Wage Thieves are the Real Bandits
We’ve seen the locked up merchandise (often personal care items) at our local grocer or drug store. We’ve seen movies and TV shows featuring thieves pulling off the big heist. We’ve bought security systems and cameras for our homes to prevent porch pirates from swiping our parcels and burglars from breaking in. And, if we’re to believe corporate media and corporate politicians, there’s a masked criminal waiting around every street corner waiting to mug us for our lunch money.
The thieves that steal the most are much less interesting. The same stuffed suit greedy assholes who pay us shit wages that don’t keep up with the cost of living also have their grimy hands in our pockets. Wage theft, the practice of employers illegally withholding wages from workers, costs American workers $50 billion annually. That FIFTY FUCKING BILLION DOLLARS is more than three times as much as all other property crimes combined.
How They Pick Our Pockets
The following actions count as wage theft:
Paying less than minimum wageThis includes having people work for the federal tipped wage rate of $2.13/hr but not ensuring they make at least the true minimum wage. It also includes farm workers, and others who have piece-wage rates, whose production goals are unreasonable thus preventing them from making minimum wage.
Not paying overtimeHave you ever had a manager move your hours from one week to another in the pay period to “pay you for the same number of hours” but without the overtime pay you earned? Unsurprisingly, Trump wants to legalize this form of robbery.Some states with more robust labor laws than the federal minimums require employers to pay overtime rates if a worker exceeds a certain number of hours per day, not just the magic 40 per week.
Not allowing breaksWorked through your 10-minute break at the restaurant, retailer, coffee shop, grocery store, or warehouse? That might only be a few cents each time, but think about how often bosses kindly ask their employees to skip breaks for the good of the business. Those dollars add up. Also, you deserve your breaks!
Requiring off-the-clock workThis one comes in many forms. Running an errand for the business before or after your shift (a certain coffee shop I used to work for loved to have us do inventory transfers at one end of our shift but wouldn’t allow us to clock in/out except at our own location’s time clock), staying late or coming in early but clocking in/out at the scheduled time, that dreaded “can you do me a favor real quick?” from your boss during your lunch break, and on and on.And unpaid training—that’s a huge violation space in this category.
Taking workers tipsThis one can be complicated, which makes it all that much easier for a bad boss to gain the upper hand. There are situations/work types that allow some version of pooling tips, but those rules are often broken to allow the wage thieves to take what we’ve earned.
Misclassifying employeesSome people work hourly; some salary. Did you know that some salary positions are still due overtime pay rates for going over on hours? If you feel like your manager just made you a salary worker to exploit not having to pay you overtime for the long hours you put in, you might be right. Work classifications is something else Trump and the GOP want to stack even more in favor of businesses.
Withholding payTime worked means time payed, even if that piece of shit tries to tell you that you “didn’t meet expectations” for the work performed. Businesses love to play the bullshit withholding pay move when they think their workers have a systemic disadvantage (e.g., work authorization status, younger/older workers, women, racial/ethnic minorities) that will prevent them from speaking up for their rights.
Making unauthorized payroll deductionsCheck your paychecks and know which deductions are for taxes and which are for allowable purposes like your portion of your health insurance premium. I once worked somewhere where the manager told employees they were required to donate a portion of their checks to a certain nonprofit in town. I refused, and he backed down. Of course one of his buddies ran said nonprofit.
The Numbers Don't Lie, and Real People Get Hurt
The Economic Policy Institute's research shows this isn't some minor problem – it's a full-blown crisis. When $50 billion gets stolen from workers each year, we're talking about an average of nearly $3,000 per affected worker. For someone making minimum wage, that's about two months' worth of rent and groceries just vanishing into their employer's pocket.
What might seem minuscule can multiply quickly. Taking a few bucks off each worker each day can send millions to companies’ bottom lines and can keep their employees struggling to get by. With our exorbitant—and growing—cost of living, people already have to make impossible choices between food and rent, between a car payment and needed medical care. Employers stealing what we’ve earned is more than just disrespectful; it hurts; it kills.
The System Is Rigged
Why does this keep happening? Because the system is designed to let employers get away with it. When workers try to fight back, they face a maze of bureaucratic bullshit and legal obstacles. Many states have gutted their labor departments, leaving skeleton crews to investigate thousands of complaints. The feds? The Department of Labor has fewer wage-and-hour investigators today than it did in 1948, despite the workforce being several times larger.
With Trump in office, and both houses of Congress having Republican majorities, expect federal workers rights laws to get worse across the board. Some of the forms of theft we’ve discussed are ones they want to straight up legalize.
Fighting Back
Workers aren't taking this lying down. Grassroots organizations like the Workers Defense Project and the Wage Justice Center are helping workers fight back and win. Class action lawsuits have forced some of the biggest wage thieves to pay up. But it's not enough.
We need to continue supporting organizations like these that fight back, standing up for our own rights in our workplaces, and joining other organizations that fight for workers’ rights—it might be high time to unionize your workplace.
Citations
Galvin, Daniel. "Wage Theft in a Recession: Unemployment, Labor Violations, and Enforcement Strategies for Difficult Times" Journal of Public Policy, 2021
Cooper, David and Teresa Kroeger. "Employers steal billions from workers' paychecks each year" Economic Policy Institute, 2017
Bernhardt, Annette et al. "Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America's Cities" National Employment Law Project, 2019
Bobo, Kim. "Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid - And What We Can Do About It" The New Press, 2011
Fine, Janice et al. "Maintaining effective worker protections: Labor standards enforcement in an era of fissured employment" Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 2020