Employers steal billions from employees via illegal wage theft

That article is from 2014. Surely this problem has been fixed by now.

 

Since 2014 and now major issues have come up such as pronouns oppressing an entire class of people(conservatives) so we have our hands full over those real and pressing issues.

 

Damn wokesters expecting to be paid.

 

I wish the article gave examples. It's really a small percentage of total income, not even 1%

When I googled total American it was in billions and the number in 2021 was $21,000 billion whatever that number is.

 

I figure it balances out the amount employees steal from their employers by not actually working while on the clock.

 

The nature of most work means there is always downtime somewhere. And there is the opportunity cost that employers need to compensate for even if they are standing around because they could be home with their family or doing personal errands.

 

What's really unfortunate about Stupidmoniker's post is he probably is totally serious

 

It's very easy to get people riled up about petty theft and violent crime.

It's much harder to get people riled up about more complex, less visceral crimes.

Some folks are just easy marks for the rage merchants.

 

The venn diagram probably has very little overlap.

 

Employee market. Go find a better job.

 

It's not an employee market when the system is rigged for employers to steal.

 

Maximum efficiency is impossible to maintain. If I recall you’re a lawyer so do you take out the time while you’re working for things like going to the bathroom from your billable hours?

Again though I’m surprised though as someone with libertarian leanings you would rationalize employers not compensating employees what they are actually owed.

 

As a professional who runs his own business the other problem is clients who don’t pay their invoices or only partially pay. This is a big problem in architecture and other fields and we’ve gotten to the point where we pretty much have to estimate in our proposals that we’re likely not going to get paid what is agreed to.

 

When I was in private practice, you better believe you don't bill while you are in the bathroom. You stop the clock when you take an unrelated phone call, have a snack, watch a YouTube video, whatever. You cannot bill people for work you are not doing. In fact, there are things you do that benefit the client, but are non-billable. I couldn't stand around chatting with friends or smoking and bill a client for that time. Like uber drivers, people that work on commission, etc., lawyers in private practice only get paid for actual work. Now that I am in a salaried position for the county, I get paid regardless of what I am doing during the workday. I can be chatting with a coworker, getting coffee, sitting in court waiting for my case to be called and solving sudoku puzzles. As long as I show up and get my required output done, I get the same paycheck. So I know that I am probably getting more unproductive hours paid than productive hours not paid. Same for most jobs.

People should do whatever their contract says to do and be compensated whatever their contract says to be compensated. I am just realistic enough to know that people are not doing what their contract says and are not being compensated as their contract says, but that it is probably either a wash or comes out in favor of the employee. It is easy to look at your time card and see how many hours you were on the clock and compare that to your paycheck to hold the employer accountable. It is much tougher for the employer to monitor every minute you are on the clock to be certain you are working 100% of the time.

Oh boy, yes. I did a whole vehicular homicide jury trial, won, and the guy stiffed me.

 

So really if you’re taking a deposition at someone’s office or at a hearing in a courthouse and there was a bathroom break called you would stop the clock on that? In my profession if we’re required to be on site that time is billable. Also did you bill in quarter hour increments or did you bill down to the minute?

Also since your own admission you’re not productive constantly but paid a fixed salary have you considered returning some of your income?

There are certainly ways for employers to keep track of employees productivity. There are cameras at work sites and with a lot of remote work you can track the time an employee is logged into the server and even monitor what they’re doing.

The original piece though isn’t about productivity but employees working uncompensated hours such as mandatory unpaid overtime. Wouldn’t you agree that that is the employer taking advantage of the employee in that situation.

So then you would agree that being uncompensated for labor performed is a bad thing?

 

Yes, and you bill every six minutes.

No, but I also don't complain when I am asked to stay late or work on a weekend or do anything else extra, because I understand that it is all part of the job.

There are apps that literally just jiggle the cursor on the screen so that the employee appears to be active. Once that was caught onto, people rigged stuff to physically move their mouse while they were not working for the same effect. No one can monitor what employees are doing 100% of the time.

I am aware what the original piece was about. I said I think that is balanced by the time employees are compensated but not working, which is the employee taking advantage of the employer.

I think both being compensated for labor not performed and being uncompensated for labor performed are equally bad, but probably cancel each other out or actually favor the employee the majority of the time.

 

This completely removes the opportunity cost of the laborer who might be idle for a certain time because the nature of the work environment but can't spend time with family, recreational activities, self improvement etc.

Can the laborer not do compensated work at home ay least? At least then it would actually benefit the laborer's life.

And why the **** would some owner care about a idle worker when that worker has met the whatever the deadline or quota is. The task being accomplished is more important than having laborers doing something physical constantly to show the appearance of work.


Maybe being at a job physically for 10 hours is inefficient in itself if you really care about idle laborers.

 

Absolutely. I much prefer a salary model over a wage model, where you are paid a set amount to get all of your work done, not paid by the hour. It rewards those who are more efficient and eliminates time keeping, overtime calculations, and micromanagement.