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> There's no right to refuse after you've already done the work You implicitly agree to take on a debt when you don't ask for payment upfront, but either way y

by Chris2048 5y ago

> There's no right to refuse after you've already done the work You implicitly agree to take on a debt when you don't ask for payment upfront, but either way you still should have a contract of some sort. Just because you call it theft doesn't make it so - failure to deliver on a promise (contract) doesn't retroactively become theft. > the employee must have originally arranged the work off-the-record Illegally?.. You don't get the same protection of law if you conspire to stiff the taxman. > And if they don't, what do you expect to happen? Because wage theft.. My comment wrt expectation was about fraud, not "wage theft". > even for those cases where the employer is doing things off-the-record, fraudulently, and the employee has no right to refuse? off-the-record and fraudulent activity should be punished, but I see no evidence it is being ignored. If employees are also complicit, maybe that's the reason these cases are not heard. > why is the civil liability to employer so low? presumably b/c, without fraud, there should be all the evidence/materials to prove wrong doing in the normal manner (i.e. in court). I agree, though, that those who do it blatantly should be additionally punished if it seems they are banking on poor organisation/resources of their employees.

eesmith 5y ago
Shrug. Okay, let's take your points as true, and agree that wage theft shouldn't be criminalized more than it already it. Why are the enforcement agencies responsible for preventing wage theft - including "the taxman" - so underfunded as compared to the police, even when we're talking about comparable economic effects in the billions of dollars? When talking about correlations between race and being a "victim", why should we only (or primarily) consider criminal statistics? Is there a national equivalent of the National Crime Victimization Survey which covers wage theft, workplace harassment, and other illegal activities which aren't part of criminal law? I dunno. Me code.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  > enforcement agencies responsible for preventing wage theft - including "the taxman" The taxman isn't formally concerned with wage theft, they are concerned with (tax) fraud. I'm not sure what other enforcement agencies there would be - the Department of Labour? > When talking about correlations between race and being a "victim", why should we only (or primarily) consider criminal statistics? We shouldn't, but that's a generalisation of the original question: why is wage theft not treated like a criminal offence. Also, correlations with race doesn't imply causation: If race correlates with X then anything that correlates with X will also correlate with race. Race correlates with wealth, so anything that correlates with wealth can be spuriously correlated to race. If you normalise for wealth and the racial correlation disappears (I do not know if this is the case) then you have a stronger case for a (primary) cause. > which covers wage theft, workplace harassment presumably court cases and lawsuit in non-criminal cases. and other non-legal things such as polls and complaints. But I'm not sure why you expand this to workplace harassment etc - legal resources should be better provided at the lower end, but the courts are the proper place for these civil issues, not criminalising (recategorising) everything for the sake of fixing a funding problem.

eesmith 5y ago

Shrug. Okay, let's take your points as true, and agree that wage theft shouldn't be criminalized more than it already it. Why are the enforcement agencies responsible for preventing wage theft - including "the taxman" - so underfunded as compared to the police, even when we're talking about comparable economic effects in the billions of dollars? When talking about correlations between race and being a "victim", why should we only (or primarily) consider criminal statistics? Is there a national equivalent of the National Crime Victimization Survey which covers wage theft, workplace harassment, and other illegal activities which aren't part of criminal law? I dunno. Me code.

Chris2048 5y ago
> enforcement agencies responsible for preventing wage theft - including "the taxman" The taxman isn't formally concerned with wage theft, they are concerned with (tax) fraud. I'm not sure what other enforcement agencies there would be - the Department of Labour? > When talking about correlations between race and being a "victim", why should we only (or primarily) consider criminal statistics? We shouldn't, but that's a generalisation of the original question: why is wage theft not treated like a criminal offence. Also, correlations with race doesn't imply causation: If race correlates with X then anything that correlates with X will also correlate with race. Race correlates with wealth, so anything that correlates with wealth can be spuriously correlated to race. If you normalise for wealth and the racial correlation disappears (I do not know if this is the case) then you have a stronger case for a (primary) cause. > which covers wage theft, workplace harassment presumably court cases and lawsuit in non-criminal cases. and other non-legal things such as polls and complaints. But I'm not sure why you expand this to workplace harassment etc - legal resources should be better provided at the lower end, but the courts are the proper place for these civil issues, not criminalising (recategorising) everything for the sake of fixing a funding problem.