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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: 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