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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
To combat pervasive wage theft in New York, three new bills were introduced in the legislature that would punish violators.
To combat pervasive wage theft in New York, three new bills were introduced in the legislature that would punish violators.
Every time I look at wage theft stories and comments, I see people who don’t understand their rights under current law. Y’all aren’t helpless and getting robbed, you just don’t know your rights.
Maybe a government funded ad blast would work better? Kinda like the “crying Indian” ad back in the day?
The rules are intentionally vague and information is intentionally not easily available. Additionally, many workers are not in a position to claim their rights because they are living paycheck to paycheck and legal processes are expensive and last very long.
Most people don’t know that literally all you have to do is tell the government about the issue and they will spend the money to look into it themselves, as well as dealing with the court cases. It’s why the department of labor exists
In my state you can file a claim with the state labor commission. But they don’t have the resources to investigate “small” reports and their website encourages you to just hire your own lawyer.
It’s fascinating the imbalance, if you take $20 from your employer’s till that’s a crime, they can call 911 and within minutes police can respond and take the money back and possibly arrest you. You could have a criminal record that negatively effects your life for many years.
Your employer shorts your paycheck $2000 and it’s a ‘civil matter’, the police won’t even take your report. Instead you must file a claim with an understaffed beaucratic office that may not even open your email much less recover your money. If any recovery happens it will certainly take many, many months so hopefully you don’t have bills due this month! The employer is free to continue stealing from your paycheck and anyone else’s paychecks and is unlikely to face any meaningful consequences.
Unless your local government is the one commiting wage theft.
God bless America…
The employee does not pay a dime to fight labor issues. State have their own Department of Labor for that.
I hope you never have to experience how hard it can be to actually get your money. And as I said, even if there is a case it can take a very long time before you see any money. For someone living paycheck to paycheck this can mean losing their house. Put the risk of losing your job for making a case on top of that (employment at will). I understand completely why many workers don’t do it. The system is made to work against them.
So what you just told me is that in 25 states businesses can do whatever they want to their workers. This needs to be national, like the NLRB, and it needs teeth.
Fun fact, the “Crying Indian” ad and that entire campaign was created by Pepsi, Coke, and other companies to shift blame for plastic waste from producers (corporations) to customers.
Once single use plastics became common, littering exploded in America. Many cities and states started enacting laws to ban single use plastics because society largely blamed the companies that produced them.
Pepsi, Coke, and other companies preferred the more profitable single use plastics for their packaging, so they funded the Keep America Beautiful campaign to shift public accountability away from corporations and instead to individuals.
A similar thing happened when the first cars started killing pedestrians in cities, automakers successfully popularized the term “jaywalker” shifting blame for the murders from motorists to pedestrians.
But don’t take my word for it, go look it up!
My point is that the ad had reach. People paid attention, casual littering dropped through the floor. I was there, I watched it happen.
We should find a clever way to get this issue of wage theft in front of people.
My point is that ad had reach because our corporate overlords wanted it to. It wasn’t some organic grassroots movement, it was part of a billionaire agenda. Wage theft is something they don’t want to have reach and behold, it doesn’t.
Where should a person go to learn their rights?
Department of labor has a lot of good resources.
Part of the problem is that even if there can’t be any legal repercussions, it’s easy enough for an employer to manufacture a reason to fire someone if they fight back against this sort of thing. So people fear being fired even if they have a right to file a complaint about it.