Protecting Workers:
Wage Theft Enforcement for Prosecutors
Wednesday, January 31, 2024 • 2:00pm EST
Alvin Bragg
Manhattan, NY District Attorney
Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. is the 37th District Attorney elected in Manhattan. A son of Harlem who has served as both a state and federal prosecutor, Alvin has spent more than two decades fighting to make our communities safer and our criminal justice system fairer. He is the first Black Manhattan DA in the history of the office.
Alvin restructured the Manhattan DA’s Office to focus more resources on prosecuting serious violent crimes, meeting the needs of survivors, reducing recidivism by addressing the underlying causes of criminal behavior, protecting everyday New Yorkers from abuses by the powerful, and correcting past injustices by vacating wrongful convictions. Alvin also directly oversees a unit to root out police misconduct.
Under his leadership so far, the office has increased gun prosecutions, focused on gun traffickers and ghost gun manufacturers, and charged and secured convictions for numerous armed robberies, shootings, and homicides. At the same time, the office invested in community-based gun violence prevention programs and services to address the trauma suffered by victims and witnesses to gun violence.
As a long-time white-collar prosecutor, Alvin believes in holding powerful people accountable for harming everyday New Yorkers. He secured a 6-count indictment against Stephen K. Bannon and WeBuildTheWall, Inc., a Florida-based not-for-profit corporation, on charges including money laundering, conspiracy, and scheme to defraud in connection with a year-long fundraising scheme that netted more than $15 million from thousands of donors across the country based on false promises. He also secured the conviction of Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg on 15 felony counts in connection with a long-running tax evasion scheme. He launched a dedicated Housing and Tenant Protection Unit to investigate and prosecute landlords and developers who engage in systemic fraud and tenant harassment. And he is committed to prosecute employers who steal wages and endanger workers.
During his tenure, District Attorney Bragg created the Office’s first-ever Worker Protection Unit to investigate and prosecute wage theft and other forms of worker harassment and exploitation across Manhattan’s many industries. D.A. Bragg also established the first-ever Stolen Wage Fund for Manhattan victims of wage theft, funded through the D.A.’s Criminal Justice Investment Initiative and operated in partnership with the New York State Department of Labor.
Alvin earned his A.B. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, clerked for Hon. Robert P. Patterson, Jr. in the Southern District of New York. Alvin is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and a Sunday School teacher at his church.
José Garza
Travis County, TX District Attorney
José Garza was elected Travis County District Attorney on November 3, 2020. As a former federal public defender, immigrant rights activist, and leader of the systemic change organization, Workers Defense Project, José Garza has a unique view into how our broken criminal justice system works and how it impacts our communities. He believes we can fix it together.
José attended law school at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and worked for Judge Richard W. Roberts in federal district court for the District of Columbia. He returned to Texas to work on the border as an assistant public defender in the first multi-county public defender’s office in Texas at Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid. Subsequently, José served as an assistant federal public defender in the Western District of Texas, where he represented people accused of misdemeanor and felony crimes. In those experiences, he saw first hand how our system weighs most heavily on people of color, working people and poor people, and immigrant families.
José later returned to Washington, D.C. to serve as the Deputy General Counsel for the House Committee on Education and Labor. He went on to work as Special Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board where he represented the agency against legal attacks brought by a Republican Congress. He eventually served Secretary Tom Perez as a senior policy official at the U.S. Department of Labor where he worked to ensure that working people and people of color were able to find safety and stability in good jobs.
José brings to the office of the District Attorney extensive experience building power with communities of color, working families, and immigrant communities across Texas. During his tenure as the Executive Director of Workers Defense Project, the organization won significant criminal justice reform in Travis County, won paid sick leave policies in Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, and advocated for the creation of a Public Defender Office alongside community allies in Travis County.
Terri Gerstein
Director, NYU Wagner Labor Initiative
Terri Gerstein is the Director of the newly-created NYU Wagner Labor Initiative, at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The Labor Initiative explores, advocates for, and accelerates the often-untapped potential of government in safeguarding and advancing workers' rights. Previously, Terri directed the State and Local Enforcement Project at the Harvard Center for Labor and a Just Economy and was a Senior Fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. In 2017, she was an Open Society Foundations Leadership in Government Fellow.
Terri enforced labor laws for over 17 years in New York, including as Labor Bureau Chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Office and as Deputy Commissioner in the New York State Department of Labor. Before her government service, Terri was a nonprofit lawyer in Miami, Florida, where she represented immigrant workers and co-hosted a Spanish language radio show on workers’ rights.
Terri writes frequently on labor issues; in addition to law review articles and think-tank reports, she has had bylines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Slate, Teen Vogue, The American Prospect, and more. She is a member of the American Law Institute, and is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
Scott Stillman
Founder and Managing Attorney, Law Office of Scott Stillman
Scott Stillman is the founder of the Law Office of Scott Stillman, a litigation firm that specializes in advocating for employees and ensuring they receive the fair treatment they deserve. Prior to establishing his own firm in 2023, Scott was an Assistant District Attorney and Labor Liaison at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. At the SF DA’s Office, he started and led the Workers’ Rights Unit, which investigated and prosecuted legal violations committed by employers against workers. This innovative unit, one of the first of its kind in the nation, focused on cases involving wage theft and labor trafficking as well as civil enforcement of workplace laws through California’s Unfair Competition Law.
Charlie Uruchima
Program Coordinator, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health
Charlie Uruchima was born and raised in New York City of Kichwa-Kañari (Ecuadorian) descent. He is an activist, audiovisual producer, and musical curator working in the intersections of community, labor, and cultural organizing in New York City. In July 2014, Charlie co-founded Kichwa Hatari, the first Kichwa radio project in the U.S. Since 2012, Charlie has worked extensively with grassroots organizations in New York City, like Democracy Now, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), and Brandworkers. Since 2016, Charlie has also consulted for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at NYU. Currently, Charlie works at the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) coordinating the Manhattan Justice for Workers Collaborative (MJWC), a city-wide workers’ rights initiative, where, in 2019, he helped organize and launch New York City’s first Workers’ Bill of Rights in five Latin American indigenous languages, including Kichwa, K’iche’, Mixteco, Garifuna, and Nahuatl. Charlie is currently enrolled in the Labor Studies Master’s program. at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.
Rachel Marshall
Executive Director, Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (moderator)
Rachel Marshall is the Executive Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution.
Rachel previously served as the Director of Communications and Policy Advisor at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, following nearly a decade working as a public defender in Alameda County, California. Rachel has extensive expertise in the criminal legal system and efforts to reform it, as well as experience in media, policy, and advocacy.
Rachel graduated from Stanford Law School and Brown University. After law school, she clerked for federal District Court Judge David O. Carter in the Central District of California. Prior to law school, she taught high school history for three years in the Bronx.