development projects, meaningful labor protections were delayed.

In June 2024, the council unanimously adopted the RCO. But adoption without implementation does not protect workers. Nearly two years later, the ordinance remains unenforceable, and the systems needed to make it work have not been put in place.

The central concern is the lack of oversight and implementation of wage theft protections in the face of rapid construction and development across Silicon Valley. Without strong, transparent oversight, these conditions can enable widespread wage theft, allowing bad actors to exploit fast-moving timelines, operate through layers of subcontracting and evade accountability.

This delay could not come at a worse time. Working people across San Jose are struggling with rising costs, stagnant wages and economic uncertainty. Wage theft is not an abstract policy problem, it is stolen rent money, missed utility payments and families forced to make impossible choices. Workers without union representation face even greater risk from low road contractors, which is why the labor movement is advocating not only for its members, but for all workers harmed by exploitation and abuse.

Unfortunately, the city’s current approach to implementing the RCO undermines its purpose.

As proposed, workers with outstanding wage theft judgments would have no realistic way to recover stolen wages. To file a complaint, a worker would need to know whether their former employer is currently working on a construction project covered by the ordinance. But the city does not plan to publicly disclose which contractors are working on RCO covered projects. That means neither workers nor the city would know when the ordinance applies.

An ordinance that cannot be enforced is not reform, it is a hollow promise.

Nearly 10 years after “Slavery Towers,” San Jose cannot afford to look away again. The administration and city council must act immediately to implement the Responsible Construction Ordinance with transparency, enforceability and clear accountability. This includes public disclosure of covered projects, meaningful coordination across departments and a complaint and enforcement process that allows workers to actually recover stolen wages.

Protecting workers from exploitation is not just a moral obligation, it is a measure of whether San Jose will meet this moment with leadership. The people who build and sustain this city deserve real protections, real enforcement and real accountability, and they deserve them now.

Jean Cohen is executive officer of the South Bay Labor Council. David Bini is executive director of the Santa Clara and San Benito Counties Building and Construction Trades Council.