As Bad As You Think It Is, It's Worse: Wage Theft Comes to America

[Janelle2002 3,865]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/as-bad-as-you-think-it-is_b_6133920.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

As Bad As You Think It Is, It's Worse: Wage Theft Comes to America

Peter Dazeley via Getty Images

In Denmark fast food workers make $20 an hour plus benefits, and the corporations who employ them are still profitable. Why there and not here?

The answer is simple and painful -- wage theft. In America corporations are systematically stealing our wages. Virtually everyone in the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution now suffers from wage theft... perhaps, including you!

It starts at the bottom of the income ladder. Many undocumented immigrant day labors survive by standing on street corners and selling their labor to drive-by construction and landscaping contractors. Unfortunately, far too many contractors refuse to pay after the work is done, something experienced by nearly every day-laborer.

What can undocumented workers do about it? For most, not much. If they report the theft, they run the risk of being reported to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Instead, most just go back to their corners hoping to find more scrupulous contractors. Or, if they are lucky enough to be affiliated with an immigrant worker center like the Workers Justice Project in Brooklyn, NY, they find jobs through its hiring hall where contractors agree to pay decent wages and provide safer working conditions.

Next come the fast-food workers who work overtime, but rarely see their time and half which they are entitled to by law. Franchise managers at McDonald, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy's and the like steal those hours by fiddling with the logs. You don't like it? Leave. But, if you're lucky enough to be part of the Fast Food Forward campaign, the threat of protest and legal action might force the employer to pay up. Try stealing OT in Denmark and the union would shut down the entire chain.

Move up the food chain a bit and you'll find the Amazon worker who must line up for 25 minutes to pass through "egress security" -- screeners to stop pilfering. Amazon says this is not "integral and indispensable" to the job, and therefore, it is lawful not to pay for the time. The Supreme Court will soon decide whether efforts to halt merchandize theft will become legalized wage theft.

Grand Larceny?
The research report, Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers, estimates the scale and scope of low-wage theft in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The authors write:

The average worker lost $51, out of average weekly earnings of $339. Assuming a full-time, full-year work schedule, we estimate that these workers lost an average of $2,634 annually due to workplace violations, out of total earnings of $17,616. That translates into wage theft of 15 percent of earnings.

The Economics Policy Institute (EPI) uses those numbers to provide a national estimate:

The total annual wage theft from front-line workers in low-wage industries in the three cities approached $3 billion. If these findings in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are generalizable to the rest of the U.S. low-wage workforce of 30 million, wage theft is costing workers more than $50 billion a year.

How much is $50 billion in wage theft? It's almost four times greater than the $13.6 billion reported by FBI for the total costs of all stolen cars, other larcenies, burglaries and robberies in 2012. Fifty billion a year is enough to cover the wage bill for over 1.2 million jobs that pay $20 an hour.

Not me?
You may be thinking "Thank God, I'm not a low-wage worker. Nobody's stealing my pay." Or are they?

The only difference between the rest of us and a day-laborer is that our employers have developed ways to fleece us legally. And we're not talking about a few dollars here and there. Nearly half of our wages have been misappropriated. Enter Exhibit #1: The Productivity/Wage Gap.

This hidden larceny takes a little explaining. Productivity, a word near and dear to every manager's heart, measures how much we produce per hour of labor. For an entire economy, gauges our total level of knowledge, skill, technology and organization. It's also the key to the wealth of nations. The more goods and services produced per hour, the higher the standard of living. Of course this crude measure has trouble accounting for a sustainable environment or health or well-being. But usually, those countries with the highest levels of productivity have the greatest ability to protect the public's health and the environment.

As the chart below shows that productivity in the U.S. economy (the top line) has risen steadily since WWII, climbing in 65 of the last 70 years. For generations, as productivity increased so did real wages (how much we earn after factoring out increases is the cost of living.) As we can see, from WWII until the mid-1970s, productivity and wages were virtually inseparable. As productivity increased, so did wages. In fact, when I was in graduate school in the early 1970s, they taught us that entwinement was an economic law -- the two lines had to rise together because when they separated, market forces would pull them back together. By about 1980, this iron law was repealed. Wages stalled while productivity continued to climb.

Let's be clear: When productivity rises, wages can increase without harming profits. For nearly a quarter of a century after WWII, about two-thirds of the productivity gains went to wages, while the rest went to profits, research and development, and the replacement of plant and equipment. Now corporate elites are squeezing revenues to reward themselves. Plant, equipment, research and workers must make do with less.

Since the late 1970s, the average real wage for most of us has stalled. Had we continued to get our fair share of productivity, our wages would be double our current pay. Think about how you'd be living with twice your current wages (like a Dane!).

What happened? Where did all that productivity money go? It all comes back to Wall Street. Financial interests were deregulated so that they could better manipulate the economy. (What they did and how they did it will be subjects of future articles in this series.) Laws and regulations were changed. Financial maneuvers that once would have landed financiers in jail, now land them in penthouses.

As the rules of the game changed, financiers began to siphon wealth away from corporations -- from our pockets to theirs. This chart shows how much the average top CEO makes for every one dollar earned by the average worker. Where did our productivity money go? They took it.

Here's one more chart that tells the story. It compares financial incomes to non-financial incomes. Until 1980 or so there was no premium for working on Wall Street. Now the average earnings are twice as high. That's your money.

But is it really theft?
Theft is defined as "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny."

Even if it's legal, in my book, it's the very definition of "wrongful taking." Most of our economic ills stem from this productivity/wage theft. As economic elites siphoned away our wages, they turned the economy into a casino that crashed in 2008. The great American Dream that so mesmerized working people around the globe, is no more. And it will never return until we realize that our new financialized economy is now constructed upon "wrongful taking."

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

But you have to think of the job creators , you know.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Open up your own business and pay them your so called living wage. ...

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

A combo meal at Mikey's D in Atlanta is about 6 bucks. It's about 10 in Denmark. Restaurant prices are 78% higher in Denmark across the board.

A pair of Levi's cost 133.00

Piss poor comparsion

So they make 20 per hour. Consumer prices are 42% higher. An avg meal at a mid level rest is 100% higher

This backs up what most of have said. You jack fast food workers up to 15-20 bucks an hour , you got to jack up an LPN from 18 to 28

and so on and so on and the fast food worker is back to square zero

The fast food worker in Denmark has less buying power than in the uS

More twisted liberal non-sense for the low information vote.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Denmark&city1=Atlanta%2C+GA&city2=Copenhagen

[SMOKE 1,426]

'wage theft'

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Open up your own business and pay them your so called living wage. ...

We want to work for you. Please give us an example of a business you would like to create that will offer fair wages to the people of the U.S.?

[lostinblue 1,989]

I understand you can make 20/hr in N Dakota flipping hamburgs .....The evil oil business is booming and some have a apartment for 4000/month ... There is your comparison

5 bedroom houses for rent $4100 /

[lostinblue 1,989]

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So how much are these folks ahead Paying 4000 rent ./ mo

[Janelle2002 3,865]

I understand you can make 20/hr in N Dakota flipping hamburgs .....The evil oil business is booming and some have a apartment for 4000/month ... There is your comparison

5 bedroom houses for rent $4100 /

You would create flipping burgers? I'm confused.

[SMOKE 1,426]

that's obvious

[lostinblue 1,989]

We want to work for you. Please give us an example of a business you would like to create that will offer fair wages to the people of the U.S.?

You are crying about a so called living wage .. I am not. I understand what it takes to make a business go . You and yap yap have not a clue . You open a business and make it go paying $20/hr for an entry level position .

[Janelle2002 3,865]

You are crying about a so called living wage .. I am not. I understand what it takes to make a business go . You and yap yap have not a clue . You open a business and make it go paying $20/hr for an entry level position .

I'm not yap yapping about anything. I posted an article for discussion. You are yapping and I am reading.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I'm not yap yapping about anything. I posted an article for discussion. You are yapping and I am reading.

The fast food worker in Denmark has less buying power than the fast food worker in Atlanta. Yet you think they are better of because they make a higher wage. Any discussion of wage with out talking about cost of living, is ploy of the low info voter.

It's like talking about weight without talking about height . Absurd

[lostinblue 1,989]

Try stealing OT in Denmark and the union would shut down the entire chain.

This is what the entire article is about. Fast food union workers. You will spend 20 minutes talking into a speaker if this happens when placing that order of fries .

[GandD 5,966]

Try stealing OT in Denmark and the union would shut down the entire chain.

This is what the entire article is about. Fast food union workers. You will spend 20 minutes talking into a speaker if this happens when placing that order of fries .

Ain't that the truth. One guy would have to take the burger portion of the order, another the fries, and yet another the soda. And that's just taking the order.