5 ms·

The fine is only $5,000, while they have to pay $140,000 in back wages. Imagine you stole $140,000 and all you had to do was pay a fine. If anything, we are lea

The fine is only $5,000, while they have to pay $140,000 in back wages. Imagine you stole $140,000 and all you had to do was pay a fine. If anything, we are learning here that there is a pretty low risk associated with trying to pull something like that off.

kurthr 3y ago
Well, that and the eternal damnation of your soul. They'd probably rehypothecated theirs already, but it's worth noting that: Absolution of an accomplice is a sin that incurs automatic excommunication.
- Onavo 3y ago
  By doctrine, you can’t be criminally punished for offences by the church if you confess to your superior.
  - mbork_pl 3y ago
    Interesting, source?
- whstl 3y ago
  I wonder if I can use this strategy to stop paying the church tax in Germany. I was baptised Catholic but never practiced. But since the catholic church is internationally integrated I gotta pay the tax perpetually unless I get excommunicated.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    You need to pay an enforced tax? Is it levied by the government on behalf of the church or is there official papal taxmen? Seems like you should try to speed run excommunication. After all, there's a lot of fun ways to sin in the eyes of god.
    - whstl 3y ago
      It is paid on the salary. You have to declare yourself that you're part of a religion, though.
  - Joker_vD 3y ago
    Excuse me, that what tax?
    - whstl 3y ago
      I know, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax Protestants and members of other religions don't really have to pay unless they're a member of a church in German, but since the Catholic Church is centralized, everyone who was baptized has to pay. Yeah it sucks.
  - cancerhacker 3y ago
    I had never heard of this before[1] (as a sheltered obtuse American) - this seems like exactly the sort of thing that the US separation of church and state was established for. It looks like the church can opt you into their fold using deceptive dark practices - if this were the US, it would be like if registering with ancestry.com opted you into mandatory Mormon tithes[2]. [1] https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Kirchensteuer https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Kirchensteuer [2] https://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/genealogy.html https://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/genealogy.html
    - whstl 3y ago
      In Germany's case it's only the Catholic Church that does this shady stuff. It should have been like other churches, that only charge you if you frequent them in Germany. But the Catholic Lobby is strong, so if you have a register of baptism in Papua New Guine they will chase you and charge back taxes, even if your parents left the church, forgot to tell you about baptism, and were adopted by a family of another religion. Ooops.
  - mavhc 3y ago
    Why haven't you left yet? Obvious scam is obvious
    - whstl 3y ago
      Too much bureaucracy and I have to go back to my country for it, even to the same city/parish, apparently. And they might take their time and just "deny" it! It needs the approval of a Bishop or something like that. I'm considering other avenues. Someone mentioned I can also be excommunicated if I punch the pope, but so far I'm trying to avoid violent solutions.
      - eska 3y ago
        That’s not true. You sign a form where you write where you were baptized, if you remember, and that’s it. You have to pay for the privilege of exiting, however, although it was your parents who signed you up. Absolutely insanity.
        whstl 3y ago
        Not the information given to me at a parish, but you’re probably right.
        mavhc 3y ago
        That's often true for citizenship too
vGPU 3y ago
Whereas if someone had walked by an open bank vault and just walked off with 140k, they’d likely get several years in prison. The difference between white and blue collar crime, along with the different way the justice system treats corporations compared to people.
- emaginniss 3y ago
  There is a reason that there is a difference. The bank vault situation is a case of illegal taking. The person in that case is likely someplace that they aren't legally allowed to be or are using force (or threat thereof) to extract the money. There is no chance that this was an accident. The employment case is a failure to pay money that is owed. That is sometimes just a contractual failure and can be the result of malice or incompetence. Many states have recognized that the failure to pay lawful wages is greater than a simple contractual failure and have added double or treble damages to the awards to penalize employers in this situation. Still, it is generally recognized that we don't want to be throwing people in jail for just failing to live up to a civil contract. Imagine if we started throwing people in jail for failing to pay rent.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
It's the prioritization of punishment vs restitution. If you can't have both, then which do you want first? For instance, we could have them pay $5000 in back wages, and $140,000 in fines. Nor is it as simple as "well just toss them in prison instead of fines"... maybe not in this particular incident, but in many of those, incarcerating the offenders makes it even less likely that the employees receive restitution. (In this case, it probably would mean the restaurant closes, and they lose all employment.)
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  The shocking thing isn't how this case is treated, it's how other cases with similar or lesser harms are. It's the social construction of crime thing. Stealing $140k is egregious. But because it's an employer stealing from their employees it's being treated as more of an administrative error than a great crime. Where like, we know that people are in prison on decades long sentences for thefts orders of magnitude smaller, or simple drug possession, or spitting on a cop.
  - Volundr 3y ago
    Put another way, try working at Walmart. If you pop open the safe and walk out with $140k, do you really think the outcome will only be a $5k fine?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > It's the social construction of crime thing. Stealing $140k is egregious. But because it's an employer stealing from their employees it's being treated as more of an administrative error than a great crime. It's not as if someone subtracted $140k off of one guy's single paycheck. This was nickeled-and-dimed, likely for years. And while I have no inclination to give the benefit of the doubt to a place that hires a fake priest to give confession about skimming the till, it's not that difficult for such a thing to be an administrative error. Rhonda in payroll keys in a wrong number somewhere, and you're getting the $8/month deduction for hemorrhoid insurance without actually getting that insurance. Or the punch on the mechanical time clock is bent, and shaving 5 minutes from the start of everyone's shift. Or a hundred other things. Hell, maybe that's even an excuse, and it was always deliberate. But good luck proving it. There are tradeoffs here, and if punitive justice is something you absolutely must have, then go for it. But don't start whining when the other stuff gets worse.
paddw 3y ago
The $140,000 constitutes back-wages and damages. I agree it is still too low.
jerf 3y ago
These sorts of fines carry an additional penalty people generally don't account for, which is that if they do it again, they should get hammered by the justice system. The justice system doesn't like you breaking laws; the justice system hates you flouting the justice system. It isn't just that they have to pay a fine; it is that they are now quite vulnerable and they'd better shape up and fly right or they really will be hit with something they won't like. (Or so the theory goes.)
- Woberto 3y ago
  With something as egregious as this, I don't think that's sufficient. Other companies could see this and also think they can do it once without serious consequences. There should be a harsher penalty for even doing this in the first place.
- BobbyJo 3y ago
  I think, to parent's point, that still gives companies a 'freebie' to try. If you don't get caught, you win. If you do, well, you can't try for free money again, no big deal.

kurthr 3y ago

Well, that and the eternal damnation of your soul. They'd probably rehypothecated theirs already, but it's worth noting that: Absolution of an accomplice is a sin that incurs automatic excommunication.

Onavo 3y ago
By doctrine, you can’t be criminally punished for offences by the church if you confess to your superior.
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  Interesting, source?
whstl 3y ago
I wonder if I can use this strategy to stop paying the church tax in Germany. I was baptised Catholic but never practiced. But since the catholic church is internationally integrated I gotta pay the tax perpetually unless I get excommunicated.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  You need to pay an enforced tax? Is it levied by the government on behalf of the church or is there official papal taxmen? Seems like you should try to speed run excommunication. After all, there's a lot of fun ways to sin in the eyes of god.
  - whstl 3y ago
    It is paid on the salary. You have to declare yourself that you're part of a religion, though.
- Joker_vD 3y ago
  Excuse me, that what tax?
  - whstl 3y ago
    I know, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax Protestants and members of other religions don't really have to pay unless they're a member of a church in German, but since the Catholic Church is centralized, everyone who was baptized has to pay. Yeah it sucks.
- cancerhacker 3y ago
  I had never heard of this before[1] (as a sheltered obtuse American) - this seems like exactly the sort of thing that the US separation of church and state was established for. It looks like the church can opt you into their fold using deceptive dark practices - if this were the US, it would be like if registering with ancestry.com opted you into mandatory Mormon tithes[2]. [1] https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Kirchensteuer https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Kirchensteuer [2] https://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/genealogy.html https://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/genealogy.html
  - whstl 3y ago
    In Germany's case it's only the Catholic Church that does this shady stuff. It should have been like other churches, that only charge you if you frequent them in Germany. But the Catholic Lobby is strong, so if you have a register of baptism in Papua New Guine they will chase you and charge back taxes, even if your parents left the church, forgot to tell you about baptism, and were adopted by a family of another religion. Ooops.
- mavhc 3y ago
  Why haven't you left yet? Obvious scam is obvious
  - whstl 3y ago
    Too much bureaucracy and I have to go back to my country for it, even to the same city/parish, apparently. And they might take their time and just "deny" it! It needs the approval of a Bishop or something like that. I'm considering other avenues. Someone mentioned I can also be excommunicated if I punch the pope, but so far I'm trying to avoid violent solutions.
    - eska 3y ago
      That’s not true. You sign a form where you write where you were baptized, if you remember, and that’s it. You have to pay for the privilege of exiting, however, although it was your parents who signed you up. Absolutely insanity.
      - whstl 3y ago
        Not the information given to me at a parish, but you’re probably right.
      - mavhc 3y ago
        That's often true for citizenship too

vGPU 3y ago

Whereas if someone had walked by an open bank vault and just walked off with 140k, they’d likely get several years in prison. The difference between white and blue collar crime, along with the different way the justice system treats corporations compared to people.

emaginniss 3y ago
There is a reason that there is a difference. The bank vault situation is a case of illegal taking. The person in that case is likely someplace that they aren't legally allowed to be or are using force (or threat thereof) to extract the money. There is no chance that this was an accident. The employment case is a failure to pay money that is owed. That is sometimes just a contractual failure and can be the result of malice or incompetence. Many states have recognized that the failure to pay lawful wages is greater than a simple contractual failure and have added double or treble damages to the awards to penalize employers in this situation. Still, it is generally recognized that we don't want to be throwing people in jail for just failing to live up to a civil contract. Imagine if we started throwing people in jail for failing to pay rent.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

It's the prioritization of punishment vs restitution. If you can't have both, then which do you want first? For instance, we could have them pay $5000 in back wages, and $140,000 in fines. Nor is it as simple as "well just toss them in prison instead of fines"... maybe not in this particular incident, but in many of those, incarcerating the offenders makes it even less likely that the employees receive restitution. (In this case, it probably would mean the restaurant closes, and they lose all employment.)

giraffe_lady 3y ago
The shocking thing isn't how this case is treated, it's how other cases with similar or lesser harms are. It's the social construction of crime thing. Stealing $140k is egregious. But because it's an employer stealing from their employees it's being treated as more of an administrative error than a great crime. Where like, we know that people are in prison on decades long sentences for thefts orders of magnitude smaller, or simple drug possession, or spitting on a cop.
- Volundr 3y ago
  Put another way, try working at Walmart. If you pop open the safe and walk out with $140k, do you really think the outcome will only be a $5k fine?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > It's the social construction of crime thing. Stealing $140k is egregious. But because it's an employer stealing from their employees it's being treated as more of an administrative error than a great crime. It's not as if someone subtracted $140k off of one guy's single paycheck. This was nickeled-and-dimed, likely for years. And while I have no inclination to give the benefit of the doubt to a place that hires a fake priest to give confession about skimming the till, it's not that difficult for such a thing to be an administrative error. Rhonda in payroll keys in a wrong number somewhere, and you're getting the $8/month deduction for hemorrhoid insurance without actually getting that insurance. Or the punch on the mechanical time clock is bent, and shaving 5 minutes from the start of everyone's shift. Or a hundred other things. Hell, maybe that's even an excuse, and it was always deliberate. But good luck proving it. There are tradeoffs here, and if punitive justice is something you absolutely must have, then go for it. But don't start whining when the other stuff gets worse.

paddw 3y ago

The $140,000 constitutes back-wages and damages. I agree it is still too low.

jerf 3y ago

These sorts of fines carry an additional penalty people generally don't account for, which is that if they do it again, they should get hammered by the justice system. The justice system doesn't like you breaking laws; the justice system hates you flouting the justice system. It isn't just that they have to pay a fine; it is that they are now quite vulnerable and they'd better shape up and fly right or they really will be hit with something they won't like. (Or so the theory goes.)

Woberto 3y ago
With something as egregious as this, I don't think that's sufficient. Other companies could see this and also think they can do it once without serious consequences. There should be a harsher penalty for even doing this in the first place.
BobbyJo 3y ago
I think, to parent's point, that still gives companies a 'freebie' to try. If you don't get caught, you win. If you do, well, you can't try for free money again, no big deal.