New economy fallout – ‘wage theft’ from paychecks

[babylonsister]

New economy fallout – ‘wage theft’ from paychecks
Bringing awareness to wage theft

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — For nearly a year, unemployed home health worker Leslie Gilbert of Grand Rapids, Mich., has fought to get more than $400 in unpaid wages from her former employer.

After months of promises that the money would be in her “next paycheck,” Gilbert filed a complaint in October with the state. Officials told Focus Care Home Health of Southfield, Mich., to either pay Gilbert by June 1 or face a formal hearing.

Gilbert still doesn’t have her money.

snip//

Wage theft can be as simple as stealing tips from restaurant servers, illegal deductions from a worker’s paycheck or failing to pay overtime or the legal minimum wage. It also can take other forms, such as classifying workers as “independent contractors” to avoid paying unemployment insurance.

Millions of workers are losing pay, with the majority in low-income service industries such as fast food, domestic work, agriculture, retail, hotel and tourism and home health care. It’s also a big problem in the warehousing and construction industries, which employ large numbers of recent immigrants and undocumented workers, who are reluctant to complain, fearing scrutiny of their immigration status.



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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/04/151119/new-economy-fallout-wage-theft.html

[rfranklin]

1. As long as no one goes to jail it will continue...

Can you imagine if that woman had stolen $400 from her employer? Felony charges for sure!

[magical thyme]

2. I had an employer withhold a paycheck

after they fired me without notice (a temporary, crap minimum wage part time job while in school). They got one very nice phone call from me, and they blamed it on the 3rd party payroll company and assured it would arrive in the next pay period.

When it didn't arrive as promised, with 2 extra days allowed for possible slow mail delivery, I *immediately* called the state labor dept.

Maine was recently listed as one of the five most corrupt states in the US, and certainly that has been my experience in dealing with both state and local officials.

This is the one time, however, that the state wasted no time getting after a company owner. Very simply, the state will go after that as long as there are state income taxes at stake. One of the good things that comes out of state income taxes is it gives the state the will to go after wage theft.

[MoreGOPoop]

3. About 40 years ago...

I worked my first (and only) shift at a nursing home as an aid. What I saw horrified me. The worst example, to me, was how they had left a black man who was connected to monitors and intubated, completely naked and uncovered in a very chilled room. I covered him up, finished my shift and informed them I wouldn't be coming back to work for them.

When I came back to pick up my check the owner informed me he was not going to pay me my $17.00 because I had not given a two-week notice. After contacting the LRB I confronted him with the fact that this was illegal and he said: "So, sue me."