Tomorrow, Thousands of Workers Fight Wage Theft With Civil Disobedience

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25666-tomorrow-thousands-of-workers-fight-wage-theft-with-civil-disobedience

hree years ago, I waited tables at a diner in Jackson, Mississippi. The minimum-wage job was one of four part-time jobs I held at the time, all of which were necessary to pay my rent, keep my lights on, have heat in the dead of winter, and keep my car in decent shape. Tips at the restaurant were placed in a bucket by the cash register, and the bucket was divvied up among all the servers and cooks at the end of the day. But before the tips were distributed, the co-owners of the restaurant would retreat to their back office for “bookkeeping,” and the bucket of tips would suddenly be much lighter. After a full day of waiting tables, I would only go home with a little over $30 in tips. If one of the owners caught a server pocketing a tip from a customer who wanted to tip a server directly, we would be forced to put it in the bucket, which we knew would be skimmed. But my experience is just one example of the situation for millions of restaurant workers in America today.

All of America’s burglars, convenience store robbers, carjackers, muggers, and bank robbers combined don’t steal even half as much money as America’s top restaurant chains steal from their workers in a given year. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. Department of Labor had to recover $280 million in wages held by employers in 2012. That same year, the Department of Justice said the total amount of money stolen in robberies was $139 million. But since criminal restaurant chain executives aren’t being carted off to jail for their acts of robbery, restaurant workers will shut down their businesses by any means necessary this Thursday – including committing acts of civil disobedience.

The New York Times has reported on the rise of wage theft, in which low-wage workers across all sectors are forced to work long hours, for 6 or 7 days a week, while having their federally-mandated time-and-a-half overtime pay withheld by their employer. A California judge recently ruled that FedEx violated wage theft laws by denying overtime pay to drivers that FedEx classified as “independent contractors.” FedEx, a global, multi-billion dollar company that often pays an effective tax rate in the single digits, is appealing the ruling. And 41 supermarket janitors in Fremont, California had over $330,000 in back pay withheld by their employers, who made employees sign off on blank time sheets in an effort to pay them for fewer hours than they actually worked.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I had an agrument with a conservative neighbor the other day about this.

He said these are high school kids working for gas money. I asked him if he lived in 1950 again like most conservatives. The people working in fast food these days are working poor, with kids. Some of them are retired people who can't live on their retirement income. Some are just workers over 50 who have been laid off and can't find anything in their field. These are people trying to LIVE on this money! With the profits the people who own these franchises make they can pay a living wage.

[Quantess]

2. Your neighbor is laughably out of touch.

He needs to get with the times. Conservatives are always so slow to catch up to modern times.

[LeftofObama]

3. That's an interesting statistic....

"All of America’s burglars, convenience store robbers, carjackers, muggers, and bank robbers combined don’t steal even half as much money as America’s top restaurant chains steal from their workers in a given year. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. Department of Labor had to recover $280 million in wages held by employers in 2012. That same year, the Department of Justice said the total amount of money stolen in robberies was $139 million."



I've never heard that before, but I'll definitely be using it in the future. Thanks for posting that.

[Quantess]

4. How did it go, I wonder?