3 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 and https://www.epi.org/publication/ep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 and https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-... ...having said that, wage theft is not only difficult to quantify but even to define precisely.

lapetitejort 5y ago
Ask anyone working minimum wage jobs to help describe wage theft and they'll give plenty of definitions. I worked at a movie theater as a manager. On slow weekdays I was scheduled from open to close. But the manager above me added a two hour "lunch break" each day to my time card. Maybe a half hour of that was actual free time. They withheld company policy from me regarding what I was entitled as a full time employee (vacation days, etc). People can get creative when stealing from minimum wage employees.
- ljf 5y ago
  An employee steals £20 from the company and the police will come and arrest that person, and they have a good chance to bring a prosecution if they have committed a similar crime before. An employer with-holds/steals/defrauds an employee for £500 or more, and not only will the police not care, they won't even note it as a crime. Best bet is a civil court, but that takes time and can cost money. So most people just move on and the employer does it again and again.
  - moate 5y ago
    It's almost like it's a feature and not a bug. Like somehow management was able to use all these ill-gotten gains to exert influence on the courts/legislatures to create a more corporate-friendly/employee-hostile environment...
withinboredom 5y ago
I was one of the first employees at a startup. Originally a contractor. When the owner converted us all to employees, he did the math in such a way that it was clear he didn’t count weekends so we got a pay-cut. We made a big stink out of it, but he didn’t budge until there was an outage on Saturday and we didn’t fix it until Monday. There was only three of us, colluding not to fix it, but he’d have gotten away with it if the team were bigger. It’s hard to “make a stand” when more people are involved.

lapetitejort 5y ago

Ask anyone working minimum wage jobs to help describe wage theft and they'll give plenty of definitions. I worked at a movie theater as a manager. On slow weekdays I was scheduled from open to close. But the manager above me added a two hour "lunch break" each day to my time card. Maybe a half hour of that was actual free time. They withheld company policy from me regarding what I was entitled as a full time employee (vacation days, etc). People can get creative when stealing from minimum wage employees.

ljf 5y ago
An employee steals £20 from the company and the police will come and arrest that person, and they have a good chance to bring a prosecution if they have committed a similar crime before. An employer with-holds/steals/defrauds an employee for £500 or more, and not only will the police not care, they won't even note it as a crime. Best bet is a civil court, but that takes time and can cost money. So most people just move on and the employer does it again and again.
- moate 5y ago
  It's almost like it's a feature and not a bug. Like somehow management was able to use all these ill-gotten gains to exert influence on the courts/legislatures to create a more corporate-friendly/employee-hostile environment...

withinboredom 5y ago

I was one of the first employees at a startup. Originally a contractor. When the owner converted us all to employees, he did the math in such a way that it was clear he didn’t count weekends so we got a pay-cut. We made a big stink out of it, but he didn’t budge until there was an outage on Saturday and we didn’t fix it until Monday. There was only three of us, colluding not to fix it, but he’d have gotten away with it if the team were bigger. It’s hard to “make a stand” when more people are involved.