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

171–180 of 457 posts

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#171

Post by hasty_pudding »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #126
avgcorrection wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not only would they fire you but they'd call up all their industry buddies and you'd basically be on every other restaurants no-hire list. So like a much-dreaded union for employers except it’s underhanded and illegal.

If you want to demonstrate to someone why the legal system is designed for the wealthy and not the common people, I don't think you can do better than the entire subject of wage theft. Wage theft utterly eclipses every other form of larceny in the United States at least, and it is practically legal in every way apart from the letter of the law. Few companies ever see any consequences at all, and the few that do, it's…

Most companies dont pay many taxes either.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#172

Post by Chris2048 »

NegativeK wrote: post #158
Chris2048 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's b/c they are entirely different situations. You can't "pay yourself" taking money from the till, it isn't pay, it's just theft you justify taking from the wages you believe you are owed. You are only owed those wages on the basis of a contract, and that contract won't allow you to take anything from the till. Theft is "the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention to permanent…

What you're saying makes sense from a procedural sense, but the article pointing out that there's 50B in stolen wages means that the punishment for wage theft isn't aligned with what's needed. In fact, the power imbalance between employer and employee means that it's far harder to for employees to recover their wages or punish the other party -- which, to me, means that the state needs to do even more to help.

50B in stolen wages is an estimate. The devil is in the details, on how they came up with that number.

There is a power imbalance, there should be more done to take employers to court. I'd be more interested in the effect on long-term low waged employees, than temporary high-schoolers.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#173

Post by pixl97 »

worsethanthat wrote: post #104
alkonaut wrote: post #39

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. 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…

> 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 rep…

> 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.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#174

Post by tomatotomato37 »

eterm wrote: post #124
lupire wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "industry buddies" but seems like a Boogeyman meant to scare people.

That's exactly what it is, but the kids they employ don't know better. The idea that there's a cabal of restaurant owners who get together to discuss in detail how they're breaking the law and maintain a blacklist is absurd when you stop to think about it. But they're more than happy to let those kind of rumours keep doing the rounds to scare the naive young people into not sticking up for themselves.

Yeah the closest your going to get to a restaurant cabal are owners gossiping at the local wholesaler while waiting for their purchase to be processed, and even then there's a 50/50 chance a member of them is lying in order to bait a competitor into making a bad hire

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#176

Post by jpalawaga »

bena wrote: post #164
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…

This is tangential, but part of the reason why I dislike talking to servers about the tipped minimum wage. Because it seems they deliberately don't want to understand the full context of the law. Or fully the type of work they are in. What you are describing is typically called "side work". Basically work that is not directly related to waiting a table. Folding napkins, putting up chairs, moving tables, etc. Even in…

In the state of California, tips are a gratuity paid on top of minimum wage. This is also how it works in many other states, in Canada, and in many countries around the world.

So you earn $16/hr for all time you’re at work, plus tips.

Which is how it should be. You’re being employed. Those tips are for the employee, not a gratuity for the owner to offset their costs.

“Tipped wages” are just another form of theft, bought by the restaurant lobby.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#177

Post by erellsworth »

greenie_beans wrote: post #105
dbingham wrote: post #26

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…

that's because the state is designed to protect capital and not its citizens. we can use the process of government to change that.

The government is run entirely by capitalists, so good luck with that.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#178

Post by pixl97 »

bena wrote: post #164
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…

This is tangential, but part of the reason why I dislike talking to servers about the tipped minimum wage. Because it seems they deliberately don't want to understand the full context of the law. Or fully the type of work they are in. What you are describing is typically called "side work". Basically work that is not directly related to waiting a table. Folding napkins, putting up chairs, moving tables, etc. Even in…

No, this entire you're working for $2 an hour and hoping to earn tips shit needs to end.

>They want $7.25 for that hour. Regardless of the fact that the previous hour they took in $20 in tips.

Good. It is the companies job to pay the minimum wage rate per hour regardless of weather customer come in or not. If the restaurant industry cannot survive this they have no legal right to slave wages to survive.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#179

Post by square_usual »

bongodongobob wrote: post #162
PenguinCoder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

[flagged]

This comes up every time and it's just as stupid every time. I'm sorry you went through a terrible experience being a musician. That doesn't justify other people going through terrible experiences.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#180

Post by pixl97 »

bongodongobob wrote: post #162
PenguinCoder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

[flagged]

Ah, Hello Mr Crab Bucket. Instead of wanting the world to be a better place for everyone, you instead want it to lower to your level of suck.
Post reply on HN