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

61–70 of 457 posts

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#61

Post by sneak »

antisthenes wrote: post #21
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)

$10/week/employee adds up over decades.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#62

Post by admissionsguy »

antisthenes wrote: post #21
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)

It adds up. Multiply by the number of employees by the number of weeks in a year by the number of restaurants owned by the total number of ways in which the employees are deprived of small amounts at a time.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#64

Post by Cthulhu_ »

vdaea wrote: post #55
spacecadet wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up much of american rural small business... I started working at 12 and had many random jobs between 12-18 that were run by awful people. Our family has a small farm, my parents didn't think we did enough of that and put me in a white van full of migrant workers at 12 years old (hey the 80s!) to go pick produce in a field all day... It was grueling work but I got a first hand account of migrant farm workers…

[flagged]

This is a really shitty take. I don't think you're a decent person if that's how you truly feel.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#66

Post by sneak »

darth_avocado wrote: post #43

People thinking wage theft only affects lower wage workers, let me tell you how tech companies commit wage theft: 1. Having annual components to wages (RSUs, bonuses), making you work all year and firing you just before they have to pay you. 2. Having no overtime for salaried employees 3. Having employees work extra responsibilities that are not part of the job description by promising promotions and then not giving…

Any promises not made in writing and signed by both parties aren’t promises. None of these are theft, just poor business skills on the part of the employees.

Get it in writing so you can sue later, or don’t ever count on it. It’s basic business skills.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#67

Post by marcus0x62 »

sneak wrote: post #57
marcus0x62 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

That's why I described it as a cultural, not a legal problem.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#68

Post by eesmith »

darth_avocado wrote: post #43

People thinking wage theft only affects lower wage workers, let me tell you how tech companies commit wage theft: 1. Having annual components to wages (RSUs, bonuses), making you work all year and firing you just before they have to pay you. 2. Having no overtime for salaried employees 3. Having employees work extra responsibilities that are not part of the job description by promising promotions and then not giving…

Don't forget illegal collusion to lower wages, like the one top Silicon Valley firms carried out 10 year ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#69

Post by PenguinCoder »

darth_avocado wrote: post #43

People thinking wage theft only affects lower wage workers, let me tell you how tech companies commit wage theft: 1. Having annual components to wages (RSUs, bonuses), making you work all year and firing you just before they have to pay you. 2. Having no overtime for salaried employees 3. Having employees work extra responsibilities that are not part of the job description by promising promotions and then not giving…

The promise of salary work in America is such one sided bullcrap. Get paid the same amount of to get your work done no matter the time it takes. if it takes 6 hours or 12 hours, you'll get the same amount. But if you don't work at least 40hrs a week on salary, we're docking your pay. Oh but also, you don't get paid for any hours over 8 in a day. Salary!
Post reply on HN