NYT: More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’

[Omaha Steve]

HAPPY LABOR DAY!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/business/more-workers-are-claiming-wage-theft.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043&_r=0




Guadalupe Salazar, a McDonald’s cashier who says her paychecks were missing overtime wages. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

By STEVEN GREENHOUSEAUG. 31, 2014

MIRA LOMA, Calif. — Week after week, Guadalupe Rangel worked seven days straight, sometimes 11 hours a day, unloading dining room sets, trampolines, television stands and other imports from Asia that would soon be shipped to Walmart stores.

Even though he often clocked 70 hours a week at the Schneider warehouse here, he was never paid time-and-a-half overtime, he said. And now, having joined a lawsuit involving hundreds of warehouse workers, Mr. Rangel stands to receive more than $20,000 in back pay as part of a recent $21 million legal settlement with Schneider, a national trucking company.

“Sometimes I’d work 60, even 90 days in a row,” said Mr. Rangel, a soft-spoken immigrant from Mexico. “They never paid overtime.”

The lawsuit is part of a flood of recent cases — brought in California and across the nation — that accuse employers of violating minimum wage and overtime laws, erasing work hours and wrongfully taking employees’ tips. Worker advocates call these practices “wage theft,” insisting it has become far too prevalent.

FULL story at link.

[Depaysement]

1. Not surprising

Wage theft is a common and despicable practice.

[AngryAmish]

4. A friend of mine got sued for this.

He was genuinely shocked he had to pay overtime. 20k later he knows the law.

Dumbass.

[Depaysement]

6. Good nt

[meow2u3]

2. Why is the NYT putting the term "wage theft" in quotes?

Stealing is stealing, whether it's a dollar from your mom's purse or your dad's wallet or wages, benefits, or overtime from workers. It's a crime and should be treated like one.

[closeupready]

7. Good catch. In New York, it's a legally defined term of art.

At least, there is state legislation (the Wage Theft Prevention Act) titled with, in part, that term.

Putting it in quotes makes it seem like 'it's subjective - it depends on how you define it'. Um, no, NY Times, it in fact does NOT 'depend.'

[Faux pas]

3. Now employees are prey?

Disgusting.

[Uben]

5. Incompetent business owners use wage theft....

....to compensate for their inadequacies. If they really knew how to run a business, they could pay their workers a living wage without stealing from them. Too many of them are just greedy dumb-fucks who want to skim every dime they can to support their life-style without having to do a damned thing. They see workers as chattel that are easily replaced in an age where jobs are scarce. They use worker desperation to their advantage. Who wants to work for ignorant fucks like that?

[Cal Carpenter]

8. Kick

[daredtowork]

9. The sad thing is

All these lawsuits are (uncompensated) work and stress in themselves. The media coverage - even the fact the legal coverage and any testimony these people give may be google-able - may endanger their for future employability.

There is always a lot of triumphalism when people stand up for their rights. Journalists work to get a named source, a human story, a picture - because they know that will be more convincing. At the end of the day the fact these brave people came forward will help move a very important cause forward.

But when this media cycle is over, who will be looking after the interests of these particular people? Their back wages (which will be diminished by taxes when they receive them) will be caught up in legal machinery for years. Meanwhile they will have to cope with explaining to interviewers who may or may not have "hidden opinions" why they were in the paper as labor "trouble makers". Or worse, they will probable get no chance to explain. They simply won't get the job because others are "better qualified". What will happen to them when their unemployment insurance runs out? As I have tried to bring to light in other posts, there is no longer a "welfare" safety net to catch them - particularly if they are single and have no kids. So ultimately these brave souls who came forward about wage theft may be rewarded with poverty and punishment the minute no one is paying attention anymore.

Sorry to be the one raining on everyone's parade in that regard.

Here are my thoughts on how to fix this:

1) Both journalists and the public should realize what this persuasive power of the "personal story" may actually cost and make an effort toward changing the conventions of persuasive stories to allow for more privacy in this age of "eternal Google memory": pseudonyms/first name only, no pictures, etc.

2) Google should at least take a cue from Europe's "right to forget" concerns to at least create gateways in front of legal documents, government testimony, old news stories, etc. "Public" documents can still be obtainable without being instantly available on Google.

3) Make sure the welfare system does exist so if you do push some poor schmucks into it in the name of "greater justice" for the cause, they won't become homeless and starve the minute the media cycle is over.


Ps. Sometimes journalists who are against "the cause" will quote out of context, dig up dirt on people, and outright make up stories. Just think of Snowden for an epic example. There should also be some somewhere people can go to get these articles addressed or pulled without actually having to sue over them.

[Initech]

10. We work for peanuts, the CEOs rake in billions.

If that's not wage theft, I don't know what is.