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For the past four decades, the majority of American workers have been shortchanged by economic policymaking that has suppressed the growth of hourly wages and prevented greater improvements in living standards. Achieving a secure, middle-class lifestyle has become increasingly difficult as hourly pay for most workers has either stagnated or declined. For millions of the country's lowest-paid workers, financial security is even more fleeting because of unscrupulous employers stealing a portion of their paychecks.
Wage theft, the practice of employers failing to pay workers the full wages to which they are legally entitled, is a widespread and deep-rooted problem that directly harms millions of U.S. workers each year. Employers refusing to pay promised wages, paying less than legally mandated minimums, failing to pay for all hours worked, or not paying overtime premiums deprives working people of billions of dollars annually. It also leaves hundreds of thousands of affected workers and their families in poverty. Wage theft does not just harm the workers and families who directly suffer exploitation; it also weakens the bargaining power of workers more broadly by putting downward pressure on hourly wages in affected industries and occupations. For many low-income families who suffer wage theft, the resulting loss of income forces them to rely more heavily on public assistance programs, unduly straining safety net programs and hamstringing efforts to reduce poverty.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @03:53PM (32 children)
Be glad you have a job at all. If you don't like it, go find somewhere else to work. If we don't do this, the whole company will go under, do you want that?
When people asked Trump about the Mars mission, he said "it sounds great, I love it, but let's fix our infrastructure first." Yeah, starting with our social infrastructure - can we at least pay people what they are promised, guaranteed by law, to be paid - get the economy working in a legally compliant manner, is that too much to ask?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @05:20PM (2 children)
Is that where the "anti-science" babble comes from? Because he wants our infrastructure to be fixed before we go for an adventure to Mars?
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday May 22 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)
I don't think anything "anti-science" is at issue with fixing our infrastructure. Aside from the glorious southern border wall, AFAIK the White House hasn't proposed *anything* related to infrastructure. If anyone has actually seen such a proposal, please link it in a response. I'd love to see it!
I'm not real sanguine (see what I did there?) about the Trump administration's commitment to repairing/improving our infrastructure. All I've seen so far is platitudes and unrealistic claims that haven't been backed up by even a high-level list of priorities.
I suppose that could change, but I'm not holding my breath.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:39PM
Is a thick layer of male bovine excrement considered infrastructure? He's already laid that out.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 22 2017, @06:08PM (12 children)
That's the beauty of "crumbling infrastructure"--it keeps on crumbling. Japan has one of the top five economies in the world, with a high population crammed into a small area. It has a lot of dollars to spend on infrastructure. So it becomes a common site to see construction crews building Buck Rogers bridges, retaining walls, and drainage ditches on small roads in the mountains that maybe 3 cars a day use. They can keep doing that in ever finer detail forever and never "fix" the infrastructure such that they can re-allocate those funds to another purpose for a while.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @06:37PM (11 children)
Anybody who thinks the US infrastructure is "crumbling" needs to get out and travel a little to those "backwards third world countries" you know, like France, Australia, Brazil. Look around for freeways, bridges, roads, etc. and then reflect on what you see in the US.
Unpaved roads are really rare in the US, bridges are all over the place, as are multi-level overpasses, massive capacity airports, seaports, and even cargo train terminals (yes, our passenger rail sucks, but I think that was done to divert focus to the other modes of transportation).
The reason we have "crumbling infrastructure" like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge [wikipedia.org] http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/traffic/I-4-makeover/orl-i4-sinkhole-20170323-photo.html [orlandosentinel.com] is, in part, because we have so much infrastructure in the first place.
If we want to talk about infrastructure upgrade, let's talk about competitive internet service delivery to the home. Fiber, Cable, or DSL doesn't really matter, what matters is allowing multiple vendors to compete for the opportunity to serve people on an individual basis, not bribe city commissioners for decades long monopoly access to large block markets. Doesn't that seem like a good old-school free market rhetoric thing for the business savvy leader to bring to the country? Sure does to me, but I'm not holding my breath.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @07:03PM (6 children)
You have made a life choice: You have chosen to live in the middle of nowhere, far away from the infrastructure that carries the Internet's bits.
If you want to tap into that infrastructure, then you find a way to do that; either pay for last 100 miles out to your shack, or move into the nearest city like everybody else.
It makes no sense for society to squander its resources bringing YouPorn to the sticks. Fuck You, you entitled forest-dwelling cunt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday May 22 2017, @07:57PM (4 children)
I live in the middle of one of the top three largest US cities. I am unable to get fiber to the premise. I can get contract-hobbled DOCSIS/cable internet with incredibly abusive terms-of-service and horrible maintenance and customer service.
If I can't get decent internet service without paying upwards of $500/month, then there's much to be said for GP's point.
And so for me and GP, fuck you, you self-righteous, ignorant, piece of shit!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @08:00PM (3 children)
If not even the city has been able to build Internet infrastructure robustly, then why in the world would anyone be willing to let governments squander resources in the sticks?
We can agree on one thing: Governments fuck everything up.
(Score: 4, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:01AM (2 children)
Ftfy.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:24AM (1 child)
However, you cannot stop paying a government for its rotten services.
Indeed, if you try to stop paying a government, you'll probably be beaten up by thugs and then thrown into a cage.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:26AM
Substitute "protected privately owned monopoly, such as water supply" for "government" and your argument is equally valid.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:50PM
I live in the city limits, 1 mile from the loop interstate offramp, 3 miles from the thru-interstate offramp, 1/2 mile from shopping centers, in a major metro area (800K pop.)
I have Comcast and AT&T to choose from, and they both suck. AT&T charges nearly as much for dysfunctional DSL as Comcast charges for slightly more often functional cable internet. We've been in this home for 3 years and Comcast has raised our monthly bill to 2x what we started at, a little bit every 6 months, while trimming services along the way. For the cheapest slowest internet service they offer, we're at $56 per month, up from $48 per month for "BLAST SPEED" last year, up from $36 per month for the cable bundle the year before that, up from the $28 per month "please please please don't use our competition dear new resident" introductory period.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @08:01PM (3 children)
I drove over that bridge the day before it collapsed.
Was a bit freaked out by that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:52PM (2 children)
We decided to not move to the Lakeland area in 2012, after one of those sinkholes opened on I-4 while we were visiting, plus a dozen more that summer in neighborhoods swallowing houses and also closing smaller roads.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday May 22 2017, @08:58PM (1 child)
Man, where I am, when a sinkhole opens up under a house, sometimes the whole house explodes. Iron gas pipes from the early 20th century. One time an entire block exploded. Allegedly they are "mostly" replaced now but the gas company doesn't publish where the unreplaced ones are because of terrorism concerns... and sometimes they find out about ones they didn't have on their maps...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @09:21PM
It's kind of a sad story in Lakeland. Sinkholes (there and most places) form when the water table gets low. Well, when it doesn't rain as much as normal, the strawberry crop in Plant City struggles, so - on top of the low rain input, the strawberry farmers pump extra water on their crops - seriously dropping the water tables to un-natural levels. Then, mysteriously (not) an unnatural number of sink holes appears over the following months. So, in a dry year, a $200M strawberry crop ends up scattering several million dollars in damage around the area, probably propping up a "sinkhole insurance" industry to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year in premiums.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 22 2017, @06:38PM (5 children)
Your employer cheats you of your pay, and gets away with it, and all you can advise is to suck it up be glad you got a few crumbs instead of none at all? You aren't taking this problem seriously enough. This is systemic corruption.
If the employer cheats employees, why shouldn't all the employees cheat too? It's a huge breach of trust, and it's just plain bad management to turn the workplace into hostile environment, full of mutual suspicion between management and wage slaves. Employees will steal office supplies, goof off more, work slower, do a bad job, be sloppy, careless, and rebellious, and never volunteer any information about anything, such as improvements they see. You know, much like the slaves acted on a plantation.
The imbalance of power is huge. Employers have too much, and won't stop trying to amass more. Do you understand that the US doesn't have healthcare because employers wanted to have the threat of losing health benefits available as another way to pressure employees? Employees can be blackballed and their careers ruined, live in fear of being fired without a moment's notice and ending up homeless and hungry. Employers can always find another cog, easily, and everyone knows it.
And why should cheated employees stop the retaliation at the employer? Why not refuse to pay the rent, drive without auto insurance or a driver's license? And as for income tax, it's not even cheating to report the income you were actually paid, rather than the income you should have been paid. The government loses out on income tax revenue when employers cheat, yet they won't enforce the law and stop the cheating?
If the nation doesn't keep a lid on the cheating, if the government is corrupted and won't do anything about it, keeps changing the law to favor employers more and more, at some point the whole system will collapse. FDR understood that. He was asked, what if his programs didn't work and he replied that then he wouldn't be president, and the US might not be a nation anymore either.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 22 2017, @06:43PM (2 children)
Or were you being sarcastic and I missed that?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:56PM (1 child)
First paragraph yes, second paragraph no.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:44AM
You have four paragraphs in the GGGPP.
Was that YNYN or YYNN ?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @06:43PM
Thanks for the diatribe - good stuff. However, you might want to develop a satire filter...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 22 2017, @09:37PM
"They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work" has been tried elsewhere. When generalized, it leads to authoritarianism in power - you don't think the 0.1 percenters will do nothing, do you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by number11 on Monday May 22 2017, @08:02PM (8 children)
Don't let it bother you if your employer is criminal scum who steals your money, he's a business so he shouldn't have to obey the law.
Yeah, we need to fix the infrastructure. But don't expect it from the current lot (and maybe not from any politician these days) because taxes are bad and it would cost money. Even if the contractor steals half the workers wages, that's still not enough to build infrastructure. Hell, even with slave labor it would still require taxes. So forget about that.
I think we're in agreement.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:32PM (2 children)
In all walks of life, I think this saying applies:
You can wrestle a pig but in the end you'll both get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.
Sure, you can take criminal scum to court, you might win, you might lose, but it's going to cost so much more effort and frustration than simply finding somewhat less criminal scum to work for - and you'll have more net income to show for your effort. Some days it feels like the scum needs to be "taught a lesson" or "exposed for the garbage that they are," but, mostly, it's just going to be wrestling a pig in the mud, and you'll rarely, if ever, get the full vindication you were hoping for.
I was hit by a hit and run driver in a stolen car, I stuck around and filed a report with the Public Safety Officer who decided I and two witnesses (strangers to me) were lying and made up his own version of what happened when he wasn't there to write on the official report. I ran around and got notarized witness statements that basically said that the PSA's version was physically impossible, then went for my day in court. PSA didn't show, instant win. Was an incredibly empty feeling.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by number11 on Friday May 26 2017, @03:39PM (1 child)
Isn't this true of crime in general? If you get mugged, reporting it to the police isn't going to benefit you personally, it will just mean having to wait around and interact with the police, and perhaps being required to attend a trial at an inconvenient time and perhaps monetary loss. It's not like the mugger is likely to ever pick you personally as a victim again. Just a waste of time.
Is the preferred route to go home, get a gun, and resolve that the next person who tries to steal your money will end up full of holes? Is there any difference between that thieving employer and a mugger, other than (as Woodie Guthrie said) "some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 26 2017, @06:18PM
All true, so - are you a justice seeker, or a selfish seeker of happiness for yourself?
I tried to get some car thieves caught and prosecuted, the police declined to even try.
A professional office flim-flammed us and caused us a bunch of grief, I came very close to tearing them down through the licensing board but backed off before pushing the court case because it was getting blown way out of proportion for us - 20x the investment for justice seeking vs the harm actually done. In the end, we made enough noise with the office management to get the bad actors fired, but it could have gone full scale career wrecking ugly, and the blowback from that can be considerable.
Bottom line: people do what they think is right _for them_ and that doesn't always include seeking justice.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by migz on Monday May 22 2017, @09:54PM (4 children)
You can leave, and go work somewhere else.
Slavery is immoral. And fortunately illegal.
The behaviour of the abuser is halted, by refusing to be a victim, and leaving.
You don't need any law to effect this remedy.
Simple, effective, and does not require you to surrender your freedom to the wolves in the name of protecting the sheep.
I am not bothered as much by the abuser being left, as I am by your twisted belief that forcing the alleged abuser to comply, by a bigger abuser is a dangerous, and ineffective technique. Eventually the biggest bully will stand alone, and who will protect you from them?
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:27AM (3 children)
I worked for a rip off artist once, took over a month to realize that his BS was just that, BS and I left. He got 4 weeks work for 2 weeks pay and had a lineup of people looking for work. Even if everyone left as soon as they figured out the scam, the employer was still ahead. Being a corporation, it was also easy for him to fold one business and continue as another business when things caught up with him.
There's a reason that capitalism depends on a high unemployment rate, and it isn't for the benefit of the workers
(Score: 2) by migz on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:01AM (2 children)
Sorry that you got caught by this con artist, but without capitalism, this douche would still be a douche. That's not capitalisms fault. Well done for getting away. You should name and shame. It is your responsibility to protect others from harm by reporting on his actions. Hopefully by now his reputation is ruined, and nobody else is being caught out by this bloodsucker.
Capitalism does not depend on a high unemployment rate.
Btw. capitalism does not require corporations.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday May 25 2017, @06:03AM (1 child)
Naming and shaming someone who has probably been dead for a few decades won't do any good.
While capitalism doesn't require corporations or a high unemployment rate, becoming super rich at the expense of society while doing the minimum of real productivity does. Our form of capitalism rewards efficiency, not morality.
(Score: 2) by migz on Saturday May 27 2017, @09:01AM
Sorry to raise an old thread.
Your form of government rewards connectedness to the elite, not efficiency.
The opposite of Capitalism is Central planning. Less capitalism means more elitism.
You cannot argue that because some people are bad, and you choose to mistakenly blame capitalism for this failure, that capitalism is at fault.
The axiom that some people are bad, holds true regardless of whether there is capitalism or not.
They question is what system is better considering that there are bad people?
Capitalism means that you get to keep what is yours, and are never forced to part with it against your will. It means that you are not forced to buy the government hamburgers, and that you are free to spend your money on avocado lattes, or craft beer. Nor are you forced to serve in the army, but can choose who you wish to work with (note not for, but with). Capitalism means that you can choose to transact with those you find moral.
Again the getting rich at the expense of society is only possible because of the central planning of the federal reserve monopoly which is empowered by the government. This is not the fault of capitalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:07AM
During downturns (industry & general), both my wife and I at times accepted shady payroll practices just to keep a job by not making waves. Choice is nice when you have it. When you don't, ya gotta shuddup.