At Salon:

By a unanimous vote on Thursday, Chicago’s City Council passed one of the strongest “wage theft” laws in the United States. The move was hailed by labor activists, who’ve long complained that wage theft — not paying workers what they’re legally owed — is one of the easiest crimes to get away with.

“Now the bosses are going to know that the workers have rights, too,” said Maria Garcia, a member of the labor group Arise Chicago, which spearheaded the campaign to pass the law. Interviewed in Spanish, Garcia said she’d experienced wage theft at both of the past two restaurants where she’d worked.