Workers can sue as private attorneys general — and recover for every employee, every pay period.
Under the Private Attorneys General Act (Labor Code §§ 2698-2699), a single worker can sue on behalf of all similarly situated employees and recover civil penalties for Labor Code violations. Default: $100 per employee per pay period; $200 willful or repeat. The 2024 reform reduced penalties for compliant employers and added a self-cure pathway — but for non-compliant ones, exposure can run into millions in months.
PAGA Exposure Tracking
Aggregates Labor Code violation risk across all policies in a single exposure dashboard. Surfaces highest-risk patterns (chronic missed breaks, late wage payments, wage statement gaps) before they become representative-action targets.
What the rule does as violations accumulate.
The hero card configuration: Critical on representative-action patterns, Flag on per-policy counts. Here's what each does at runtime.
When violations of any single policy exceed a threshold (e.g., 10+ workers, 3+ pay periods), Teambridge surfaces a Critical alert with calculated PAGA exposure: violations × $100/$200 × workers affected × pay periods. The threshold is configurable per workforce risk tolerance.
On the compliance dashboard, every Labor Code policy displays current violation count and aggregate exposure. Visibility supports proactive remediation.
Deploy PAGA exposure tracking in your Teambridge.
Tell us about your workforce. We'll spin up California PAGA exposure tracking across all 22 other policies — in a sandbox tenant.
One worker. All employees. 12-month lookback. Per-pay-period multiplier.
PAGA's leverage comes from the multiplier effect: violations × workers × pay periods. A small, isolated violation pattern can compound into massive exposure quickly.
Penalty multiplier
$100 per employee per pay period for default violations; $200 for willful or repeat. A 50-employee workforce with violations across 12 pay periods (semi-monthly = 6 months) faces $60,000 default exposure on a single violation type. Multiple violation types stack.
2024 reform — AB 2288 / SB 92
Significant changes effective June 19, 2024: reduced penalties for employers who take 'reasonable steps' to comply (cap reduced to $50/employee/period if reasonable steps were taken before notice; $100 if taken after); new cure procedures for wage statement and certain other violations; standing limited to employees who suffered the violation personally; LWDA notice required first to give employer cure window.
Teambridge surfaces exposure before notices land — and supports the cure window when they do.
PAGA reform created a real cure opportunity for employers who can detect and remediate fast. Teambridge's compliance log is built for this — every violation is timestamped, traceable, and remediable.
Live calculation across policies.
Every Labor Code policy in the California library contributes to a running PAGA exposure calculation: violations × workers × pay periods × $100. The dashboard shows current exposure, broken down by policy and worker cohort.
Representative-action risk surfaces.
When violations of a single policy cross a threshold (configurable; common defaults: 10+ workers OR 3+ pay periods), Teambridge surfaces the pattern as a representative-action risk with calculated exposure.
33-day cure pathway documented.
If an LWDA notice arrives, Teambridge's compliance log supports the cure: per-worker violation history, per-period back wages owed, corrected wage statement generation. The 33-day window becomes operationally feasible rather than panicked.
Audit-defensible compliance posture.
The 2024 reform reduces penalties for employers taking 'reasonable steps' to comply. Teambridge's policy adoption log, training records, and audit trail document the reasonable-steps posture — supporting penalty reductions if a notice does land.
Still evaluating? Get a free California compliance audit.
Send us your existing California scheduling and pay configuration. Our compliance team returns a written audit within 5 business days — every California-specific exposure ranked by risk and back-pay liability.