Wage theft is a far bigger problem than bank robberies, convenience
store robberies, street and highway robberies, and gas station robberies
combined. Employers steal billions of dollars from their employees each
year by working them off the clock, by failing to pay the minimum wage, or by cheating them of overtime pay they have a right to receive. Survey research shows that well over two-thirds of low-wage workers have been the victims of wage theft, but the governmental resources to help them recover their lost wages are scant and largely ineffective.
Few local governments have any resources or staff to combat wage
theft, and several states have closed down or so severely cut back their
labor departments that workers are left mostly unprotected and
vulnerable to exploitation. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is the
one agency that brings substantial resources to the effort to prevent
and remedy wage theft, but its total staff of wage and hour
investigators, about 1100 in all, is responsible for securing compliance
from more than seven million employers. Nevertheless, in Fiscal Year
2012, DOL recovered $280 million in back pay
for 308,000 workers. That amount – a small fraction of the total wage
theft nationwide – far exceeded the total lost to criminals in street
and highway, bank, gas station and convenience store robberies in 2012.
from here
This article shows some of the problems associated with the overall wages system. It is always open to abuse and the system itself is abuse. Profit for employers, business owners, share holders, corporations and the like ALL comes courtesy of the worker (willingly or not). SOYMB advocates for the total abolition of wage slavery, ie the wages system.
JS
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