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Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

theguardian.com

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Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#301

Post by mrguyorama »

stcredzero wrote: post #210

This has happened to me! In a programming job, no less! Is this something which could be addressed through the use of a specialized AI assistant? The biggest barrier to uncompensated workers is the cost of litigation. If the worker could represent themselves effectively, then this would stop.

>Is this something which could be addressed through the use of a specialized AI assistant?

JFC tech workers sometimes. Just unionize man, that's like the whole point of unions. An "AI assistant" that was effective would be telling you the same thing. You can't convince your boss that paying you what you are owed is the correct choice, you don't have any power in the relationship. Whether they are right or not, they BELIEVE you are eminently replaceable.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#302

Post by alan-hn »

robertlagrant wrote: post #279
nonrandomstring wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not like that. I write excoriating pieces in the Times Higher, completely damning the UK university system as "unfit for teaching and leaning" [0], and they still call me and ask "can you just cover this class?". Amusing as that desperation is, in a way it's more terrifying how the machinery of blind capitalism works. The system isn't capable of sentiment like that. They don't care what I say. It's just busi…

> Universities run on people like me who are of the "academic mindset", who can and will do things like teaching because we love it as a vocation even though the salary is a quarter or fifth of what is on offer privately. Everything runs like this. Jobs people want will pay less than jobs people don't want.

Does that mean everyone wants to be a waiter and nobody wants to be a CEO?

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#303

Post by phone8675309 »

pierat wrote: post #59
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.

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+, its a.... CIVIL MATTER (waves hands).

> If you steal $100 worth of food from a store, they'll call the cops and arrest you.

And if you're a person of color, if you try to pass a counterfeit $20 bill (unclear if you even know it's counterfeit) then the police just murder you and the person in charge of it gets a cheesecake sentence

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#304

Post by zdragnar »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #10
zdragnar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife took a former employer to small claims court. It was as straight forward as it gets.

> “The process for filing a wage-theft complaint form is very onerous and cumbersome, so there’s an immediate obstacle in the process itself. But once that form is filed, it takes months if not years for the department of labor to even investigate it.”

The department of labor doesn't make you whole. It investigates failure to adhere to regulations.

If you are owned money, go to small claims court. If a thousand employees are owed money, the time spent for the company becomes painful indeed, and these court cases will raise the notoriety of the company in the department of labor's view.

Even so, the department of labor has it's own procedures it has to follow to make a fair investigation.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#305

Post by phone8675309 »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #236
amrocha wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you honestly believe drug dealers are stealing formula to cut drugs with rather than mom's just need to feed their babies

Maybe you should stop looking at yourself in the mirror and look at the data? As a parent, I feel people like you are the reason formula ends up being unavailable for real babies as you enable gangs to steal them driving up cost. Here is a list of places with free baby formula and stuff in the Bay Area: https://www.211bayarea.org/sanfrancisco/food/food-programs/f... https://www.findhelp.org/goods/diapers-%26-formula-…

How about we both:

1) Support low income people by giving them formula if they need it, AND

2) End the war on drugs and move people into treatment instead of the carceral slave system

Sounds like a win-win.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#306

Post by nickpsecurity »

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…

“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. ”

One of my buddies said they did this to them. I don’t know how common it is but it does happen. They were satisfied with their pay, though, compared to what many jobs in the area offered.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#307

Post by Jensson »

MeImCounting wrote: post #291
Jensson wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me you have never rented out without telling me you have never rented out something. People refuse to pay rent all the time unless you start to threaten legal action over it. We call that late payment, but they would never pay unless you went after them, just like these companies. > This isnt "being late with payments" "Being late with payments" doesn't mean they are late, it means they haven't paid you yet. Tha…

I have actually worked in property management. It was incredibly educational. I learned a lot about how "landlords" are really the single greediest, laziest class of individuals one is ever likely to encounter. Eternally lamenting over how they're so under-appreciated and taken advantage of. There are always exceptions to any rule, sure but for the most part "professional landlords" are parasites. Anyway you clearly…

> If you rent an apartment and agreed to pay 3000 a month for it and instead only pay 2500 a month you would be taken to court and lose the case. If an employer did the same it would be "a civil matter" having seen this firsthand I can attest to the truth of this.

Both of those are decided in civil court, I don't see the difference.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#308

Post by wahnfrieden »

danaris wrote: post #283
wahnfrieden wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindenburg was voted as the ideologically safe choice in the opposite direction of hitler but he then in turn granted takeover powers to Hitler anyway some interesting period of history to learn more about/analyze

Ah, gotcha. If I ever learned that level of detail about Hitler's rise to power, I'm afraid I've since forgotten it. Well, in the case where the choices are Hindenburg (who, at that point in time, may or may not choose to give power to Hitler), or Hitler...Hindenburg is objectively the correct choice. It's also a great demonstration that the time to be trying to get yourself better options is before it gets to that p…

A point of a demonstration of an extreme like that is a reflection on how fragile and disenfranchising a tactic voting can be. It's argued voting tames people from increasingly illegal alternative action which has historically been found necessary toward labor conditions improvements that we enjoy today (such as through wildcat strikes) or tames them into highly hierarchical and process bound forms of group coordination. Where the sum is a shapeshifting ruling class that largely works toward its own interests regardless of flavor or how often they bow to the power of popular or private interest movements.

Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers

#310

Post by dmoy »

mjburgess wrote: post #186
ncallaway wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. And it’s underhanded and illegal when employers do it, because there’s an imbalance of power between employee and employee. Unions exist to even out that balance of power. When employers engage in that kind of activity it further increases the imbalance of power. For example, in this case, they were using that tactic to support their ability to steal from employees.

To clarify this further: The employer is already a collective, "A business", and the hiring manager is operating with the full power of that collective in hiring/firing negotations. A union is a collective to balance power against the business (collective). A cartel is a collective of collectives (ie., a group of businesses) operating to defeat free market competition regulation, in this sense the cartel is balancing…

"Cartels of unions" or whatever are legal in some jurisdictions. See e.g. solidarity action / sympathy strikes.

Depending on the country, that varies from "totally illegal" to "well of course you're gonna solidarity strike, that's how it's done".

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