5 ms·

An anonymous tip and a few inspections of staff logs and payrolls would make it pretty easy to make this disappear. The problem is that these sort of things (wh

An anonymous tip and a few inspections of staff logs and payrolls would make it pretty easy to make this disappear. The problem is that these sort of things (what regulations exist, whether authorities prioritize enforcing them) seems to always be answered with "no, because it's a poor people problem". It's unfair competition though, so it's really important that this doesn't happen. A restaurant that wants do to the right thing shouldn't have to worry about a few % worse competitiveness on wages because the asshat across the street has his staff work for free. If something like this earned you a $10k fee the first time and a 5 year ban from running any kind of business in the state if you repeat it, I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem.

marcus0x62 3y ago
> An anonymous tip and a few inspections of staff logs and payrolls would make it pretty easy to make this disappear. And culturally treating it like any other theft: a crime that should subject the thief, in a practical sense, to the risk of imprisonment.
- sneak 3y ago
  Property crimes are rarely enforced against the ownership class. Law enforcement in the US exists to enforce the social order and class structure; they have no legal obligation to investigate or prosecute crimes. The system is working as intended.
  - marcus0x62 3y ago
    That's why I described it as a cultural, not a legal problem.
  - baq 3y ago
    Always has been. Government is quite literally a criminal organization except it was decided by someone (people, representatives, a monarch, whatever) that this particular one is not criminal and any others like it are, within self-described boundaries. It might or might not be doing criminal things (as in, things we associate with criminal), but it wants and needs a monopoly on those things, otherwise it risks dissolution by internal and/or external forces. It’s thus obvious it’ll prioritize protecting the mafia bosses/sovereigns/elites and thugs/enforcers.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- pierat 3y ago
  In reality.... If you steal $100 worth of food from a store, they'll call the cops and arrest you. If the store steals wages from you in the tune of $1000+, <POOF> its a.... CIVIL MATTER (waves hands).
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Which incident receives media coverage as it happens?
    - pierat 3y ago
      Given the breathless reporting of "MAJOR CHAIN STORE SHUTS DOWN SINGLE BUSINESS DUE TO EXTREME THEFT", yeah. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-retailers-close-stores-due-to-shoplifting-are-the-concerns-real-or-overblown https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-retailers-close-stores-... https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1202264923/major-retailers-blame-theft-for-their-decision-to-close-locations https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1202264923/major-retailers-bl... https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/target-store-closures-theft-and-crime-higher-nearby.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/target-store-closures-theft-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/target-closing-stores-2023-san-francisco/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/target-closing-stores-2023-san-... https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/business/target-retail-theft-store-closures/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/business/target-retail-theft-... https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-stores-theft-1.6979493 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-stores-theft-1.69794... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11965589/The-stores-closed-doors-rampant-theft.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11965589/The-stores... ------------------------ However, on the actual wage theft side, is scattered articles about a single bad company, or policies from stuffy think tanks and "boring" and non-sensationalized sources. https://www.cohousedems.com/news/wage-theft-prevention-passes-house-committee https://www.cohousedems.com/news/wage-theft-prevention-passe... https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2024/2024-10.html https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2024/2024-10.html https://www.propublica.org/article/wage-theft-law-new-york-violators-doing-business https://www.propublica.org/article/wage-theft-law-new-york-v... https://blog.dol.gov/2024/02/07/protecting-workers-rights-at-the-super-bowl https://blog.dol.gov/2024/02/07/protecting-workers-rights-at... https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/01/wage-theft-california/ https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/01/wage-theft-c...
avgcorrection 3y ago
> It's unfair competition though, so it's really important that this doesn't happen. A restaurant that wants do to the right thing shouldn't have to worry about a few % worse competitiveness on wages because the asshat across the street has his staff work for free. The true crime is as always the impact on businesses.
- lupire 3y ago
  The Honest Employers Guild should sponsor investigations and lawsuits against the criminals to drive them out of business, like that company that buys anti-Tesla Super Bowl ads.
- vundercind 3y ago
  I think it’s worth calling out that failing to enforce regulations corrodes entire industries to the point that it’s impossible to compete in many sectors of it without breaking the law and screwing over workers (and maybe also customers!) It’s a way in which this is bad that folks may not immediately connect to it.
- RHSeeger 3y ago
  > The true crime is as always the impact on businesses It's hard to tell if you meant this as sarcasm or not, but... it really is a big deal. If all your competitors are screwing their employees in order to increase their margins, that means they can out-compete your on price. Which means you can either screw _your_ employees.. or risk going out of business. And eventually, the only players left are the ones that are screwing their employees. So yes, if you want to look out for employees, then you need to look out for businesses by making sure everyone is following the same rules. That doesn't mean the businesses themselves are more important, just that their health is vital to the well-being of the employees.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    I’m absolutely being sarcastic. The context is that the OP complained about one business colluding with others by way of informal no-hire lists for employees that don’t tolerate this wage theft. The response to that is to focus on how other businesses that don’t collude will get out-competed… And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses). Even in my own social democratic place of residence there seems to be dominant narrative of “job creators” and how we need to “create jobs”, the outcome of which is to sacrifice things in order to directly benefit businesses in order to (ostensibly, in rhetoric) benefit workers. This was concretely demonstrated when, during the pandemic, the right-wing government was very insistent on giving handouts to failing businesses that obviously were going to have a hard time (like the travel industry) under the guise of “protecting jobs”. Meanwhile, the government proposed that we should temporarily make it easier for employers to put employees on temporary leave (whatever the English/American term is) in order for them to not just die. Which is fine in itself… except they wanted tax payers and workers to dis-proportionally pay for this temporary measure. What’s the only thing that made them “change their minds”? Labor groups and other such organizations. And then there was inflation, a predictable outcome of the spending-spree during the pandemic. So the central bank raised the rent. And again. And again. And the acknowledged consequence of that was that the poorest among us would struggle to make ends meet. But that’s not a problem at all—that a predictable outcome of a previous spending spree on businesses would impact regular people and make some people have to choose between mortgage/rent or food; not a problem. That’s just Economics. What’s the problem with corrupt politicians? On one hand you can simply say that the problem is that corrupt politicians corrupt the political system. On the other hand you can frame it as the outing of corrupt politicians causes “political distrust” and a “crisis of legitimacy” among the (stupid) voters. So you re-frame the issue as a few bad apples (politicians) which causes the real problem of voters/regular people becoming (justifiably) cynical and distrustful of the whole system. That’s the power of framing. And that’s why I don’t buy into the framing of helping businesses in order to (pinky swear) really helping workers. Yeah, those hand-out to businesses? Oh would you look at that—a “profit party” half a year later for the shareholders. Who woulda thunk it. But too bad about that inflation, though. Guess you should rethink owning a car or having hobbies other than taking walks in the park.
worsethanthat 3y ago
> The problem is that these sort of things[...] seems to always be answered with "no, because it's a poor people problem". It's not just that. There are people that will outright deny that it's happening. The reasoning trotted out is that if it were true that this were happening then it would be squashed. In other words, if it were happening, then it would not be happening. From the article: > According to a 2018 report by Good Jobs, between January 2000 to 2018, Walmart paid over $1.4bn in fines and settlements over wage theft violations, FedEx paid over $500m during the same period, and Bank of America paid over $380m. Sans data about Walmart's $1.4bn in fines, they'll reason to themselves that Walmart, even if it's not somewhere they personally would ever shop, is a reputable company, therefore this isn't something that happens at Walmart. I have experience firsthand (from a low spot in my life) that FedEx continues to do the same thing, especially to people who are powerless to do anything about it. To wit: Their warehouse workers get paid low wages and the arrangement is that you need to be available between 4:00 AM and ~10:30. It's not that you'll be working during those hours. No, instead what happens is the night before they determine how high of a load they have and then set the hours for that time. So you as a worker call in at around 9:00 PM the night before, listen to a recorded message that states e.g. "On Tuesday, February 13, package sorters will begin work at 5:30". So far not so good, but there's nothing especially illegal about this is as far as I know. (It stretches morality and ethics, however.) What is illegal as I understand it is incidents where they tell you to report to work at that time, people show up, and then find that the timeclocks are papered over with a sign saying not to clock in because there was an issue at the warehouse overnight and the systems aren't running, so they've moved the clock-in time ahead 45 minutes to when they expect the systems to be up and running. You are expected to wait there off the clock despite not being paid and being expected not to leave.
- pixl97 3y ago
  > if it were happening, then it would not be happening. Note that this is US law enforcement in general. The "if middle america were using drugs at the same rate of inner cities then we'd see arrest rates at the same levels" argument we here. While studies show that drug use is similar between these groups, enforcement in cities, specifically against minority groups is much higher.

marcus0x62 3y ago

> An anonymous tip and a few inspections of staff logs and payrolls would make it pretty easy to make this disappear. And culturally treating it like any other theft: a crime that should subject the thief, in a practical sense, to the risk of imprisonment.

sneak 3y ago
Property crimes are rarely enforced against the ownership class. Law enforcement in the US exists to enforce the social order and class structure; they have no legal obligation to investigate or prosecute crimes. The system is working as intended.
- marcus0x62 3y ago
  That's why I described it as a cultural, not a legal problem.
- baq 3y ago
  Always has been. Government is quite literally a criminal organization except it was decided by someone (people, representatives, a monarch, whatever) that this particular one is not criminal and any others like it are, within self-described boundaries. It might or might not be doing criminal things (as in, things we associate with criminal), but it wants and needs a monopoly on those things, otherwise it risks dissolution by internal and/or external forces. It’s thus obvious it’ll prioritize protecting the mafia bosses/sovereigns/elites and thugs/enforcers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pierat 3y ago
In reality.... If you steal $100 worth of food from a store, they'll call the cops and arrest you. If the store steals wages from you in the tune of $1000+, <POOF> its a.... CIVIL MATTER (waves hands).
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Which incident receives media coverage as it happens?
  - pierat 3y ago
    Given the breathless reporting of "MAJOR CHAIN STORE SHUTS DOWN SINGLE BUSINESS DUE TO EXTREME THEFT", yeah. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-retailers-close-stores-due-to-shoplifting-are-the-concerns-real-or-overblown https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-retailers-close-stores-... https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1202264923/major-retailers-blame-theft-for-their-decision-to-close-locations https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1202264923/major-retailers-bl... https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/target-store-closures-theft-and-crime-higher-nearby.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/target-store-closures-theft-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/target-closing-stores-2023-san-francisco/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/target-closing-stores-2023-san-... https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/business/target-retail-theft-store-closures/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/business/target-retail-theft-... https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-stores-theft-1.6979493 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/target-stores-theft-1.69794... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11965589/The-stores-closed-doors-rampant-theft.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11965589/The-stores... ------------------------ However, on the actual wage theft side, is scattered articles about a single bad company, or policies from stuffy think tanks and "boring" and non-sensationalized sources. https://www.cohousedems.com/news/wage-theft-prevention-passes-house-committee https://www.cohousedems.com/news/wage-theft-prevention-passe... https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2024/2024-10.html https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2024/2024-10.html https://www.propublica.org/article/wage-theft-law-new-york-violators-doing-business https://www.propublica.org/article/wage-theft-law-new-york-v... https://blog.dol.gov/2024/02/07/protecting-workers-rights-at-the-super-bowl https://blog.dol.gov/2024/02/07/protecting-workers-rights-at... https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/01/wage-theft-california/ https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/01/wage-theft-c...

avgcorrection 3y ago

> It's unfair competition though, so it's really important that this doesn't happen. A restaurant that wants do to the right thing shouldn't have to worry about a few % worse competitiveness on wages because the asshat across the street has his staff work for free. The true crime is as always the impact on businesses.

lupire 3y ago
The Honest Employers Guild should sponsor investigations and lawsuits against the criminals to drive them out of business, like that company that buys anti-Tesla Super Bowl ads.
vundercind 3y ago
I think it’s worth calling out that failing to enforce regulations corrodes entire industries to the point that it’s impossible to compete in many sectors of it without breaking the law and screwing over workers (and maybe also customers!) It’s a way in which this is bad that folks may not immediately connect to it.
RHSeeger 3y ago
> The true crime is as always the impact on businesses It's hard to tell if you meant this as sarcasm or not, but... it really is a big deal. If all your competitors are screwing their employees in order to increase their margins, that means they can out-compete your on price. Which means you can either screw _your_ employees.. or risk going out of business. And eventually, the only players left are the ones that are screwing their employees. So yes, if you want to look out for employees, then you need to look out for businesses by making sure everyone is following the same rules. That doesn't mean the businesses themselves are more important, just that their health is vital to the well-being of the employees.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  I’m absolutely being sarcastic. The context is that the OP complained about one business colluding with others by way of informal no-hire lists for employees that don’t tolerate this wage theft. The response to that is to focus on how other businesses that don’t collude will get out-competed… And yeah I’m pretty sick of this framing. It’s an anecdote where employees are direct victims, and then the focus gets shifted to hypothetical and indirect victims (businesses). Even in my own social democratic place of residence there seems to be dominant narrative of “job creators” and how we need to “create jobs”, the outcome of which is to sacrifice things in order to directly benefit businesses in order to (ostensibly, in rhetoric) benefit workers. This was concretely demonstrated when, during the pandemic, the right-wing government was very insistent on giving handouts to failing businesses that obviously were going to have a hard time (like the travel industry) under the guise of “protecting jobs”. Meanwhile, the government proposed that we should temporarily make it easier for employers to put employees on temporary leave (whatever the English/American term is) in order for them to not just die. Which is fine in itself… except they wanted tax payers and workers to dis-proportionally pay for this temporary measure. What’s the only thing that made them “change their minds”? Labor groups and other such organizations. And then there was inflation, a predictable outcome of the spending-spree during the pandemic. So the central bank raised the rent. And again. And again. And the acknowledged consequence of that was that the poorest among us would struggle to make ends meet. But that’s not a problem at all—that a predictable outcome of a previous spending spree on businesses would impact regular people and make some people have to choose between mortgage/rent or food; not a problem. That’s just Economics. What’s the problem with corrupt politicians? On one hand you can simply say that the problem is that corrupt politicians corrupt the political system. On the other hand you can frame it as the outing of corrupt politicians causes “political distrust” and a “crisis of legitimacy” among the (stupid) voters. So you re-frame the issue as a few bad apples (politicians) which causes the real problem of voters/regular people becoming (justifiably) cynical and distrustful of the whole system. That’s the power of framing. And that’s why I don’t buy into the framing of helping businesses in order to (pinky swear) really helping workers. Yeah, those hand-out to businesses? Oh would you look at that—a “profit party” half a year later for the shareholders. Who woulda thunk it. But too bad about that inflation, though. Guess you should rethink owning a car or having hobbies other than taking walks in the park.

worsethanthat 3y ago

> The problem is that these sort of things[...] seems to always be answered with "no, because it's a poor people problem". It's not just that. There are people that will outright deny that it's happening. The reasoning trotted out is that if it were true that this were happening then it would be squashed. In other words, if it were happening, then it would not be happening. From the article: > According to a 2018 report by Good Jobs, between January 2000 to 2018, Walmart paid over $1.4bn in fines and settlements over wage theft violations, FedEx paid over $500m during the same period, and Bank of America paid over $380m. Sans data about Walmart's $1.4bn in fines, they'll reason to themselves that Walmart, even if it's not somewhere they personally would ever shop, is a reputable company, therefore this isn't something that happens at Walmart. I have experience firsthand (from a low spot in my life) that FedEx continues to do the same thing, especially to people who are powerless to do anything about it. To wit: Their warehouse workers get paid low wages and the arrangement is that you need to be available between 4:00 AM and ~10:30. It's not that you'll be working during those hours. No, instead what happens is the night before they determine how high of a load they have and then set the hours for that time. So you as a worker call in at around 9:00 PM the night before, listen to a recorded message that states e.g. "On Tuesday, February 13, package sorters will begin work at 5:30". So far not so good, but there's nothing especially illegal about this is as far as I know. (It stretches morality and ethics, however.) What is illegal as I understand it is incidents where they tell you to report to work at that time, people show up, and then find that the timeclocks are papered over with a sign saying not to clock in because there was an issue at the warehouse overnight and the systems aren't running, so they've moved the clock-in time ahead 45 minutes to when they expect the systems to be up and running. You are expected to wait there off the clock despite not being paid and being expected not to leave.

pixl97 3y ago
> if it were happening, then it would not be happening. Note that this is US law enforcement in general. The "if middle america were using drugs at the same rate of inner cities then we'd see arrest rates at the same levels" argument we here. While studies show that drug use is similar between these groups, enforcement in cities, specifically against minority groups is much higher.