Dear Chef Rogelio Martinez & New Owners of Casa Oaxaca Restaurant,

We, the community, residents, and past or future customers of Casa Oaxaca Restaurant, petition Chef Rogelio Martinez (former owner of Casa Oaxaca) to finish paying the wages he stole from a group of workers who filed wage claims last year with the Labor Commissioner's office and won. Chef Rogelio still owes over $10,000 to a group of workers who used to work as servers and prep cooks.

The Casa Oaxaca restaurant in Santa Ana is a very popular place in the Mexican community here, especially for people from Oaxaca. However, since it opened, wage theft has been prevalent there. From not allowing workers to properly take rest and meal breaks, unpaid overtime, and being made to think that paid sick leave in California does not exist for workers. All of these working conditions are against the law and encompass what is known as wage theft, a crime in the state of California.

In addition, we also would like to inform and petition the new owners of Casa Oaxaca to meet with the former workers and the Tenayuca Labor Project to find an agreement to monitor the current working conditions since a change of ownership has taken place.

Not respecting workers rights and stealing their wages is not acceptable in a city that calls itself a sanctuary for immigrants. Businesses that do this need to be held accountable not just by the law but by the community to be transformed into workplaces where dignity and respect exist for all workers.