As someone who used to practice law in a legal aid office, can confirm the scope and difficulty of the problem. Employees, especially lower income employees, have really limited access to the legal system; it's even worse with more vulnerable populations (immigrants, lower educated workers, etc.). Even basic stuff like employee stuff keeping their own independent hours records often doesn't happen. It's really a problem in places like farm labor.
Many people complain about the fact that Google has a record of where you go if you opt in to location tracking, but people should be able to extract this record to get an automated working time estimate without needing to do do anything to prepare ahead of time, if they have an Android phone and haven't disabled the tracking.
I'm not sure about the completeness/time accuracy of the logged data, but maybe you could weigh in on the presumed legal validity of such an approach?
enabling communication (e.g. ops for Mastodon communities) for labor unions strikes me as a better means of addressing the basic issue --- i.e. "the man" taking advantage of the little guy, intentional or not.
if time-tracking somehow solves the bare moneys/hour problem, other, perhaps worse, conditions could surface (thinking of what it's like to work in an online shop warehouse here, in particular, where time-tracking is .. not a complete "solution.")
traditionally, afaik, unionization is the way out of situations where a great number of workers are disadvantaged by some policy set by a few people in the industry.
this is a social [(science)?] problem, not a technological one.
Most time tracking software such as WhenIWork does this.
However, it is geared towards protecting the employer from wage theft by employees in the form of late clock-in, early clock-out, etc. Eg, when an employee inflates their time worked.
Location tracking on phones is not nearly as a clean data source as it may seem. For example when you use GPS in a large city tour location can get confused . So your tracking data is rather rough.
When I look at the Location History Google has on me for my time at work it's pretty accurate, which is unsurprising since it is in a single fixed location and involves a fusion of not just GPS, but also Accelerometer and WiFi data.
It's entirely possible that is less accurate for others, but it's a source of data that many people in this situation should already have, so you can use it for those for whom it is more accurate, and ignore it for others.
You might be able to make a solid case that wage theft results in greater nominal amounts of theft than violent theft, but that doesn't mean it's a bigger problem as the title assumes.
The reason we are so hard on violent criminals isn't because they stole a small amount of money or property, it's because of the violence part. We place a lot of value on human life and safety, and when there's a notable probability of someone being stabbed or shot, things get significantly worse.
Wage theft may result in some bad problems as well, but I can't imagine it leads to more people being stabbed or shot.
>it's because of the violence part. We place a lot of value on human life and safety,
it's not because of the violence itself, it's because of the visibility of this particular form of violence and the resulting news coverage.
There are plenty of forms of violence present in our societies that we do not give its due attention, domestic violence for example which, the recent two or three decades aside, was even tolerated.
Same goes for wage theft, we don't pay attention because the people being robbed rarely have a voice. No cameraman drives to a home to interview someone who was the victim of wage theft, as it doesn't make for a very exciting visual evening cable news headline.
The legal tradition of treating harm, threats or coercion to a person's body as more serious than theft or destruction of property predates the existence of television. The legal principle is about the violence.
It's true, and sad that this principle hasn't been, and often still isn't applied fairly when it comes to domestic violence, violence against minorities and wealthy rapists, but failures to apply a principle fairly do not invalidate it entirely.
> There are plenty of forms of violence present in our societies that we do not give its due attention, domestic violence for example which, the recent two or three decades aside, was even tolerated.
You're right, but this doesn't prove your main point. The fact that some things are more looked at than others doesn't mean that violence in general is not a dividing line.
Theft isn't inherently tied to violence. It's easy to think of someone breaking into your home with a ski mask on, instead of embezzlement or pirating software. I would argue that wage theft is a bigger problem in the sense that the scope is so much larger. This article brings up wage theft amounts in _recovered_ wages and it still trumps regular theft. I'd guess a lot of people on this thread have experienced wage theft, I know I have.
Would I rather a corporation steal $12,000 from me every year, or a burglar break into my home and steal my shit? I know I wouldn't pay $12,000 for a security system for my house.
> Theft isn't inherently tied to violence. It's easy to think of someone breaking into your home with a ski mask on, instead of embezzlement or pirating software.
Well, I think you're just defining theft differently than the parent. In most people's minds (I think), when you talk about theft, you're talking about something with at least implied violence. This is exactly why non-violent (and semi-victimless) crimes like white collar crimes, pirating software, etc, tend to have lighter sentences and generally be looked at differently. This forum in particular is a place where people often make the case that software piracy shouldn't even be called piracy/theft, partially for this reason!
> I would argue that wage theft is a bigger problem in the sense that the scope is so much larger.
Valid, but I think you're just defining "bigger" here differently than parent. It seems like you're talking pure scope of people affected, whereas parent is including how severely the people are affected. I don't think that's a very interesting discussion to be honest - it's just defining words. I imagine both of you will agree with the statement "one impacts more people, but the other impacts people more severely, ideally we should try to combat both", no?
> Would I rather a corporation steal $12,000 from me every year, or a burglar break into my home and steal my shit? I know I wouldn't pay $12,000 for a security system for my house.
Yes, but, with every time someone breaks into your house there's a chance you might be hurt or killed... doesn't that change your calculus here? (Of course the actual numbers matter though!)
What says that there isn't an equal chance of dying from complicated health issues that can't get attended to or mechanical repairs that can't be done because one JUST CAN'T AFFORD it right now?
Don't try to hide behind "it isn't violence". Everything is violence if you think hard enough. We just prune down the scope to what happens to be convenient at the time.
The real qualifier for what makes this "theft" is the asymmetry of value generated for the payer vs. the reward returned to the payee.
Think about if that janitor WEREN'T there. She just stayed home and hardened somehow. No more floor\workspace cleaning, no more trash being emptied, no more bathrooms being restocked, no more Windows being cleaned.
I'd like to see 90% of businesses that hire janitors workplace productivity after not having them around.
Now look at programmers. System's I develop transact billions of times a quarter, generating millions in revenue.
Suppose all of the people capable of developing those services refused to work as well? Things would go along fine for the most part. Millions would still roll in.
So, yeah. It's theft. In BOTH cases. We just like to draw lines between skilled and unskilled labor and say "this person is more valuable than that person".
It's why the phrase "Human Resources" became a thing. It isn't about doing business in good faith with someone else. It's about stroking egos and making the financials look good.
I don't know the solution, but when most normal people I know make 4 times less than the average programmer for an equal investment of their lives to someone else's ends, there is some stinking problem going on, and it isn't just "the market at work". That's a part undoubtedly, but there seems to be something structural underlying it all as well. There is no reason why wage growth should not have scaled with capacity to generate revenue.
> Everything is violence if you think hard enough.
Yes, very much this. "Violent" crimes clearly have a more evident immediate danger, but all theft is violence (though the scope might not be immediately evident).
This applies especially so toward individuals who are already low-income. Steal a low-income person's wages, and they fall deeper into the pit of poverty. They can't make their rent payment, their electric bill, they overdraw their account maybe. They haven't just had an hour or two stolen from them.
I think you're just defining the size of a problem differently than parent. Parent (rightly or wrongly) assumes that things which are more violent are a bigger problem, whereas you seem to be purely looking at how many people this affects.
> Society may have a bigger problem with violent theft than with employers stealing wages, but that society views it this way in itself is a problem.
I'm with parent on this though, personally. I'd much rather more people lost some money than more people were physically hurt/killed. There are scope effects here - I wouldn't necessarily trade 1 armed robbery for 1,000 thefts or something. But I do think the OP is making a false equivalence which isn't really useful to the discussino.
> I'd much rather more people lost some money than more people were physically hurt/killed.
Ahh but no one has to get hurt, it's about intimidation. One robber uses a gun to intimidate the victim with the threat that they will feel pain or lose their actual life if they stand up.
The other type of robber uses employment to intimidate the victim with the threat that they will lose their livelihood if they stand up.
> There are scope effects here - I wouldn't necessarily trade 1 armed robbery for 1,000 thefts or something.
> You might be able to make a solid case that wage theft results in greater nominal amounts of theft than violent theft, but that doesn't mean it's a bigger problem as the title assumes.
It's a bigger economic problem by at least an order of magnitude according to an article published on a website focusing on economic issues.
>The reason we are so hard on violent criminals isn't because they stole a small amount of money or property, it's because of the violence part.
We have laws against violent activities just the same as we have laws against theft. We don't need to stop violence indirectly by policing activities associated with it.
If it's only by blurring the lines between theft and violence that we can defend the focus on property theft over wage theft, that strikes me as implicit agreement with the basic argument made by the article.
>Wage theft may result in some bad problems as well, but I can't imagine it leads to more people being stabbed or shot.
This is something of an absurd stance in a country with high-cost, private insurance like the US. People go without treatment, and sometimes die, out of fear of the associated cost. But somehow stealing money from them doesn't cause them bodily harm? Especially when a vast majority of this wage theft is being done to workers without employer provided health insurance?
By March 21st, I learned that nobody has been paid in 2 months.
Around that same day, the CEO went to jail for writing bad checks.
All other employees quit that same day.
I stayed on after CEO got out-- hoping the client who has been supposed to pay would pay. I was also offered 20k raise + moved to President of Software Development. I was hoping I could temper the CEO's risk factors and keep the business going and maybe get a paycheck, and help get the people who quit paid as well for their previous work.
I worked feverishly 100+hours per week to deliver updates... (keeping some of the IP on my own box --it only modified data, I'd run it locally then just export the data to mysql.)
I've still not been paid, I've filed wage claims, and still nothing.
I've since told the CEO and client, until I get paid nothing else happens.
Has any other developer experienced anything like this? It's so frustrating especially since I'm about to be homeless as a result... I'm owed like nearly 20k in back pay.
Even if that client were to pay (and they're probably not inclined to send money to the firm), what's to say that the CEO won't keep it all as their own "back-pay"?
I would contact an employment lawyer so that you'll get your 2+ months of pay, turn in all company materials and data, and leave on Monday morning.
I have heard several stories like yours, and none of them ended well.
It has not happened to me, because I would have quit after even a single missing paycheck -- the job market for software developers is just too good for anyone to be willing to put up with this kind of abuse.
I really hope you are looking for another job rather than staying where you are and hoping to get a paycheck. And I also really hope you are talking to a qualified lawyer about this.
Trying to find some freelance gigs for now (Laravel + Vue is my stack if you know anyone looking), really need to pay the bills, I'm open to full-time, but I'd really prefer something remote as I love working from home/remotely.
I've been hovering in intermediate/mid-level jobs, around 60-70k/year, the chance at 90k + 10% of the company and to be a manager of other devs, was tempting to at least take a chance. -- Time's run out though. I've told my boss if I'm not paid this week, I'm going public and running sending his name/company name to the state attorney general (Utah), I'm contacting the FTC, as well as cc processor, and attorney general on behalf of the client as well (it's MLM so already somewhat shady in my book.).
I used to do SEO before becoming a dev full-time in 2012, I can make it so no other developer ever works for this guy again.
My hope while it'll feel good to get revenge, is that I truly save other devs from going through this...it's one of the most horrible things I've ever experienced professionally.
I really can't understand why you didn't quit as soon as you found out the lack of pay or as soon as you realized your first paycheck was late. In fact, it seems you worked even harder, so I guess the CEO and client got what they wanted?
I haven't delivered code -- only data so far, except for a tiny little fix on a page. I had to run some major data processing changing a broken hierarchy chart thousands of levels deep and following certain rules, using mysql 5.7 (no CTEs).
One important thing I've learned is that you can't change a bad business. It doesn't matter how hard you try, or what you do, they will remain the same.
No, but I do plan on writing an extensive medium article about the company, the ceo, the client's company, their CEO, as well as all dirt I can dig up on them (I already have screenshots from past convictions of the CEO of my company).
I may not be able to change their business practices, but I can make it so they lose more money than they owe me through lost business deals with other people. I can also make it much harder for them to hire developers in the future.
Telling the relevant state authorities that the company broke the law is fine. Getting a lawyer and suing the company for your lost wages is fine. But shaming the company or the CEO publicly could land you in a world of legal trouble.
On top of that, publicly shaming your previous employer could make you less attractive as a job candidate. A lot of companies would not want to hire somebody who does that, because they think that person might do it to them -- and they might think that way even if they believe you are telling the truth and they have no plans to screw you over.
Yeah... little rant here... I recently got back from a year-long contract in Sydney.
Australia is one of the most labor-friendly places on the planet. So if this sort of crap can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
Recently settled and signed NDA... but I feel relatively anonymous on here.
Anyway first... they made me an offer letter, and I resigned from the old job. About a week later -- they knew I had given notice at the old job -- they came back to me and said, "Yeah, we thought our budget was X, but now it's 80% X. Take it or leave it." I was annoyed, but I took it.
Christmas came, they were giving out bonuses. Even though I was counted as a full-time employee, I didn't get a bonus like all the other non-immigrant workers. We found out that every Australian citizen or permanent resident got a bonus, but none of the Americans did. Shortly after complaining, HR sent a letter out to everyone saying that talking about pay or bonuses was a fireable offense.
I stepped up to cover a few holidays, and worked over the Christmas break. But they had automatically taken 2 weeks off of my vacation pool... it took about 4 months to get it sorted, I eventually did get the time back -- but only after I pulled time sheet records (something most employees couldn't do) to show I was working.
My final expense report never got paid.
They had my start date off by about a week. They had my end date off by 3 days.
Long story short, I ended up taking them to the Fair Work Commission (sort of like Small Claims Court). It was not an easy decision to do this. My network in Australia isn't huge, and I can't control the story they will tell inside the company, or to future employers who want to call and verify work / references. Clearly I can control who I list as references, but... far too much damage can be done when someone looks up connections on LinkedIn, and asks one of the shady folks, "Hey, what did you think of him?" I won’t get a chance to tell my side of it, I just don’t get the job.
So I won my claim (or at least got them to make me an offer that I settled for -- about 50% of what I was actually due), and helped a handful of other people win their claims... but I'm quite certain I alienated my manager and MD and everyone on the HR team in the process. It's expensive to stand up for yourself. Time to fight it, cost of a lawyer, and cost to the network... not hard to see why so many people don't fight it. A few grand... meh, I probably would have written it off if they paid any portion time, expense reports, or bonuses that they should have paid me.
Mind you this wasn't some Podunk 10-person agency... it was an agency with over 2,000 global employees. And I wasn't some day-rate worker, I was director-level and they tasked me with running some of their biggest projects for some of their highest profile clients.
Istanbul. The company I work is very small but our customers are from top 25 in Turkey. There is pretty much work and number of our customers have increased. So, no issues on the finantial side of the company I work. When I started my employer told me that he will pay social security partialy until we move our office to technopark or until the end of my 6th month. We have moved our office to a technopark (no VAT or less VAT) and its been 3 years after te end of that 6th month. Still was't paying my social security fully. I emailed him this topic 3 afternoons in a row and he was like "you are annoying my private life", I told him "I'm sending email to your work mail about work. I'm not sending you WhatsApp messages to your private number at 1 am like you did few times in past!". I told him that I'm not going to be silent. And he was like "you are threating me". And then proceeded like "oh, don't you worry about my refference about you to your future employers!". Basically he threatened me. But at the end he had to pay my social security fully. I'm still working for him. But because of his threat I have less chance of finding a new job. Thus I don't have any other option but to create my own company. Guess what? I am going to be his next competitor. I'm not his sheep. People died for their basic rights. Let's not get silent when someone tries to steal your rights, at least we can speak up.
Workers on temporary working visas like you seem doubly exposed to exploitation: not only are they subjected to the regular shenanigans of employers, they face the threat of the employer pulling the visa.
Correct, and this was spot-on why I didn't raise a bigger stink about the bonuses. You get your visa sponsored through them... and if you want Permanent Resident status you have to work there for about 2 years. I was told not to expect any sort of raise or bonus during this time -- why bother since they know they own you? Painful.
I really don't understand this concern over alienating managers who actively fuck you over. You're never going to want to work with them again, and you can remove them from your LinkedIn profile.
For me, my present manager is my main referee, and the longest I've held a position in years. I don't have many other referees, most have left the country or just disappeared.
There's also the bad reputation that can be spread around the golf course meetings. It's quite a small city.
It's more a concern that unless I take the company off my LinkedIn and resume, when I go to apply for a new job inevitably someone will ask the people who screwed me over, "Hey what did you think of him?" And that person will then get to say whatever they want... and it could torpedo my job application before I get a chance to build enough rapport to counter a BS claim / or won't even get the chance to tell my side of it. I worked there for a year, and I'm mostly proud of the work I did -- costly too to lose a year of work history.
So tell the prospective employer not to contact them, and sue the company if they say anything other than the dates of employment. They don't have a right to tank your future employment chances because they're upset you called them out for breaking the fucking law.
Inevitably, in reality, you don't just talk to HR. Anyone who interviews you is going to look at LinkedIn, look at other networks, and talk to people who they know who used to know you. Often times the management are well connected, at least on LinkedIn... it's not realistic to expect all of the people who interview you for a new job not to contact a former employer. AND... as soon as you say, "Don't do it..." that'd be a red flag, of course they'd want to reach out then.
The thing is, you'll never know what people say behind your back, or who they talk to... or if they honor your request not to talk to past employers. Only option would be to remove all traces from that company from your references / LinkedIn... and then what do you do about the gap year(s)?
A friend in HR told me once that HR people very rarely give bad reviews, especially to people they don't know. Badmouthing an employee, without the legal case to explain it, is often seen as giving a bad rep to the organization. You should expect something more like a bland, generic 'that guy was alright'.
I'm waiting on 2nd wage claim, to file another for the following month.. once I get both claims approved, I'll file a small claims for each one...so I can make sure to get all I'm owed. I figure each wage claim is a separate case in and of itself. (IANAL though).
Organized labor is the only way to combat this kind of abuse. Workers cannot rely on policy makers or corporations to do it for them.
Organizing doesn't mean forming an official legal union, or joining an already established union (in some cases this might make sense but not always). You can organize mutual aid networks that do things like share salary data and talk about their problems.
Don't you think there's also a place for law enforcement? In California many public works projects are delayed because inspectors regularly come to the work site, stop all work for the day, and interview the laborers on the site to make sure they are getting paid. This is disruptive and the only reason they need to do it is because when they find wage theft they don't really prosecute it. There are small fines and then everything continues.
What the inspectors should do is give the contractors in question the figurative death penalty: permanently revoked contractor license, revocation of work orders, clawback of money already paid, jail time and serious fines for the individuals responsible. We for some reason have a high tolerance for white-collar crimes when we really should be prosecuting them vigorously.
I would love to see law enforcement take this more seriously. But we should be honest with ourselves that in this moment in America, government is much more responsive to the needs of the rich. One only need look at the newspaper to suspect that, but studies agree: http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...
One of the fundamental problems with employer/employee relations is that employers usually have more workers than employees have jobs. Losing your job is worse than having an employee quit. This fundamental imbalance of power means that we'll always need ways to even things out if we want reasonably fair situations for employees.
Labor laws and law enforcement can cover part of that. And we should certainly pursue it. But I think people should also pursue collective action, be that as formal as a union or as casual as Google's workers all pressuring their employers to stop doing military work. Resilient systems always have multiple ways to keep a problem from getting out of control.
It's funny that people blame law enforcement's lack of interest or effort in white collar crime when for the last many decades the automatic response to every economic 'issue' or moral panic of the day has been to set up more and more agencies and more and more economic regulations.
Courts and law enforcement has evolved to become the very last resort for dealing with these white collar issues. It's become the cultural automatic solution to everything in American (or should I say western) government systems. Every time something goes wrong we're always told the solution is more new agencies to be formed and more complex - slow changing - laws. And these agencies and law always have little mandate to prove efficacy and ROI. They get put in place and stay that way for years. What matters was 'something had to be done' at the time.
So of course law enforcement hasn't been doing a good job at punishing what the rich do. Looking at law enforcement in isolation as the only solution of course is going to look like it's doing a poor job vs enforcing typical criminal laws, which tend to affect middle/lower class people far more.
As income is the greatest indicator of standard criminal acts (drug crimes, theft, violence, etc). Wealthy people simply don't get involved in such crimes and are far more likely to be involved in white collar crime, which thousands of US agencies have been set up to punitively enforce.
There may be serious issues in the justice system (in terms of sentencing, representation, law enforcement culture, etc) regarding the way the wealthy are treated in terms of standard criminal issues. But applying the same lense to white collar crime while ignoring the larger scope of regulatory frameworks and agency based intervention is to severely misunderstand the issue.
These non-law enforcement agencies play a massive role in the US economy.
Yes, the efficacy of always turning to agencies and regulatory frameworks can be honestly questioned and likely a source of many loopholes, but their pure effort and the subsequent costs they impose on the economic system in their efforts to stop this behaviour can't be downplayed... as if they aren't being pursued compared to 'blue collar' crime.
Involving more of the courts and law enforcement to white collar crime could legitimately be a solution here and the lack of real punishment for these actions is a real problem IMO. I'm merely saying the results today are a side effect of how things are done, the automatic political solutions being put in place every time something goes wrong in business, not that things are good as they are.
> We for some reason have a high tolerance for white-collar crimes when we really should be prosecuting them vigorously.
It took a social movement for prosecutors to get a fucking backbone when it came to rape and sexual misconduct among the powerful. It should be a lot easier than that for prosecutors to charge white collar criminals. This is just paper
Given the scale of wage-theft in the US, as documented by this study, your emphasis on a narrow and specific concern related to inspections seems disproportionate.
I'm not saying this isn't a difficult burden for those who deal with the inspections, but in terms of priorities, huge numbers of people getting robbed by their employers would seem to deserve more attention?
I am affiliated to a trade union in Spain and I find it mostly positive. Most trade unions seem lazy, like just structures of bureaucrats, but this one runs very well.
I pay a monthly fee of 15€/month, have access to a labor lawyer and a "resistance box" in case I have to go on strike or something, they match a % of your salary (not remember how much, but in my case it was like 80% of it). They also have a sensible approach on collective agreements.
I also have access to more stuff I can't remember now.
Sadly this trade union is small, and sectorial, but it very refreshing seen this, because most trade unions in Spain have bad rep.
Older unions in the US has a bad rap as well, but I think a lot of that is corporate propaganda to be honest. Like, the idea of having a labor lawyer at your disposal is an incredible benefit to you. I am sure wage theft is a little harder when your employees are armed with legal aid.
I have had many friends who work in fields which required them to join unions in the US (engineering, law enforcement, education, entertainment, etc), and I have never heard anyone say anything positive about them. At best, they suck a few dollars per month from your paycheck. Most commonly, they prevent the bad apples from ever being fired, no matter how blatant their behavior. Or a non-union person is not allowed to do a trivial task (like move a chair) because it's "union work". At worst, if union management decides to make you the target of a witch hunt, they can make it hell to try to find work in that field at any workplace in their jurisdiction. Who protects workers from the union itself?
I accept that unions have had a valuable place in society, and they're definitely still good for some things, but I don't believe their poor reputation today is "corporate propaganda". They seem to be one of those types of organizations that have outlived their original purpose, mostly, and now exist to propagate themselves.
Ultimately, it's just another power structure. The structure is neither good nor bad. What matters is the people. ("The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery.") Like every organization, over time they tend to collect the type of people who take advantage of that power structure.
I'm sure some of it is propaganda, but I think it's also an artifact of very adversarial management/labor splits that were more common in the past. If management is full of exploitative dicks, it's not surprising that the unions would also think in a zero-sum fashion.
It's on the NUMMI plant. GM's worst plant was shut down; Toyota took it over as part of a joint venture to show GM how to make cars in the Toyota way. The story of the workers and how they change as they work for an employer that treats them with respect is amazing.
It definitely made me believe that unions indeed could be shitty. But also, that it's not a one-sided thing, and that other relationships are not just possible, but necessary if we're going to make things that are more useful and reliable than a '79 Chevette.
Engineers like efficiency. We think of ourselves as handy generalists who can dive into any task. This necessarily puts us on the side of management regarding rules designed to ensure there is enough work to go around and limit the tasks that workers in specific roles are allowed to do. I’d genuinely take a pay cut to work in a high-functioning environment where workflows and systems are well orchestrated, rather than one where everything is an uphill slog due to arcane make-work rules. This is a character trait particular to tech industry folk, and may explain why we dislike old-school unions so much, even when they may be in our financial best interests.
>> I’d genuinely take a pay cut to work in a high-functioning environment where workflows and systems are well orchestrated, rather than one where everything is an uphill slog due to arcane make-work rules.
This is a very interesting take and I'm exactly the same way. In fact, I just gave notice last week at my current position so that I could pursue a position with a company that was leaner and where more of my time would be spent on relevant work versus meta work. Fortunately, the complete compensation packages, benefits, insurance, et al. at both places came out to about a wash. My current employer is more secure from an employment perspective but I'm willing to give that up in exchange for "staying in the game" technically and for seeing the fruits of my labor have a more direct impact in the marketplace.
>but I think a lot of that is corporate propaganda to be honest
I think it's both. My best friend makes $31 / hour installing plastic car door clips on an assembly line. That's a ridiculous wage for what he does (literally anyone could do his job.)
I'm happy for him and his family, but there's also a negative aspect to labor costing 3-4x what would be competitive in an open market.
"I'm happy for him and his family, but there's also a negative aspect to labor costing 3-4x what would be competitive in an open market."
Id consider such arguments if they applied to CEO's or similarly were reducing corporate expenses on things of questionable value. I find most of the companies that aay they can't pay workers overpay upper management and have a lot of frivilous spending.
This. The levels of expenses paid for senior people in big organizations is insane.
A friend recently rented out an apartment in central London to people working for a nonprofit org at £10k per month and this is only scratching the surface of ludicrous corporate expense culture. Meanwhile these upper management say they can't pay their staff a living wage...
A non-profit? Lol. Quick way to fix that is to let donors know about those ridiculous expenses. A private for profit company should be able to do whatever it wants because they are competing in a free market. Those high expenses might be justified as part of their strategy to recruit top management talent. Basically, those expenses are paid back by the output of those incurring them. A non-profit on the other hand — they are tax exempt, so taxpayers get to subsidize that 10k apartment.
"Those high expenses might be justified as part of their strategy to recruit top management talent. "
I really don't buy the argument that normal workers deserve to be paid crap because of "free market", but for some reason executive compensation needs to be amazingly outlandish.
How do you know that's the case? And it's pretty clear the company is making enough money to cover it, so it makes sense that the people actually doing the work get to share in the rewards.
"How do I know what is the case? The fact that anyone with functioning limbs could do his job? That comes from him and the job description he gave me."
There are lots of jobs like that where people are paid lots of money. I'm not buying your argument. Hell, most CEOs do a completely awful job, and still get to command much, much higher salaries. If you want to complain about people being overpaid, start with the executives.
60k is about the minimum to live comfortably in the US. Corporations have taken advantage of people by not paying them even close to a fair wage. 60k should be about minimum wage in reality, and there's no reason why that can't be done except for greedy ceos and shareholders.
> 60k should be about minimum wage in reality, and there's no reason why that can't be done except for greedy ceos and shareholders.
$60k is way beyond the minimum in most of the US. It’s a good living even in major cities like Atlanta. Also, paying $60k to all 125 million full time workers would basically eat up all US wage income. The income range would have to be $60-70k.
$60k is well beyond the minimum needed in rural areas. Hell, I went to college hoping to get a wage around $60k. I have a friend in the Indianapolis area who is supporting a wife and two children and owns a house and I would be shocked to discover that he is making more than that these days. It's always sort of funny to me how distorted the idea of a 'living wage' in flyover country is to those that live on the coasts in big cities. My sister's husband made $40k in the mountains of western NC (about 2 years ago) and was able to just barely support my sister and their three children. Now, that was a pretty untenable situation, so that's probably about as low as you can scrape (at least with a bunch of kids), but even they managed to buy a small house on that single (!) income. They were certainly on the poverty line at the time, but they were able to survive until he found something better.
I got hilariously lucky and dropped out in 2013 with an awesome offer in hand, but I was aiming for a graduation in 2014. My hopes were calibrated by the salaries I was seeing my friends get (in the midwest) with mediocre grades similar to my own.
It depends on if that 60k also comes with good health insurance though. Medical debt is a huge cause of bankruptcy and financial distress in the US, even for those who ARE insured:
I make around that and without health insurance my chronic illness would be a disaster financially. Fortunately with decent insurance it’s just a disaster physically and emotionally.
> there's no reason why that can't be done except for greedy ceos and shareholders.
What a generalization. Nevermind the thousands of small businesses operating on razor thin margins. They wouldn't be negatively affected by $60k minimum wage in the least bit.
Yes, nobody contemplates what the amazon-plankton thinks of the situation. Because they do not influence the development and outcome of the current situation. And if they all get the same burden put upon them, the price adjusts and nothing ever happened.
> 60k is about the minimum to live comfortably in the US
My friend lives in Loves Park IL, near where I (we) grew up. You're delierious if you think it costs even 60k (120k since most families have two earners) to live there. Go experience the rest of the country some time.
had never even thought of that as a feature of unions.
i know a couple people selling 'legalshield', and a few people that have bought it. having the ability to contact an attorney for 'now and then' questions, to clear stuff up, or write letters.... $30/month or something like that. Seems similar, and potentially valuable, to have that in a corporate setting, depending on how much $ it would actually run you.
It seems like a reasonable idea, but personally I wouldn't trust any company that operates as an MLM as Legal Shield apparently does. It's hard to even find good information about such companies given the prevalence of astroturfing by their members.
agree on mlm in general. conceptually, having some basic access to legal specific to workplace law would be a reasonable benefit for union members though.
I think HN tends to lean anti-union because it is centered around a community of seed investors and entrepreneurs. Unions would work against their interests.
The answer seems obvious to me, and that is to have the workers be the investors themselves. In that way, the workers are also the bosses and can collectively decide their future and path forward.
Other ways separates the money from the labor. There will always be strife in that organization. Having a worker owned co-op also means that the profits don't go elsewhere - they go back to the people doing the labor.
> Windings Inc. is headquartered in New Ulm, Minnesota, with domestic and international production facilities and capabilities. Windings maintains the highest standards in manufacturing, engineering, material management and concept development while achieving a global presence in the industry.
> Our company was founded in 1965. The majority of our business is made up of the Industrial, Aerospace, and Defense markets.
...
> In 1998, Windings Inc. formed an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) for a planned purchase and transition of Company stock to the employees of Windings. The higher sense of responsibility that comes with employee ownership has made Windings even more responsive to customer needs and encourages innovation to bring greater value to its customers. In 2008, the company became 100% employee-owned.
I don't read Italian, but there are a set of unemployment laws in Italy that roughly state - if there are 10 unemployed people who have an idea for a company, they can request all their unemployment insurance collectively and form a worker cooperative. Right now, there's more than 8000 such cooperatives in Italy.
Suma, a food collective, is another such example. Again, note the humane treatment of workers. Again, this is democracy in the workplace - the workers collectively decide how they are to be treated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suma_(co-operative)
Techies are highly-paid relative to many other workers, but they're being exploited by they're being employers in many of the same ways as their low-wage counterparts, including collusive depression and theft of wages. Death march culture and the Google-Apple wage-fixing scandal should've demonstrated this to everyone.
> LinkedIn failed to record, account and pay for all hours worked in a workweek, investigators found ... "Off the clock' hours are all too common for the American worker. This practice harms workers, denies them the wages they have rightfully earned and takes away time with families," said Susana Blanco, district director for the division in San Francisco. "We urge all employers, large and small, to review their pay practices to ensure employees know their basic workplace rights and that the commitment to compliance works through all levels of the organization. The department is committed to protecting the rights of workers and leveling the playing field for all law-abiding employers."
Collective bargaining devalues me as an individual contributor. If my pay is fixed to whatever level the union negotiated for me and those with equal seniority, I can’t get past that wage. My upward mobility is traded for a reduction in downward mobility. I would have less incentive to work harder or go the extra mile. I would have the passion and motivation of a clerk at the department of motor vehicles. You can’t fire me unless I do something really bad and I can’t get a raise unless everyone else also gets a raise. I can’t move employers to seek better wages because I’d lose seniority.
Collective bargaining is a life sentence of mediocrity for both a company and individuals. However, for 19th and 20th style assembly line type work where workers are literally interchangeable, then I can understand the appeal of collective bargaining. Some guy turning the same screw all day on an assembly line — there is not much room for “excelling” — you either turn the screw when the next part gets to you, or you don’t. Screw-turning doesn’t really have much opportunity for innovation or extra-mile at the individual level. But for a restaurant worker who might be extra nice to a customer or stay a few minutes late to help make the place extra clean or the kitchen worker who reduces food waste by being more efficient — even those “low” level jobs would be harmed by collective bargaining. Jobs that benefit from collective bargaining are ones with extremely minimal autonomy or require an extremely low skill set: just turn a screw. For jobs that actually require intelligence (emotional or intellectual,) collective bargaining is an insult. Unless of course you are poorly motivated in which case it’s a gift.
This strikes me as a description, possibly even a caricature, of what collective bargaining has ahieved in certain scenarios.
It may even describe what is an inevitable outcome, but, absent compelling evidence, even that is merely conjecture.
Otherwise, there's nothing inherent to collective bargaining that requires any of the features you mentioned. Even "collective" doesn't have to mean collectivism in the socialism/communism sense.
> assembly line type work where workers are literally interchangeable
Anecdotally, I've read the observation (perhaps even complaint) here on HN that employers still have a tendency to prefer their workers be more interchangeable than intelligent or individually productive.
Even if this attitude is minority, but a large minority, it creates an environment where unions seem desireable.
>Collective bargaining is a life sentence of mediocrity for both a company and individuals.
How do you reconcile this opinion with the high-levels of pay and celebrity in the entertainment industry and professional sports? They're all unionized and their bosses make money hand over fist as well.
Just to put things in perspective, what is your annual salary in a job with a strong trade union?
From what I know from Italy I would bet much than 50k euros...
And honestly I prefer to have much less job security for much more money in my pocket..
Well that's the point: you are probably young enough, healthy enough and without many obligations, so it's easy for you to accept the lack of job security.
But add a chronic health issue or having to take care of a dependant and you'll quickly find out why that job security + decent instead of maximum wage is not such a bad idea.
Unions and organized labor will always occur. The incentives for it are inevitable under capitalism. I accept this and would like to see a working economy that is more nuanced than the one implied by "opposing unions".
I think it was a literal translation of "caja de resistencia". From what I can gather it's a fund, usually managed by the union, to help alleviate financial hardship as a result of workers striking.
The fact that they can't represents a major political failure. Good policies can make a huge difference.
Here in the UK, the HMRC (our tax authority) is responsible for enforcing the National Minimum Wage. This makes a great deal of sense. Employers are legally required to report wage payments to HMRC for payroll tax purposes and the HMRC have tremendous institutional capacity for conducting financial investigations. For HMRC, a minimum wage complaint is a twofer - underpaid wages mean less revenue from payroll taxes and is usually a sign of tax evasion. HMRC operate a confidential hotline for reporting violations of the minimum wage law.
Where workers need to resolve a complaint, they can access mediation or binding arbitration completely free of charge. There is inevitably the risk of retaliatory action by an employer, but at least employees have the ability to enforce their rights without having to pay for legal representation.
Not knowing the UK very well, but you have had and still have strong unions with political representation through the Labour party. If labour isn't organised you will not get good (for the working class) policy. Politics is the formal battle of interests and if labour doesn't show up to the fight, the capital owners wins on walkover.
Our trade unions were kneecapped by Thatcher back in the 80s. A Labour government introduced the minimum wage, but the current Conservative government is progressively increasing it from £6.50 in 2015 to £9 by 2020. Employment tribunals were introduced in 1996 by a Conservative government; a Conservative government introduced relatively high fees in 2013, but this was overturned by the Supreme Court last year.
Unions are part of the picture, but they're a reflection of a broader political culture. Trade unions can't turn the electorate socialist, but a socialist electorate can build strong trade unions.
The UK also has an explicit party for labor. The US has nothing of the sort. The Democratic party used to be the labor party but as since joined the Republicans as a corporate funded organization. Hard to pass labor laws when your big donors are employers.
How about we treat so-called white collar crimes the same as regular crimes? In this case, theft is theft. If you can't pay a fine as pinishment for robbing a bank, why can you do it for something like wage theft?
Fines are a slap on the wrist. But take away freedom from the guilty and things will change. Quickly.
If you can't pay a fine as pinishment for robbing a bank, why can you do it for something like wage theft?
Robbery is a violent crime (robbery, by definition, consists of using force or threat of force/intimidation) that places members of the public in danger. For example, last month there was a Nigerian bank robbery last month where bank robbers armed with assault rifles and got into a gun battle with police officers that left 16 people dead. [1]
Now, you could make the argument that running around with an assault rifle and firing at people is its own crime, but when you walk into a bank and hand the teller a note that says "Give me all the money in the vault," you are stating by implication that you intend to do [very very bad thing] to them if they don't -- you are using the implied threat of violence. (By the same token, if you confront people in an alleyway and say "Hey buddy, give me your wallet," you can't defend yourself in court saying, "But I never threatened people with violence!" The threat of violence is implied by your demand.)
So, in your question, you ask why bank robbery (a violent crime) is a jailable offense, while wage theft (a white collar crime) isn't. I think there's a lot of support for the idea that "non-violent offenders don't belong in prison (but violent offenders do)."
It's the same reason that burglarizing your neighbor's house while they're on vacation is considered by most jurisdictions to be a less serious crime than mugging someone: robbers don't just victimize people by taking their money; they also threaten the victim's physical safety. I personally would feel much more rattled if I had $200 in cash taken from me at gunpoint than if I had a client stiff me for $500.
It's the same reason that burglarizing your neighbor's house while they're on vacation is considered by most jurisdictions to be a less serious crime
And yet you'd still go to jail for doing that. Potentially for several years depending on the value of what you stole.
Wage theft orders of magnitude larger than that burglary would still typically only get a slap-on-the-wrist (relative to the ill-gotten gains) fine.
To turn your attempt on its head: why is robbing one person an offense that gets incarceration, but robbing a hundred people may not even get you prosecuted?
why is robbing one person an offense that gets incarceration, but robbing a hundred people may not even get you prosecuted?
In the latter case (where you describe "robbing a hundred people"), are you referring to wage theft? Because if the employer is not using violence or threat of violence, then by definition they are not "robbing" people.
That was the entire point of my post: theft and robbery are not the same; robbery is theft + use/threat of violence.
That was the entire point of my post: theft and robbery are not the same; robbery is theft + use/threat of violence.
And then you used the analogy of breaking into a house when nobody's home. And I pointed out that carries stiffer penalties than wage theft, despite not involving the use or threat of violence against a person.
Your attempt to split hairs to justify the near complete lack of punishment for wage theft is not succeeding.
Fraud. You forgot fraud. We're not simply talking theft. It's fraud as well. Fraud - like the implied violence in robbery - is a violation of the social fabric. To think that it (i.e., fraud) is less damaging naive.
As I said earlier, put people in jail for theft and fraud and you'll see those things decrease. As it is now, too often (white collar) crime __does__ pay.
Generally speaking, most instances of wage theft rely on an implicit threat that if workers complain about it, they will be fired, frequently from a job that may be the only thing keeping them fed or in housing. How is that not a threat of violence, especially since you're arguing that handing over a note without a weapon is just as violent as pointing a gun at someone?
> "Robbery is a violent crime (robbery, by definition, consists of using force or threat of force/intimidation) that places members of the public in danger."
If you purposely under pay someone, you are:
1) devaluing them as a human being and a citizen
2) you likely could be putting them under excessive stress due to lack of income.
3) if they are (mostly) minorites it could be argued that your decision is racism.
Etc.
Given what we know about the mind and the body, the gap between physical violence and emotional violence is becoming less and less disticnt. (Note: Studies have found the memory and effect of emotional abuse last longer).
It is at this illogocial to priortize one over the other. Theft is theft. In both case there are "side effects." In fact, I'd argue your better off witnessing a bank robbery then being subjected to wage theft.
None the less, fines are a slap on the wrist. Look at Wells Fargo. Disgusting. They say crime doesn't pay; unless of course your collar is white.
Game-theoretic concerns. You don't want to collapse the hierarchy of deterrance, otherwise you'll have "might as well murder them to hide the evidence of my previous crimes" situation. Additionally the difference in visibility and number of people who are in a theoretical position to commit theft vs. those who are in a position to withhold wages might have an impact since it's probably easier to go after the latter after the fact while you have to rely more on deterrence for the former.
Agreed... but with the Supreme Court overturning Workers rights to file class action claims to recover lost wages, the ability to organize is under attack.
They didn’t overturn that right. They affirmed that when an employee signs something, they are bound by the agreement they signed. Potential employees are free to not sign those agreements. Employees who have signed agreements can’t change their mind and suddenly complain about an agreement they willingly signed.
If we eliminated those agreements and exposed companies to increased litigation risk, what would you expect to happen to wages? They’d go down naturally.
Let’s pretend companies were bound by French style agreements — wages would quickly drop to French-style wages. American workers have more disposable income that almost every other country. If you want to reduce that disposable income, start allowing class actions.
Mind you, employees DO have protection against wage “theft” — that’s already a crime. A simple google search will return dozens of law firms ready to represent a worker who thinks they’ve been wronged. Even arbitration agreements can’t protect against illegal activity.
The only people getting paid for class actions are attorneys. The worker doesn’t win anything but maybe a $25 check. Meanwhile their employer has to incur extraordinary expenses. Who pays for that? The workers through lower salaries and customers through higher prices.
Minimum wage Workers do not have the time or resources to hire a Lawyer to chase down $100 in withheld overtime.
When theft has occurred at a mass scale, such as Amazon Warehouse Workers or UPS Employees... it is far less expensive for the Employer to settle the matter with one collective unit, rather than thousands of individuals.
Yes, the Lawyers reap the majority of the benefits, but the judgement takes that penalty into account.
Arbitration clauses which the Supremes upheld favor those who cannot afford a lawyer because it guarantees their grievance must be acknowledged and addressed. Now while an outcome favorable to the employee is not always guaranteed nor is one for the employer.
Class Action with regards to wage suits is very rare and this was mainly a push by plaintiff attorneys who stood to rake in millions while offering no guarantee of providing a substantive reward for the plaintive.
In the end as stated by some the reasoning, the two laws are written as such that binding agreements are truly that, binding. If that needs to change then Congress needs to act.
"Arbitration clauses which the Supremes upheld favor those who cannot afford a lawyer because it guarantees their grievance must be acknowledged and addressed. Now while an outcome favorable to the employee is not always guaranteed nor is one for the employer."
In reality, it's almost guaranteed to be favorable to the employer, because they're the ones paying for the arbiter.
"Class Action with regards to wage suits is very rare and this was mainly a push by plaintiff attorneys who stood to rake in millions while offering no guarantee of providing a substantive reward for the plaintive."
Other than a change of behavior of the company, which would stop this from happening. Although you've not mentioned what you base your position on.
"In the end as stated by some the reasoning, the two laws are written as such that binding agreements are truly that, binding. If that needs to change then Congress needs to act."
That's already law. But what's happening is that employers are abusing their power over the employees, and basically saying, "I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further." And most employees do not have the resources or knowledge to be able to enforce the original agreement.
Labor organizations survive on the employees that pay them, they are the formality of wage theft.
Unions suck, they really do. These things happen and people have to leave and find a new place, staying and litigating is not going to make any difference, and a union cannot spring money out of nowhere, they ould have the exact same issues.
"Labor organizations survive on the employees that pay them, they are the formality of wage theft."
No, absolutely not. There is nothing in that statement that is true.
"These things happen and people have to leave and find a new place, staying and litigating is not going to make any difference"
That is the most wishy washy way to wave away theft that I've ever heard. It basically sounds like you're saying, "It's going to happen, so just accept it, and don't try to change it."
"and a union cannot spring money out of nowhere, they ould have the exact same issues."
Except the companies doing this are benefitting from it, at the expense of their employees.
> No, absolutely not. There is nothing in that statement that is true.
A union where joining is a costly-optionality will have no members. Thus any union that has any strength whatsoever will be able to restrict work one way or another.
> That is the most wishy washy way to wave away theft that I've ever heard. It basically sounds like you're saying, "It's going to happen, so just accept it, and don't try to change it."
More like suing the cow for spilt milk. If a company is going brankrupt in a disorderly manner (fast and in a short period of time) there is no justice.
> Except the companies doing this are benefitting from it, at the expense of their employees.
Yes but now the unions will join in on the pillage!
One thing that was common when i worked in retail was if you worked overtime without pre-approval from your manager, you won't get paid for those hours. The one guy that complained was fired publicly for being lazy. No one else took the risk.
It's easy for any employer to steal several thousand dollars from an employee they are letting go. It will cost several thousand dollars to sue the employer, and no lawyer wants to work hard for so little to gain. So employers cheat employees of their last paycheck all the time, and almost never get sued for it.
As a small business owner I was expecting to read about employees padding hours, like clocking in during breaks or having a friend clock them in early. It's shocking that people would abuse their employees and that people put up with it.
In my experience small business owners commit wage theft the most. I've worked +80hrs/week for some small companies while only billing 40hrs because I was unskilled in an area with high unemployment. When your back is against the wall you compromise.
Shocking that they would abuse their employees? Most employees who work paycheck to paycheck are happy to just have a job most of the time and really can't afford to lose one. The most vulnerable people are always the easiest to abuse.
There are various considerations here beyond actual pay. What happens when a person making low wages finds a steady job with regular hours? It means they probably don't have to figure out how to shuttle their kids between multiple daycares / babysitters. These go on and on.
I know a person who made 9 an hour at a convenience store. Bad hours. Variable shifts. She got an offer to work for a non-profit hospital. Makes 13 an hour now with a set schedule (sorta), but lost her $500 a month SNAP benefits AND about $300 a month in daycare costs. If she gets a raise, she'll lose healthcare benefits for her kids, so her healthcare will essentially double (before any rate increases). She's proud to be making more money even though it's a net negative for her, and her employer has asked her regularly to cover other positions that get out later without getting extra pay. She would rather pick up the free hour here and there than have to deal with the hassle of going back to shift work.
It's not like you can walk into the police office and tell the officer that your boss isn't paying you to work extra hours, and even if you did, other businesses would quickly decide that it wasn't worth hiring an employee who wanted to make what they agreed to work for.
The combined effect of benefits cutoff is a huge problem. Think of the nationwide productivity loss due to people avoiding employment that would cause loss of benefits.
It's called the "welfare cliff". Check out the shocking graph in this article and/or testimony. (same graph)
Assuming a 40-hour week (which could be 2 jobs) the worker will want to get $12 per hour. That is the local maxima. To get a better final result, after all the welfare and tax considerations, they'd have to earn $38 per hour.
So if you have a job paying $12 per hour, and are offered one paying $37 per hour, you'll lose money if you take it. Basically, welfare keeps people down. It keeps them in low-paying jobs because people get punished when they aspire for better.
Sorry, but that argument is without merit. In order to make $37 an hour, you're going to have to be a skilled employee with years of experience in most places or live in an area where $37 an hour is chump change. It's impossible to acquire those skills AND raise a family at the same time without either having money or having some other form of financial support.
The vast majority of people on welfare aren't actively avoiding employment. That's a white myth people tell each other to comfort themselves regarding their own mediocrity.
This implies everyone has a choice, no? When employees changing jobs or getting legal assistance isn't easy is exactly when owners do these sorts of things -- it is understood and incentivized
"Choice" implies that they are just fine with doing it. More often than not, the victims think that they don't have any recourse, that they can't afford a lawyer or the time away from the new job to take care of it.
One can not credibly equate income taxes to theft. We live in a society and it costs money for the society to function. Police, courts, roads, sewers, military, etc. require funds and everyone with the means to do so ought to contribute. I doubt anything I say can possibly change your mind but if you really think paying taxes is a form of theft then leave the country. You are not forced to stay (unless you are in a place like North Korea). You lose any credibility you have when you equate taxation to theft.
I agree that we need police, courts, roads and sewers. But those are very tiny percentage of your taxes. The vast (over 70%) majority of taxes goes towards: Defense, social security, medicare and medicaid. And although those categories contain some worthwhile things, there's also a lot of waste in there. You really should look into where all this money goes before you assume that we need it.
And there is a point at which it becomes theft, it's just a question of where: 60% of income, 85% of income, 95% of income? As it is right now, in the US we currently pay 38% of our incomes to the govt: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spendi...
And if you live in New York or CA, you can bet, it's much much higher than that, both because the state taxes are higher and because of the higher COT which results in being at a higher federal income tax bracket.
Now, you may not see those income taxes all in your pay check because some of it gets paid by your company: those are lost wages that could've gone to workers. For consumer products, People think that they don't pay taxes that corporations pay. But, in a competitive economy, it's you, the customer that ends up paying for it. There's many many more.
Let's say 50% of your income goes to taxes. It's actually worse than you think. Because with the 50% that's left over, your buying power has been further reduced because any labor you purchase is taxed, which raises the cost of that labor by that amount. That's how you end up in a situation where you can't even afford to work because Day care costs nearly as much as your net salary.
My claim is that taxation is not theft. I’ve not stated any position on whether or not taxation is too high or whether or not our spending proroties are good.
I’ve merely stated that government is necessary, requires money, and that taxation is not theft. Is there any part of this that you find objectionable? If so what part?
EDIT: According to this website in the U.S. we clearly haven’t reached the taxation is theft level so your point doesn’t seem to be apt.
The argument and points still stand. It’s hard to imagine that one can reasonably describe income taxes as theft but not other forms of taxation. I suppose one can call other sorts of taxes as pernicious or akin to theft but in the United States, at the federal level, I don’t think any of those sorts of taxes exist.
I think it’s clear that parent was equating income taxes to theft. The article we are all nominally commenting on is about theft. Parent says he/she can get behind the movement against said theft and that there is a reason that income taxes were unconstitutional. I think I have enough evidence to base my conclusion on. If you really think that I’m wrong in thinking that parent believes that income taxes are theft then why wasn’t this your objection to begin with?
That doesn't provide evidence for it being unconstitutional, especially considering the right of Congress to tax was in the Constitution, and the Sixteenth Amendment explicitly gives them the right to lay income taxes.
I don't want to get into a long debate on this subject but the fallacy you base your argument on is that there is no other way to pay for "society" other than taxation.
Food and housing are essential things "for the society to function" yet are not supplied by the government through taxation, food for thought...
There is no fallacy in my argument because my statmemt is that that taxation is not theft. I’ve not argued that the only possible way for government to get the money necessary to run is via taxation. Though it is true that I think taxation is best way for government to get enough money to run.
Also food and housing are provided by government to some members of society and this requires money. Throughout history in times of great distress government has provided food and housing to the masses. The story of Joseph in the Bible is a great example of this. Of course when government failed to do this sufficiently well revolutions occurred.
A lot of those "right to receive" exist because of government regulations and not because it is something employees or employers negotiated. What matters is whether someone out there is willing to replace you for lower price or not. Everything else is mostly virtue signalling.
More regulation around wage theft & mandatory overtime or limits on hours worked could really benefit tech workers as well. I for one would really like overtime over 50 hours to be mandatory, at the very least. It's just not sustainable or healthy to be working 60+ hour weeks and not taking any vacation because that would result in critical work not being done quickly enough for management to be satisfied. Clearly, what I'm describing is a pretty shitty job as far as tech goes, but I have a feeling I am far from alone in being in this situation.
Honestly over 40 hours should be OT. I feel like a lot of tech workers feel like they have cush jobs which will become less liberal if they start drawing lines in the sand.
Our labor is early in its commodification though. As we become less unique we will be easier to exploit. Organizing now isn't a bad idea.
In Germany, there is criminal liability if your subordinates (if you are making their schedules, or would be the one to tell them to go home) work over an average of 8h/workday (only those in the contract count, if none specified, courts said to assume 5 work days), or a top of 10h/shift. Except for a very few select industries, you also need at least iirc 11h off between two shifts, but there are some ways/loopholes around this one.
Any overage over the 8h average has to be evened out within usually 3 months, unless something else is in the contract (and as with German law, if the contract is evil, i.e. "sittenwiedrig", it, or at least the relevant portions, is/are void).
This does mean that you might not get another job if you speak up, as always, but it does mean that if you are willing to change industries, your superior faces criminal charges.
Combined with the neglegible risk of not being able to feed your family, due to the vast social support net, you are actually able to stand by your principles, if you do care.
An EU directive states that no worker can be compelled to work more than 48 hours per week. Workers are allowed to opt out of this limit, but that opt out must be truly voluntary.
It is possible that German law may be stricter than EU law.
The UK implementation exempts roles where you actually control your own working hours, e.g. a parish priest is an employee (of the church) but there is nobody setting their working hours, likewise an MP works for their constituents, and is paid by Parliament itself, but neither gets to choose what hours the MP works so they're exempt.
Another clever trick is that 48 hours is averaged. Where the nature of the work makes daily leisure time pointless the 48 hours are averaged over an entire year, so maybe an oil worker puts in 10 hours per day for 2 weeks out on the ocean... and then they go home for two entire weeks before their next session. On average that's still under 48 hours per week
The boss can pay them, but he better trusts his subordinate doesn't get pissed off, or else he still lands in front of court.
It's a health policy, similar to how public buildings, even those that only invite the public, have to meet certain fire resistance norms. I don't know why those also apply to private shacks in the middle of nowhere, but I assume they do....
Overtime would be coming in Saturday.
Well, in the UK there's a waiver you can sign that lets you work more than 48 hours a week. It's more beneficial to the employer imo, but people who want a lot of overtime can actually get it. I just wonder if it's stricter in Germany - i.e. you can work 40hrs/week and that's absolutely it.
According to the law the week is Monday through Saturday, 6*8=48...
We often tend to forget that we fought hard for the five day week.
So while it's common for qualified jobs to have a 40h/WK contract, high workload opens the door to extend the week to 6 days, "Saturday work".
Again for qualified jobs you better compensate your people well for that...
For the floating average of 8h per day the rules then reference your usual regular work week. So if you are on a 5 day contract (like most people these days), that's where the 40h week comes from. For those amongst us who regularly do 6 days, 48h is perfectly legal in Germany. And temporarily those numbers go up to 50/60h weeks. The floating mean has to go down to 40/48 though. Iirc within a 6 month period, which is not law but usual (court) reading of the law.
It'r rather strict. The 10h/day limit can only really be breached if there is something on fire (well, a network counts too), which has a great immediate risk to the company, or if human life is acutely at risk.
> April 2000, overtime pay was enacted for all who work in California. A new law (AB60, Assembly Bill 60) established the 40-hour week and mandated overtime pay for work over 40 hours. In reaction, the NACCB (the recruiter association) made a number of legislative manuvers to eliminate overtime pay ... the original law gave everyone overtime pay. The recruiters wanted a new law to exempt Silicon Valley so that computer workers got no overtime pay. We tech writers wanted overtime, so the recruiter’s law couldn’t affect the tech writers. So we added our clause to their law: our exemption from recruiter’s exemption ... Engineers have always refused to organize or even to be aware of their interests: they think recruiters are their friends. One engineer said to me: “Engineers think they’re so smart that no one could do such a thing to them. Wow. They got really screwed.” The law is an annual loss of as much as $50-75,000 dollars per each engineer. Yep, it’s legal. The recuiters wrote a law to take away their money. ... If you’re an engineer, or you make over $41/hr, and you’re not covered by the NWU clause, the recruiters are stripping away your overtime pay.
> a group identifying themselves as The Developers Union wrote that "it's been difficult for developers to earn a living by writing software" built on Apple's existing values. The group then asked Apple to allow free trials for apps, which would give customers "the chance to experience our work for themselves, before they have to commit to making a purchase." The grassroots effort is being lead by Jake Schumacher, the director of App: The Human Story; software developer Roger Ogden and product designer Loren Morris, who both worked for a timesheet app that was acquired last year; and Brent Simmons...
There are ways to strengthen labor outside of running of office. If you work in a corporation you can begin to organize your co workers.
If you can't do that, you can get involved with local organizations and help others organize their workplaces. It takes a lot of effort to organize and there's a lot of room for volunteers.
> It's just not sustainable or healthy to be working 60+ hour weeks and not taking any vacation
This seems to be a huge problem in many fields. I know it's a problem in medicine, and regulation of work hours doesn't appear to be particularly effective. This 2006 article compares the workload of medical students (who are paying to work in order to learn and gain experience) before and one year after work hours regulation:
> Working shifts greater than 30 consecutive hours was reported by 67.4% (95% CI, 64.8%-70.0%)
> Averaged over 4 weeks, 43.0% (95% CI, 40.3%-45.7%) reported working more than 80 hours weekly
> 43.7% (95% CI, 41.0%-46.5%) reported not having 1 day in 7 off work duties
> 29.0% (95% CI, 28.7%-29.7%) of reported work weeks were more than 80 hours per week
> 12.1% (95% CI, 11.8%-12.6%) were 90 or more hours per week
> 3.9% (95% CI, 3.7%-4.2%) were 100 or more hours per week
> reported mean work duration decreased 5.8% from 70.7 (95% CI, 70.5-70.9) hours to 66.6 (95% CI, 66.3-66.9) hours per week (P<.001)
> reported mean sleep duration increased 6.1% (22 minutes) from 5.91 (95% CI, 5.88-5.94) hours to 6.27 (95% CI, 6.23-6.31) hours per night (P<.001)
> reported mean sleep during extended shifts decreased 4.5%, from 2.69 (95% CI, 2.66-2.73) hours to 2.57 (95% CI, 2.52-2.62) hours (P<.001)
This directly contradicts official data published by the accreditation council, which claimed compliance rates were much higher. Apparently, people lie about the hours they worked because they don't want their programs to be shut down:
> residency programs and residents themselves face a direct conflict of interest in acknowledging violations to the ACGME
> because the identities of those reporting violations have not been adequately protected in the past
> Because disclosure of violations to the ACGME could lead to loss of program accreditation, disclosure could threaten residents' own careers
Similar conflicts of interest seem to arise in pretty much every field. Speaking up about violations or taking companies to court appears to harm employees in the long term. The problem is probably much larger than what we're seeing.
Repeating a point that keeps getting downvoted for unclear reasons: "Wage theft" is an effective euphemism that misses the nuance of what's happening here. Not paying wages according to the letter of the law is not the same as stealing money from people, and employers, like most people who cheat on regulations, often can't or won't shoulder the extra cost if those regulations are suddenly enforced, and will cut hours or people instead. Workers are certainly being shafted but probably not anywhere near to the extent in reality as is being presented here in theory.
In any event, it's very different problem than property theft and shouldn't be compared as such.
Just because the act of theft happens under the veneer of corporate bureaucracy doesn't mean it isn't theft. The money goes somewhere, and if it isn't to the workers then it is to the employer.
You're right that corporations won't follow regulations that aren't enforced, which is why workers need to be informed of their rights, given legal counsel, educated and enabled to organize.
So a bank robber should not be compared with other property theft if he declares that he would have burned down the entire bank if he hadn’t been able to steel the money?
Theft is theft, even if you have other relationships with the thief that might be endangered by enforcing the letter of the law.
>Not paying wages according to the letter of the law is not the same as stealing money from people
I'll confess I don't understand this distinction.
>and employers, like most people who cheat on regulations, often can't or won't shoulder the extra cost if those regulations are suddenly enforced
I'm also confused by this transition from wage theft to the subject of sudden enforcement of regulation. Are you suggesting that the latter is the explanation for the former, and that this diminishes the ethical import of wage theft?
Lastly I'm also not sure why you're claiming it's theoretical. They put forward a specific number: $933 million derived from federal and state data on wage-and-hour violation settlements.
"Not paying wages according to the letter of the law is not the same as stealing money from people"
It absolutely, positively, is.
"and employers, like most people who cheat on regulations, often can't or won't shoulder the extra cost if those regulations are suddenly enforced, and will cut hours or people instead."
Why on earth does anyone think this is a valid argument? "If we don't let them cheat their employees and fuck them over, they won't offer a job so they can fuck employees over"?
"Workers are certainly being shafted but probably not anywhere near to the extent in reality as is being presented here in theory."
You're going to have to provide your own evidence for this statement.
"In any event, it's very different problem than property theft and shouldn't be compared as such."
Wrong. If anything, it's worse, because an employer committing wage theft is abusing a position of power over their employee.
Wage theft is technically fraud. A company agreed to some exchange (work <-> money) and is not delivering. Unless there are real reasons, and not just general mismanagement that was know/expected prior to hiring someone, it's just fraud.
I think efforts to distinguish between theft and "wage theft" are an unhelpful distraction.
Theft and "wage theft" are both violations of law. The article shows that economic harm due to the latter far exceeds the former, yet penalties are light, spottily enforced, and usually involve no jail time for perpetrators.
I don't see any nuance in "wage theft" that should shield those employers who do it from criminal prosecution and jail if found guilty. If they can't obey the law, take them off the board and leave it open for those who can.
Finally, there's plenty of precedent for jail as a penalty in other economic crimes lacking any aspect of violence. Insider trading. Stock fraud. etc.
You're talking about violation of contract. A potential employee often can't, or won't take a job if the compensation suddenly wasn't that which was agreed to when accepting the job. If you have figures that contradict those presented in the linked page, please present them.
This is the exact same fallacious "threat" used against minimum wage hikes.
I'm reality the employees don't get fired or have their hours cut (c.f. dube, Lester, Reich). Profit margins take the vast majority of the hit instead (c.f. draca, Machin, reenen).
We'd rather that companies were honest, and yes the law should be enforced fairly and as on the books to keep the playing field for corporations level. But no, wage theft isn't a bigger problem than other theft.
Yes, wage theft is bigger numerically. But a reduction in wage theft is going to be mirrored by a drop in the amount of wealth available. By definition, the same or less work is being done for a higher cost; so by examining the net situation, someone is going to have less actual stuff (and I can say with confidence, it is not going to be the rich who do without). Increasing the cost of labour will put people out of work.
Wage theft is one of those victimless crimes where both parties have agreed that a situation is the best alternative and the government is declaring that they are wrong. It is a lot more delicate than, say, gay marriage, because all workers would prefer to have more money, and by far most workers would be happier if they didn't have to work. But, end of the day, just because the government says a worker is entitled doesn't mean the worker is truly unhappy with what they get. In an extreme case, I've worked in situations where I have been subject to wage theft (~10% lower compensation than I should have legally been getting), and I tried to keep that off anyone's radar because I wouldn't have had a job otherwise and I was being paid plenty.
Workers take the best option they have; possibly making that option uneconomic is not a good idea. This is not how, eg, China, is lifting people out of poverty.
> reduction in wage theft is going to be mirrored by a drop in the amount of wealth available.
In a situation where wage theft is happening and then it stops happening, the money doesn't get thrown in a garbage bin. The stolen money goes to the worker rather than the employer.
If I got paid my average hourly rate for 10 unpaid hours per week, I'd make roughly $12,000 more per year than I do now. $12,000 which would go towards my student loans, or a down payment for a house, or just buying random shit. Instead that $12,000 goes to the corporation I work for.
You might argue that they can do that to 10 people and afford to hire another engineer, which is great, except now we have a corporation who is subsidized by unpaid labor, not by being an effective corporation.
So your employer pays 48k for 50 hours a week of labor. Yes, if they suddenly paid you 60k instead you'd be doing better. But that doesn't mean they benefit from unpaid labor, just that the current rate is less than you think it is.
Somewhere there is a contract specifying the amount the corporation will pay and the worker will receive for an hour of work. It is the violation of this contract which makes it theft. This is also what makes driving someone else's car away, taking their wallet, or moving into their house theft. If someone walks off with your wallet, it isn't that you've misunderstood the legal conditions of your ownership of that wallet. The problem, in other words, is not in your understanding.
The money is only useful for the goods and services it can purchase. Labour conditions is a classic case of the government is mandating allocations of resources that a free market would not make; it isn't going to result in more goods and services being produced. The same workers are not going to produce more because of labour law enforcement.
The three outcomes are:
1) Workers get a bigger proportion of a smaller total
2) Workers get the same proportion of a smaller total
3) Workers get a smaller proportion of a smaller total
The pro-labour-laws types have to be very certain that they can force outcome 1, but there are 2 ways in 3 that the outcome is bad, on net, for workers. Especially if the job they were working in was the best option they had. Workers might even be getting less overall (through reduced job availability) when individual workers get more due to reductions in the number of jobs created.
It's always possible that a policy will have a bad outcome. In this case, I'd like to run the experiment. My guess is that the dynamics will be good for the economy: more cash in the pockets of workers means more cash flow through the economy, more activity, more growth, everyone wins.
Your victims will have very clear memories of their wages and conditions from what happened to them last month when they went to work. They are making a proactive choice to get out of bed, go to work, and do it again. They aren't being forced to work for their employer.
> That's not true in the least.
It is perfectly true, just not a very normal case. I'd put it to you that I was a bit more involved in the negotiating than you were.
> No. Just no. Why do you feel that employers are entitled to cheap labor?
I don't think that. The argument is that employers and employees are entitled to sort out wages between each other and are entitled on whatever they agree to. I don't think the government has a role tilting the power balance in favour of employees.
I'm in favour of things work hours being explicit in any contract and being enforced. Being expected to work unpaid overtime is obscene; the contract hours should be longer an the wages lower so people know what is expected of them.
> They aren't being forced to work for their employer.
So true... Every weekend I go for interviews and get job offers, and I have 6 months of rent and bill money saved up in case of an act of God. The last time I lost my employment I just called up one of the employers and accepted the job. It's very weird that people act like they don't do this as well.
Because not everyone is able to do this. I'm glad that you are able to, but it's extremely weird that you're acting like everyone is able to do this, when reality very clearly disproves that idea.
I suppose we need to relive the days of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle before labor rights isn’t viewed as a negative. We really are regressing in this area. If you haven’t already done so please read the book.
wage theft is a victimless crime? Do you not understand what coercion is? Just because somebody "agreed" by not immediately quitting does not mean its not horrible and abusive.
