More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’

Anyway, it's just a propagandistic motto, like "Don't be Evil". We're discussing legal and structural constraints on corporations, that force them to care only about maximizing profit and marketshare. (Otherwise they fail, or get legal action, etc.)

After all, corporations are artificial state creations too.

With police, they're armed bureaucrats of the state which enforce policy on the population with violence. (And the threat thereof.) In that light, their actions are unsurprising.

I lived in China for nearly nine years, and saw wage theft on a regular basis. The working class is getting used and abused in the US, and I predicted several years ago that they would follow in China's footsteps. Looks like that time has arrived.

i worked 120hrs in a week, was refused overtime by splitting my duties into three 40hr positions, did research, went to the DOJ, they sat on it for 9 months, then refused and threatened me, i sent the DOJ lawyer's secretary my research, she went over his head, and i got the pay due to me

..

i lost a job in nyc, at the time of employment i was 'wearing many hats' which really just meant i was doing the work of three people: managing five properties, running a catering service, doing the accounting at four of the five properties;

i was putting in 14-18 hour days 7 days a week, i was homeless and was just glad to have something to do instead of sleeping on the F line, also.. making money

the way the payroll avoided paying me overtime was by splitting my check into these three different positions, by doing this i could work 90-120 hours a week, my 'personal best' was 123 but individually each of my personalities would be working less than 40 hours

the firing was abrupt, ugly and full of calculated politics

i was upset and wanted validation of my hard work so i went to the local library and looked up NYC wage laws

i found out that forbidding this 'task splitting' tactic is baked right into the law so i knew i had a case for getting the overtime i felt i deserved, again, i was homeless so i spent countless hours in the stacks looking over legal decisions to find precedence

i even covered potential roadblocks along the lines of 'we are unable to find his old timecards' from my former employer by investigating the law as it pertains to how long documents on employees must be kept by an employer

confident in my case i went to the DOJ, they appointed me a lawyer, and he assured me he'd look into it

9 months later and i still have yet to hear anything, i was told it may take 30days to 6 months, and i had moved on emotionally at this point so i was giving the guy the benefit of the doubt, at 9 months i decided it was time to do my own follow up, lawyer is unable to remember me or my case and has to call me back in a week after he finds my old file, explains that he did an investigation consisting of interviewing the owner of the establishment who claimed he paid all overtime wages and interviewing random employees who all said they were paid what was owed them, his conclusion? i was a crazy person, he told me to stop calling and hung up on me

i called back immediately, i asked if he had looked at my timecards, looked at payroll, looked at accounting logs, he said that kind of work is only necessary if other employees state concern as well, hung up on me again

i called back and the phone rang for an hour before i gave up

i called every day for three days, if he answered he'd hear my voice and immediately hang up on me

i went down to the offices myself but he had gone home for the day, the next day when i called he threatened to have me arrested if i come to the office again and then hung up on me

i called back but this time, instead of screaming i was welcomed by a friendly voice, she explained that she was the lawyer's secretary and asked what i did that was making him so upset everyday, i explained my situation and that i had a stack of documents: paystubs, timecards, precedence, verbose and organised personal logs; that expressly showed i was owed overtime

she told me to come in after the lawyer went home for the day and show her this folder, i did the next day and she looked stunned at the work i put into it, she took my research to her boss's boss and three days later i got a check in the mail signed by my former employee

the amount was for the exact value i had calculated in my logs, down to the penny

..

the story ends there, but if you wonder why i was fired, read on:

i was interviewing for a position to sell coffee at a major, yet private, cafe in manhattan, i got the job but in the course of working there for ten days i was promoted to a managerial position

i was running the main cafe and its four satellites throughout the island, doing everything from organising shifts to organising private parties, i did daily accounting at the main hub, and the full books at all the satellites

my quick promotions were the work of an employee whose job i was doing at the height of my employment, it was the holiday season and he wanted a three week vacation but was told he was too crucial to leave for so long, i was his plan out

by putting me in his position, while still expecting me to do the other positions i was already working, he was able to take his vacation

i am unsure what he thought would happen but when he came back i was kicking ass, and developing a rapport with the owner.. mind you, i had only been there ten days prior to taking the reigns so i was still very new to the company, when the old manager returned i was put into a 'positional limbo', the old manager led me on with promises of once he settled back in that i would run the satellites and he would only run the main hub, for three days i would come to work and do little things around the cafe and office that needed doing but everyone knew could go ignored, in those days the old manager had hired two new people into my catering job and my accounting position, again, with reassurances that i would get my managerial duties back running the satellites

on the third day the owner came in and i greeted him and asked if he'd be interested in opening a cafe in london because at the time i was interested in relocating there myself, he said it was the first time he'd thought about it, and he'd need some time to think about it more, but that he would

the next day i came into work and i was told i was fired, i asked why and the owner said the old manager 'no longer felt comfortable around me', i was stunned, just the day before we took our lunch break together.. this would be the last time i saw him, i told the owner this whole thing felt shitty, he apologised and explained the old manager had been there for five years and he had trust his opinion

..

in case there are any lingering thoughts on whether i did make the old manager uncomfortable stead it being some weird conspiracy that he felt his position was threatened by my presence or some such: i ordered a book off amazon, interestingly O'Reilly's 'Learning Perl, 6th Edition', since i was homeless, and spent all my time there anyway, i had my packages sent to the cafe, the book had yet to have arrived before my termination so after being fired i would periodically stop by and stick my head in to see if the book had arrived, after about three weeks the owner went from being friendly to thinking i was some insane holder on, weaving lies about 'a book', so that i could 'have an excuse' to come to the cafe, now i was getting emails from amazon saying the package had been delivered, i told the owner and he became furious trying to explain to me that the package was some delusion of mine, i went to the post office that checked the package in, and they had a signature from someone who had recieved the package at the cafe, it was the old manager's signature

i went back to the cafe and explained this and now the owner was threatening to call the police if i ever came back, i went back to the post office, explained the situation to them, they sent a representative, on his lunch break, the same day, and then called me later that day to tell me my package was waiting for me at the post office

when i went to claim it i was told the guy who went to the cafe to get the package wanted to personally give it to me, he came out smiling and told me everything happened as i explained it: first the owner yelled at him about how i was a crazy former employee, then claimed the package was a figment of my imagination; but then the postal worker showed him the signature, the owner then tore the office apart looking for it and concluded something must be off, that maybe i already had the package and was lying about it, at that point the old manager came back from his lunch break and the postal worker explained the situation to him, he denied having it, then the postal worker started threatening him with legal repercussions because i was claiming i had yet to have received the package but the post office had the mangager's signature for it, then the old manager apparently walked over to his filing cabinet, pulled the bottom drawer all the way out and took my boxed book out of from the behind all of the files, i am unsure of his fate after that, the postal worker said he was happy to get out of there and just took the box and left

i bought a plane ticket to london, two weeks in advance to avoid the price hike, and spent that two weeks up all night learning perl in Yaffa Cafe: bottomless coffee, open 24hrs, and free wifi

Do I ever see any of that money again? Nope! Only if I work in the US for ten years do I have any hope of getting some money out of the Social Security system (if it's still going in its present form when I retire, which I doubt).