this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 244 points 4 months ago (17 children)

That's literally not the definition.

https://wagetheftisacrime.com/

Don't dilute the definition of the crime with nonsense.

Boss asks everyone to come in unpaid for a mandatory meeting? That's wage theft.

They lock you in the store when you're off the clock to "clean up the store"? That's wage theft.

Stolen tips, no overtime pay for overtime work, altering timecard punches? All wage theft.

Making too much profit and not passing it to employees may be highly unethical, but it's not legally wage theft.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Making too much profit and not passing it to employees may be highly unethical, but it's not legally wage theft.

That's capitalism.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm not religious but.... preach.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I'm a hard-core athiest, too, bro. People can preach things other than religion. This person is simply preaching truth.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Thank you. I came to say something similar. Wage theft is already a big legal problem that doesn't get enough attention or action to fix it. Don't intentionally mix it with a separate ethical issue making the legal issue even less likely to be addressed. They are similar, even related, issues. But they are not the same, nor will they be addressed the same. Don't conflate them.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

Thank you for this. I used to hear the term "wage theft" and associate it with underpaying workers relative to the value they produce, until I learned that wage theft refers to underpaying workers relative to what they're contractually entitled to.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that it's a problem to pay workers far less than the value they give, but "you're not paying me what I'm worth" is not as egregious a problem as "you're not paying me what you agreed to pay me."

In most cases, underpayment can't be fixed by an individual for themselves without a wide scale strike (which many workers aren't in a good position to risk,) but wage theft is currently illegal and can be addressed by filing a complaint. So it's better to keep it clear what wage theft is so that the average worker doesn't dismiss it as some communist idea, at least until wage theft is no longer the greatest form of theft in the US.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yep. Big bird's description is the increase of exploitation on the workers. Wage theft is denying wages you are due. Very similar in how they effect you and how they feel, definitionally different.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

And legally different. As long as the employer is paying a legal wage and abiding by all the overtime, meal, and tip laws, it's not illegal to pay someone less than they're worth.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

And "lemon" has a very specific definition when applied to used cars so that dealerships can sell junkers with engines that blow up after 6 months and get away with it. Doesn't make it right, and doesn't make the car any less of a lemon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agree that it is wrong. However, in your example you were sold a bad car either way. Wage theft is stealing/keeping wages you are legally owed, while not sharing the profits, while again still wrong, nothing was stolen from you. You just weren't given more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

"you weren't given more" is too weak. What happens is you are not given a fair share of the value of your work

[–] skulblaka 4 points 4 months ago

Correct, but, a contract was made. You agreed to work a certain amount of time doing a certain job for a certain pay. Upon completion of that work you're paid what was agreed to in the contract.

I don't like it either but there's a reason it's not illegal. Immoral, maybe, but not illegal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

You and your employer agreed on what that value of your work is prior to you completing it. So long as they do their part, it's not wage theft any more than making a low-ball offer on something you see on Craigslist is theft of product. In either case, one party is free to refuse. Both can renegotiate from there, or either one can walk away from it all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Well "fair" is subjective, I was just objectively describing what is happening.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I remember my first encounter with wage theft. Fortunately, I was drilled with the whole DONT WORK FOR FREE philosophy.

Boss asked me to go grab some things from the supermarket before my shift. I said am I on the clock? He said, "It's on the way. What's the problem?"

I pretended like I forgot and played stupid. And he sent me back out AFTER I clocked in.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I'd have been like "What's my budget?" and filled out an expense report and billed for my time. LOL.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

That's not wage theft, that's capitalism.

Edit: Now that I'm on break I can give an example that I experienced. My boss was trimming hours off of my checks at my first job. Like I'd work 40, he'd pay me for 35. I'd constantly have to get on his as to get a check for those hours. Eventually the place got shut down for other reasons.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That is not what wage theft is. Wage theft is when you don't get paid what you're legally supposed to receive. Examples would be clocking you out before done working so you get less hours, not tracking overtime properly, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (4 children)

it is not even "no increase". wage increase not proportional to profits is wage theft and wage increase not higher than inflation is horrible management.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Love the message. But I can only think of the unspeakable horrors big bird is about to commit on those children

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (8 children)

I don't love the message, because that's not what wage theft is. Wage theft is literally not paying people their due salary.

This is wage theft

Several of the company’s employees told the Herald-Leader in January that ARC regularly paid workers late. In Perry County, several employees reported going weeks without a paycheck.

If you want a list of examples of wage theft this is it. Not paying Min Wage. Not paying due overtime. Classifying workers incorrectly to evade labor laws. Not paying your interns. Not paying into your staffer's SS/Medicare.

It has nothing to do with increasing wages to match profits. This is when you are defrauding your staff of their contractually due salary.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (10 children)

"Profit is wage theft."

FTFY

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Profit is wage theft? How does that make any sense, or help anyone?

Extortionate profits is exploitation.

But profit per se is a person - or the company owners - receiving back some part of the value they created (helped create), on top of the expense put in.

Employees receive profit for their labour as salary; owners receive profit for their investment as 'company profit'. The problem is exploit their control and position to shift more of the profit to themselves, exploiting the labour of those doing most of the work.

But calling profit wage theft means investors and entrepreneurs should get exactly zero for their investment and work getting things started: and that seems to me a nonsense take that helps nobody - unless you rename profit as ' investor salary'.

Companies making record profits, which don't go proportionally to all the members/labourers therein, is a wrong. And I agree with other commenters that it needs a different name.

Wage theft is a different issue that (as I understand it) is massively under-addressed but legally recognised in America/UK/etc, of robbing employees of their wages as per the agreement/contract. This crime needs attacking, and expanding the name to include things that are not legally criminal, makes it harder to tackle this one - or you need a new name for this specifically.*

To address this other kind of wage theft, where employees are robbed, legally, of their appropriate/fair share of the resulting value**, you need a separate framework of legality of fair profit sharing, and illegality of the converse.***


* Incidentally, this is a concern I have about 'rape' as non-consent. (And maybe sometimes a parallel concern about some uses of 'terrorism'.) Should the couple who go into a room for sexy times, get naked, then one decides maybe not tonight, but the other emotionally presses them into it - should that be treated as severely as the man who accosts a woman in the alley at night and forcefully copulates with her? Perhaps? Should the man who forcefully copulates be treated as lax as the one who didn't take no for an answer after they were both naked in the bedroom? ...No. I hope people who actually deal with these things have ways to handle them properly, but it's seemed to me like the definition gets expanded to make a point, "these things are also bad and you should hate them just as much!" But in the process loses the force of the worse, more specific crime.

(Sorry, long, unrelated tangent.)

** Okay, so I'm calling it 'robbed' now. I guess that means I've kind of cone round to agreeing more than I intended to.

*** And that's your point, isn't it! Well, I thought I disagreed with you, then it seems I've talked myself into something at least similar. I'll let my long and boring comment stand anyway. It's not 100% useless ;-)

[–] jwiggler 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I know you're distinguishing between wage theft vs robbery, but especially since we are in a solarpunk community, and that has some ties to anarchism, is there really much point in distinguishing? Profit is just an owner taking for themselves what is due to the workers who produce the value, essentially stealing it. You could argue that, well the owner created the company with their investment and therefore incurred risk, but at the end of the day the only risk they incurred would result in them having to become a worker, themselves.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That read was an interesting journey indeed. ^^

I kinda agree with your early-on point. Wage theft has a legal definition, and profiteerig doesn't fit that. Sometimes you need to flow with the joke, I guess.

For a real solution, I wouldn't just tell investors or whatever that they can't make a profit and call it a day, but rather change the entire structure of ownership so that there is nobody left who could make a profit. The people filling the (useful) roles that were formerly filled by investors, CEOs, etc. would then get just another wage/salary. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of something like that before. 🤔

[–] jwiggler 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You should check out Ursula K Leguin's sci-fi novel The Dispossessed. It explores a society that has no concept of ownership at all, and the good and bad that comes with that. It's really really good.

But the whole idea that profit/private property is inherently theft is a major tenant of Marxist theory as far as I understand it, so you saying

I wonder if anyone has ever thought of something like that before.

Is funny because people have been trying to think of solutions for the past ~150 years haha

Edit: behold my inability to sense irony lmaoo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm aware of Marxism. Bit of a commie myself. That question was intended to be ironic. xD

[–] jwiggler 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

omg lmaoooo my bad disregard that last part then

But definitely still recommend The Dispossessed if you like sci-fi or anarchist thought experiments -- it's so good

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I'll add it to my ever-expanding TODO list, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Profit is the excess resources generated when combining capital and labor. Capitalism predominately sends the profit to the holders of capital, and socialism sends the profit predominately to labor.

Profit is not wage theft. Sending that profit to investors rather than workers is.

Edit: as a matter of accounting, profit may be calculated after the workers get their checks. That's simply an accounting thing and doesn't really matter to a broader understanding of where the money goes.

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[–] Heliumfart 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So good to see that he didn't die in the Challenger disaster.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It's an old picture.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Because profit shouldn't exist. AAt no point in time does the top of an org get to plunder all the money generated from everyone working inside it. Time and time again we've seen there is no actual risk to buying an already profitable business and stripping it for parts or just gleaming the profit. So why do we have to burden all the costs and risks of embedding ourselves within an organization with no clear gains? Fuck the entire system, and fuck heirarchies.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Record profit numbers because of inflation, inadequate wage increases because of under reported inflation due to consumer price index fuckery. If we could only fix the money.

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