Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 457 posts

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#21

Post by antisthenes »

spamizbad wrote: post #9

This phenomena is pretty widespread in the service industry and I would venture to say that a significant minority of businesses participate in some version of wage theft. For example, one of my jobs right out of high school was waiting tables at a local restaurant. If you were opening, the expectation from owners and management was you'd get in early to help open but would wait 15 minutes before service started befo…

Amazing pettiness from the owners for what is essentially $10 worth of labor (or less)

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#22

Post by sixothree »

elzbardico wrote: post #3

The standard civil courts pipeline sucks as a mechanism for labor rights protection. You'll need expedited courts and a speedier process to dissuade this kind of thing. It needs to be as straightforward as child support law.

It should be as easy as going to the police.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#23

Post by screenothethird »

InitialLastName wrote: post #12
gadders wrote: post #8

From the article: >> There are numerous forms of wage theft, from employers not compensating workers for time worked, violating minimum wage and overtime laws, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, not providing legally required meal breaks, confiscating worker tips, or illegally taking deductions from worker wages. Yeah, one of those isn't like the others. I know unions and the tax people hate it, but…

> some people are perfectly happy to be independent contractors. Literally nobody is denying that. The issue is that many companies are also happy to use the classification to their advantage when the roles don't meet the legal standard their society has put forth as the requirement for someone to be an independent contractor (largely e.g. genuine independence in their work).

[flagged]

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#24

Post by devmor »

This topic always reminds me of one of my first jobs as a young adult. It was a call center, for political polling.

The facility was foul, we had rats running around, frequent minor electrocutions from improperly maintained power and of course, all sorts of backhanded tactics to avoid paying employees what they were owed.

At some point, someone had enough and reported something to OSHA - I’m not sure what, but the day the inspector showed up, our supervisors came around the office telling us all that we had better lie to the inspector because if we tell the truth, they’ll shut us down for weeks and no one will be able to pay their rent.

I wonder how many other people struggle with that issue daily. The inability to try to make their employer do the bare minimum out of fear of losing what they do have.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#25

Post by Workaccount2 »

spamizbad wrote: post #9

This phenomena is pretty widespread in the service industry and I would venture to say that a significant minority of businesses participate in some version of wage theft. For example, one of my jobs right out of high school was waiting tables at a local restaurant. If you were opening, the expectation from owners and management was you'd get in early to help open but would wait 15 minutes before service started befo…

I working in restaurants for years. They purposely go for high school kids because they know they don't know the law, and know that they will think walking out with $50 is awesome, even if they worked 6 hours.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#26

Post by dbingham »

One of the clearest illustrations of the deeply injust structural power imbalance at the heart of our economic system is wage theft.

If your employer withholds $20 from your paycheck it's a civil violation of contract law. You have to go through an extremely onerous and convoluted process that very likely won't go anywhere.

If, in response, you decide to pay yourself by taking $20 from the till, that's criminal theft. You will be arrested by the police, sent to jail, and charged in the criminal justice system.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#27

Post by giantg2 »

elzbardico wrote: post #3

The standard civil courts pipeline sucks as a mechanism for labor rights protection. You'll need expedited courts and a speedier process to dissuade this kind of thing. It needs to be as straightforward as child support law.

"You'll need expedited courts and a speedier process to dissuade this kind of thing. It needs to be as straightforward as child support law."

All courts are backlogged, many for years. Even "simple" issues can easily take 6+ months.

Child support law isn't that straightforward. It generally isn't even tied to the actual costs to raise the child. It's also rife with abuse for things like unreported income, misusing the money, etc.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#28

Post by mattlutze »

enragedcacti wrote: post #19
gadders wrote: post #8

From the article: >> There are numerous forms of wage theft, from employers not compensating workers for time worked, violating minimum wage and overtime laws, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, not providing legally required meal breaks, confiscating worker tips, or illegally taking deductions from worker wages. Yeah, one of those isn't like the others. I know unions and the tax people hate it, but…

They don't mean "Uber driver" or "Tech Consultant", they mean when businesses hire someone as a contractor for a set of roles and responsibilities that are legally a job, usually followed up by exploiting that distinction to pay less than minimum wage or flout other federal labor laws. Here is the latest ruling on how the distinction is made: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/01/10/2024-00...

There's also the jobs where folks thing they're an employee but are being reported by the business as a contractor, to effectively pay less and also save on required tax and benefit compensation.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#29

Post by meltyness »

sixothree wrote: post #22
elzbardico wrote: post #3

The standard civil courts pipeline sucks as a mechanism for labor rights protection. You'll need expedited courts and a speedier process to dissuade this kind of thing. It needs to be as straightforward as child support law.

It should be as easy as going to the police.

It is, it's a state-level thing, and that serves as a check on companies that scale to be national or international.

Makes lobbying over 50x more complicated.

The fact that a UK publication is on about it should be a clear signal that the authors are being influenced by an international interest would like to simplify the process.

Probably chipotle

Here's a page that lists like, a third of the state agencies, I guess, hope this helps! : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Labour

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#30

Post by throwaway_wt »

At a previous employer, the employee handbook defined “wage theft” as failure to work the required number of hours as agreed defined in the employee’s contract.

I distinctly remember that the handbook used the term “wage theft” and not “time card theft” or “fraud”.

Post reply on HN