Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
theguardian.com
Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
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Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#2> A bartender in Orlando, Florida who requested to remain anonymous because they still work in the industry, said they started a new bartending job in May and pushed back when they found out their hourly wage was just a daily rate of $30, despite working eight-hour shifts.
> “I reminded my manager that paying less than minimum wage was illegal, and added a link to a law firm’s page about it. He fired me,” the worker said. “Getting fired for not wanting to be paid below the already insanely low minimum wage after working in the industry for over 20 years was pretty rough.”
> The worker attempted to file a complaint with the US Department of Labor and the Florida attorney general’s office but was told they only prioritize higher wage violations and never heard back after being told someone would follow up.
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#3The 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.
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#4The 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.
There's no voting solution to gaining that unfortunately
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#5The 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.
My wife took a former employer to small claims court. It was as straight forward as it gets.
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#6[dead]
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#7> A bartender in Orlando, Florida who requested to remain anonymous because they still work in the industry, said they started a new bartending job in May and pushed back when they found out their hourly wage was just a daily rate of $30, despite working eight-hour shifts. > “I reminded my manager that paying less than minimum wage was illegal, and added a link to a law firm’s page about it. He fired me,” the worker…
Florida AG has unlimited funds for CYA but not to help the people who most need it. Figures.
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#8From 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.
Having said all that, for all the others make the company directors personally liable.
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#9This 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 before clocking in. So on those days you'd do 30-45 minutes of fully unpaid labor. There was well understood that if you complained about this 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. At the time I was pretty naive and didn't think much of it, just figured that's the way the world worked. Doing the math, because I always made more than the tipped minimum wage, I think it only ended up costing me $7/week in wages - but if I stole $7 out of the till each week for a year in a half I'd be charged with a felony.
Re: Billions stolen in wage theft from US workers
#10The 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.
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.”