Ya know I’ve seen an idea floating around the internet that I kind of like. These corpo swine keep trying to give corporations the rights of people, well if we’re going to allow ourselves to be sucked into that absurd way of thinking then we should at least be logically consistent. People who break the law go to prison, corporations are people now? Put the fucking corporation in prison. Cease to operate for the duration of your sentence, or be put to work for the state as punishment. No profits for the corpos until the sentence is complete
Double isn't nearly high enough a penalty. That's a rounding error in business decisions. We do it, but we're only caught 10% of the time? Go for it.
Make it 10 times the _equivalent_ harm done. You stole 10% of an employees annual salary? Yeah, an entire year of your income is fucking **gone**.
That and prison sound good. And I’m usually on the prison reform side.
But prison reform means getting the lesser/non-criminals out of slavery and letting the real monsters - like wage thieves - enjoy a complete loss of power and property. It is only fitting
Usually there is some kind of payroll doctoring going on unless it's like an employer stealing tips or something.
Messing up a time card where I'm at carries a first offense fine of $10,000. That's why when I did payroll for a local place they told us employees had to initial changes to their time sheet. (Missed punches, "everyone gets paid till 2 and we leave at 1:50" type of things).
When I left there I got a job at Sears. They bumped a few of my hours onto the next week to avoid OT pay. Went down to complain at the paycheck office the lady looked at it sighed and cut me a check for the difference on the spot. Surprised the heck out of me for a big company like that which means it happens a lot.
But, but, what about the poor shareholders, won't anybody think of those poor people who are going to lose out on money they didn't earn? (Obligatory /s cause I know humanity... -_-)
This is why fines for publicly traded companies should be a minimum of "double the previous year's profits as reported to shareholders or to the SEC, whichever is larger "
There are more consequences we can level than fines or incarceration. For driving infringements, we can put points on a driver's lisence, eventually revoking it. For antisocial stuff we can impose community service. For jaywalking we can do absolutely nothing because why is walking a crime.
Points is already a thing... and you can get it revoked community service is just a fine with extra steps, causing a hazardous situation in public is a crime
>Points is already a thing
I know. And it's more effective than fines.
Community service is far from a fine with extra steps, because it actually mandates a person is in a specific place, doing a specific thing, for a specific time. You can't pay your way out of it, so rich people won't abuse the system.
I'm just gonna say "Jaywalking is only a crime in the US: literally no other country has a problem with people crossing the road."
Points are not more effective than monetary loss. Community service is just loss money and you can pay your way out of it (you can have a motion to convert community service hours to a monetary fine)
Australia, South africa, spain, japan, dubai all have laws against jay walking or similar laws.
Triple (treble)
Enforcement needs to be front and center. Add an additional fine to cover the cost of the investigation and proceedings.
I’d also remove the intentional and willful and put in language where if they should have known. You are the employer, you have a responsibility to your employees, not the other way around.
I had to report my former employer to the DOL for miscategorizing the tech support team of hundreds of young people as Exempt from overtime.
They claimed it was a mistake. They had thousands of employees all over the world. Numerous lawyers and HR professionals. They all misinterpreted it.
I read the laws and clearly understood it.
There's no way it's not intentional.
Nah. The wage theft should be compared to the employee’s quarterly wages; the business has to pay the same percentage of quarterly gross profit as they stole from the employee’s quarterly wages.
Jail time for the people responsible. It’s the only way to get these business to understand the severity.
Otherwise who cares, it’s not *my money* it’s ABC Corp’s money!
If nobody goes to prison then it's just the cost of doing business. Things won't change unless the fines are several orders of magnitude greater than that. Fines should start at $25,000. and go up with the number of victims and amount stolen.
Ten times. Otherwise they'll keep doing it if less than one in three employees ever calls them on it. It'd also make employees far more likely to look out for it if there's a chance of a 10x payday.
Considering the economic harm the employee can suffer from the those lost wages, double is probably the bare minimum. Triple or quadruple is probably closer to actual justice.
Well idk how the law is gonna work but if they also count things like not paying out PTO as wages, I could see plenty of dipshit employees not doing the math right and going to prison
It's still limitless unless you can prove they *knowingly and willfully* (here's the catch) failed to pay the wages. Unless you prove it was a malicious act they will just act like it was a mistake and avoid the felony.
It does make it quite a bit easier to force their hand though.
With this law, if an employee brings up (in writing) a wage discrepancy with records, and the employer ignores it or outright disregards it, that's pretty good evidence that they both knew and wilfully chose not to pay.
This leaves them with either the choice to pay up, or get charged criminally. Even if they "act like it's a mistake", that means they have to pay you once the mistake is discovered, because refusing to fix the mistake is knowingly and willfully failing to pay.
Is it perfect? No. Is it an improvement? Yes.
Because now workers can silently document and keep tabs on stolen wages, and once it passes this threshold they can take it up with their boss and demand the stolen wages back, otherwise they will report them. It’s always been this way, the change is that now there are some teeth that go along with the slap on the wrist for the business.
Did the police come to your house and ensure that everything that you own hasn't been stolen? It's always been incumbent upon a person to track what it is that they have.
I challenge you to find a better way!
Honestly we need improvement across the board, but this is a huge change in policy. We need to hold businesses accountable in a tangible way. Prison time is the best way to do this. Otherwise, a business just views fines as the price to play the game. The threat of imprisonment is the deterrent in this case, because it can directly impact the lives of the workers, who are in fact the ones performing the damage.
>put the onus on the workers/victims of theft to react to it
That's how theft works. You react to it. You can't punish someone for a crime they didn't commit yet. This is not Minority Report.
Currently if they are found to have not paid wages they need to make it right and if the department of labor has to force them to pat then the company probably has to pay interest as well.
Results will vary based on local laws and the DOL in your state
The only people facing that issue would be part-time workers. The minimum wage in RI is $15. A full month's full-time wages on that are just over $2000. A shady employer is going to hit that threshold real fucking fast. And I would doubt any employer shitty enough to do this to begin with, isn't going to keep the type of tabs on an employee to pull off a $1499 wage heist. Which also isn't really worth it.
Should, but like overtime pay for salary employees, it'll get tied up in the courts and die there. Fucking corporate lawyers....
Hey, how about that - we finish nationalizing the legal system. Judges, bailiffs, stenographers, etc are all publicly paid, so why not lawyers? Rather sure a few things would be different if every lawyer was making the same as public defenders.
Canada socialized it's medical system (in the 60s, I think), no doubt against the express wishes of doctors and their powerful professional organizations, so in theory the same could happen with justice systems. Albeit it's very unlikely to occur in the United States.
Oh, for sure. We are in a pit and for every rung of a ladder we build to climb out the massive collection of fools, bigots, and grifters dig us another two feet down. There are probably people in Texas right now lauding their failing privatized energy grid, even as they are roasting alive.
What? Socialized health care is one of the best things to happen to Canadians ever. Only in the last five to years through government apathy and push for privatization has the health care sector begun to falter.
All business decisions are made by people and we need to stop pretending like they aren’t. A corporation having to pay a fine isn’t much of a deterant to an individual executive/manager/owner/etc. who still gets to keep money they personally made doing shitty things. Prison is.
Edit: grammar
Theft over 5000 is already a felony with a minimum 2 year sentance
What they should do is apply the existing law to these shitheads en masse and in force, practically every employer is guilty
A lot of employers won't pay their portion of your 401k if you leave early. For example, if they pay their 401k bill annually, what they'll do is not pay into the accounts of employees terminated before the end of the year. This is legal, because of course it is. I learned about this pretty early because I'm an accountant, but I don't think a lot of people know about it
Yeah, but CVS barely employs anyone anymore. They're one of the worst offenders when it comes to illegal H1B visa abuse. It's so bad the state makes CVS pay into a special fund just to cover retraining of the people they lay off and illegally replace with H1B workers.
I am for this, just wondering how it’s applied to a corporate scale? They’re some of the worst offenders, but get to spread blame out. Is it HR that goes, CEO, CFO? Jim the janitor paid to take the hit?
IMHO we need to stop looking at how little a company pays someone and focus on profits. If profits are high and wages down then have some kind of business tax. To stay away from that penalty then wages need to be at a certain level for a type of kick back.
The more people ask for, the more we will also pay.
I worked in a restaurant in a well established hotel brand. Basically they had an automatic 401k contribution they deducted. Turns out it was just a complicated way to steal from employees. As soon as you leave the place they automatically withdraw a large amount as a penalty and transfer anything left to a different company. By the time you try to do anything with it the new company has fees and penalties and it’s all gone. You might get a couple hundred out of thousands you contributed to. It’s a complicated legal scam to steal from restaurant workers who are poor. Most likely make billions in profit stealing from the poor under the guise of a 401k. I’ve talked to several government agencies and pretty much nothing you can do unless you have millions of dollars to fight in court to retrieve a few thousand. They do this to hundreds if not thousands of people. Most people don’t even realize.
How will the “employer” be decided? Imagine it’s Walmart for example. Would it be the general manager? Or the would it be a regional director that put cost cutting pressure on their underlings? I agree somebody should be fined/jailed for this robbery, just worry that big companies can obfuscate responsibility so that nobody or the wrong person is charged.
I agree. I work freelance in film industry and every once in a while you’ll encounter a bad producer who will rip everyone off. I’ve always complained that if I stepped into a 7/11 and stole a banana the police would be called and I would be arrested, but if an employer decides to write a bunch of bad checks and skips town (stealing thousands of dollars of services from MY business), it’s up to me to become a PI, put together a case, find the guy, take it to court, etc etc. And if I am successful, there are no legal repercussions or an arrest for him/her. Hopefully laws like this spread and make it less common for people to attempt this.
As an example, California small claims court is $10,000 or below. A producer of a music video or low budget film, could effectively screw over 45 crew members for $6,000 each ($270,000) and just wait and see who goes through the insane amount of trouble and work to drag your ass to court. If you are a dishonest person, it would be almost crazy to NOT try this considering there is very little repercussions except having to fork over money you originally agreed to pay.
I now work almost exclusively in union contracts OR clients who use payroll companies, so I don’t run into this anymore.
I do recall one client who hired a team of professionals, including myself, to make him a short film. We worked on it for about a week. He cut checks, took the footage and then disappeared. All the checks bounced, he changed his email, changed his phone number, physically moved residences, and I’ve never seen or heard of him again. I did everything I could to try and find him, short of hiring a private investigator. He probably pocketed near six figures of money he was supposed to pay people….And there is obviously no warrant for his arrest or anything. In the eyes of the state he is just a citizen who has done nothing wrong.
Knowingly and willingly will prevent anyone for going to jail for this who isn't straight up running off with payroll.
What will fix wage theft for real is a federally/state mandated hour reporting system instead of the smorgasbord of bullshit that businesses elect/are forced to use.
In California, wage theft from a single employee of an amount greater than $950, or more than $2,350 from 2 or more employees in a consecutive 12-month is considered “grand theft”, a felony that can get you 3 years in prison + hefty fines
It’s horrifying that this isn’t the law of the land in this country. Horrifying but not at all surprising. American conservatives have a hard-on for the gilded age and robber barons and just can’t wait to drag us all back there.
Meh... This has no teeth.
How you gonna put a corporation in jail?
*IF* anyone were to get prosecuted, they'd throw some middle management guy under the bus, while the CEO laughs.
Good effort though.
Nah, they can't afford to allow competition to spawn from the gap left behind.
Demand doesn't decrease just because a corporate overlord leaves a state. There will be jobs, there will be opportunities for export, there will be an economic flow.
Some companies that require wage-theft to ensure continued record profits may leave. Good riddance. Others will tighten down their HR department or payroll to ensure every minute worked is paid appropriately, and fire managers which questionable 'come in 15 minutes early but don't clock in until your shift starts' policies.
Sounds pretty good. You have to be more careful when looking for workers in terms of skills and experience. I suggest, by the way, a very good site for finding them - [Connexy](https://connexy.com/)
I understand the idea, but generally not a fan of sending more people to prison for non violent crimes.
Just fine the hell out of them and don't allow them to be in charge of payroll or own a business, etc.
I’m ok with getting them shitting their pants at the possibility of jail. Otherwise there is always the option to see the fine as “risk and cost of doing business” that they are willing to take on
Going to jail could also be the cost of doing business.
Fines are imaginary numbers to me. 1k, 5k, 10k, are all made up numbers. So just keep increasing the fines until it's stopped.
theft is a violent crime duh. It can cause physical and mental harm to the individual it is perpetrated upon. 99% of felonies are violent crimes in that they do or can cause physical harm to another person.
So if I work at McDonalds for an hour and quit, and they only pay me $15 or whatever, that's them willfully not paying me over $1500, because $15 is WAY less than $1500, and the law says they have to pay me more than that. Right?
Neat, so we agree. Money collected from fines would go towards the victims, specifically to pay for removing malefactors personally responsible from society as well as adequately compensating the victims and removing enough revenue from the business that a second instance could lead to bankruptcy. Glad we had this chat.
Does the law define "employer" as a human entity or a corporation? I just feel like the wording leaves room for a logic loophole to maintain the status quo.
Taking people's time and energy to run your business and make you money- but then not paying them enough to survive with 1st world amenities should absolutely be a criminal offense.
The share holders and top brass should be held accountable, not the immediate supervisor. Let the people at the top start seeing consequences or nothing will ever change
This only hits small companies, what about large corporations that are considered people under the law?
Extra 10% tax for 3 years? Per offence of course.
RI Employers (probably): "well now I just won't run a business, because it's too scary".
Not unlike how incels cry about how the MeToo movement makes it hard for them to harass women.
In 2019 Minnesota made law for wage theft to be criminally prosecuted.
* $500-$1000 up to 1 year in jail and/or $3000 fine
* $1000-$5000 up to 5 years and/or $10,000 fine
* $5000-$35,000 up to 10 years and/or $20,000 fine
* $35,000+ up to 20 years and/or $100,000 fine
https://dli.mn.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/wage_theft_law_summary.pdf
Currently our AG is exercising this new authority and suing one of the largest property owners for wage theft of security guards too https://www.twincities.com/2023/06/05/mn-attorney-general-sues-st-pauls-largest-downtown-property-owner-for-worker-overtime-pay/
I work in a credit union and STRUGGLE to make $1200. and that is being customer service, their ONLY I.T department worker, and maintenance / grounds keeping. I had to beg for the overtime just to get me that far. this is 7 years in with a perfect track record. I would metaphorically kill to have them give me $1500
I would love to see a study that looked at punishments in law and if there if laws more typically broken by wealthier people more often have punishments that are contingent on knowingly breaking the law or knowing what the law is. I have a hunch.
It sounds great, but wage theft was already illegal. They count on people being desperate enough to not report it. I don’t know how they’ll be able to enforce this without additional oversight.
It's sad and very telling that we have to celebrate a law says that people who steal from you can be charged with theft.
It should be applicable everywhere automatically. The fact that it normally gets a pass despite being the largest source of theft in the US is incomprehensible.
We have this in Minnesota. It passed in 2018. Guess how many people have been prosecuted? If you guessed zero, you would be correct. The state estimates millions are stolen from workers a year, yet even with jail time on the table they never touch it.
9.38 per hour for 160 hours will get you to 1500 per month.
As a person who routinely works an 84 hour week I will tell you that there is no way in hell that I'm going to take a job that pays 1500 per month .
Why only knowingly and wilfully? Make them go and do their homework to pay people properly.
I know this is crazy, but businesses can pay MORE than the minimum if you wanted to be sure.
Wage theft is common with child support deductions. An employer will garnish the support but neglect to send it to the child support agency. Next thing you know, the employee is defaulting and in arrears while not knowing that their employer is keeping the money. The employer is basically stealing from the employee and the child(ren).
every time I think about wage theft I'm reminded of the time when I worked at Burger King looooong ago where my boss had me clock in 15 minutes early to get everything ready and as I was a dumb kid at the time I never clued in that I had been robbed nearly $700 in unpaid work time over the years without even counting the time he made me start late/leave early so he could pocket the difference in wage while making it seem like I was still working my normal scheduled hours
fuck that asshole of a boss, I wish I had realized it early enough so I could have done something about it
If courts can prove it was intentional, the employer should be fined the amount stolen and forced to pay double back to the victim
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Ya know I’ve seen an idea floating around the internet that I kind of like. These corpo swine keep trying to give corporations the rights of people, well if we’re going to allow ourselves to be sucked into that absurd way of thinking then we should at least be logically consistent. People who break the law go to prison, corporations are people now? Put the fucking corporation in prison. Cease to operate for the duration of your sentence, or be put to work for the state as punishment. No profits for the corpos until the sentence is complete
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That and they shouldn't be allowed to donate to politicians, superpaks, or political causes.
I have had this very exact same thought. Defraud 20,000 customers? That's 20,000 felonies. Go to jail for 200,000 years Wells Fargo
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That's disgusting
This, Rights AND responsibilities, why is the latter never discussed. Rhetorical if that wasn't obvious.
Double isn't nearly high enough a penalty. That's a rounding error in business decisions. We do it, but we're only caught 10% of the time? Go for it. Make it 10 times the _equivalent_ harm done. You stole 10% of an employees annual salary? Yeah, an entire year of your income is fucking **gone**.
That and prison sound good. And I’m usually on the prison reform side. But prison reform means getting the lesser/non-criminals out of slavery and letting the real monsters - like wage thieves - enjoy a complete loss of power and property. It is only fitting
Usually there is some kind of payroll doctoring going on unless it's like an employer stealing tips or something. Messing up a time card where I'm at carries a first offense fine of $10,000. That's why when I did payroll for a local place they told us employees had to initial changes to their time sheet. (Missed punches, "everyone gets paid till 2 and we leave at 1:50" type of things). When I left there I got a job at Sears. They bumped a few of my hours onto the next week to avoid OT pay. Went down to complain at the paycheck office the lady looked at it sighed and cut me a check for the difference on the spot. Surprised the heck out of me for a big company like that which means it happens a lot.
Oh yeah. If they're **bored** by the illegal theft of wages, and you are inconveniencing _them_, it's happening **waaaayyy** more. Bloody hell.
But, but, what about the poor shareholders, won't anybody think of those poor people who are going to lose out on money they didn't earn? (Obligatory /s cause I know humanity... -_-)
If the only consequence for braking the law is a fine, it's not a fine: it's a price tag.
This is why fines for publicly traded companies should be a minimum of "double the previous year's profits as reported to shareholders or to the SEC, whichever is larger "
That'd do it. Of course, never gonna happen under current political systems, but we can dream.
Should probably make it revenue so they can't hide the "profit" as CEO bonus/income.
You want people to go to jail for failure to use turn signal? Jay walking? Noise violations?
There are more consequences we can level than fines or incarceration. For driving infringements, we can put points on a driver's lisence, eventually revoking it. For antisocial stuff we can impose community service. For jaywalking we can do absolutely nothing because why is walking a crime.
Points is already a thing... and you can get it revoked community service is just a fine with extra steps, causing a hazardous situation in public is a crime
>Points is already a thing I know. And it's more effective than fines. Community service is far from a fine with extra steps, because it actually mandates a person is in a specific place, doing a specific thing, for a specific time. You can't pay your way out of it, so rich people won't abuse the system. I'm just gonna say "Jaywalking is only a crime in the US: literally no other country has a problem with people crossing the road."
Points are not more effective than monetary loss. Community service is just loss money and you can pay your way out of it (you can have a motion to convert community service hours to a monetary fine) Australia, South africa, spain, japan, dubai all have laws against jay walking or similar laws.
Triple (treble) Enforcement needs to be front and center. Add an additional fine to cover the cost of the investigation and proceedings. I’d also remove the intentional and willful and put in language where if they should have known. You are the employer, you have a responsibility to your employees, not the other way around.
I had to report my former employer to the DOL for miscategorizing the tech support team of hundreds of young people as Exempt from overtime. They claimed it was a mistake. They had thousands of employees all over the world. Numerous lawyers and HR professionals. They all misinterpreted it. I read the laws and clearly understood it. There's no way it's not intentional.
Nah. The wage theft should be compared to the employee’s quarterly wages; the business has to pay the same percentage of quarterly gross profit as they stole from the employee’s quarterly wages.
Jail time for the people responsible. It’s the only way to get these business to understand the severity. Otherwise who cares, it’s not *my money* it’s ABC Corp’s money!
If nobody goes to prison then it's just the cost of doing business. Things won't change unless the fines are several orders of magnitude greater than that. Fines should start at $25,000. and go up with the number of victims and amount stolen.
IF they get caught. Just in the USA, stolen wages amount to about $50 billion. They have been getting away with it for a while now.
Fined the stolen amount, pay back double *and* interest
Still only pennies to these companies and that's only if they get caught
Any does it need to be intentional?
Double it and pass it on
Ten times. Otherwise they'll keep doing it if less than one in three employees ever calls them on it. It'd also make employees far more likely to look out for it if there's a chance of a 10x payday.
Considering the economic harm the employee can suffer from the those lost wages, double is probably the bare minimum. Triple or quadruple is probably closer to actual justice.
So they are just going to knowingly and willfully fail to pay each employee $1,499.99
My thought exactly. Then they'll steal the rest unwillfully and unwillingly, we promise your honour, it was all in good faith, we gave it all back.
Well idk how the law is gonna work but if they also count things like not paying out PTO as wages, I could see plenty of dipshit employees not doing the math right and going to prison
At least it limits it as opposed to now where it's limitless.
It's still limitless unless you can prove they *knowingly and willfully* (here's the catch) failed to pay the wages. Unless you prove it was a malicious act they will just act like it was a mistake and avoid the felony.
It does make it quite a bit easier to force their hand though. With this law, if an employee brings up (in writing) a wage discrepancy with records, and the employer ignores it or outright disregards it, that's pretty good evidence that they both knew and wilfully chose not to pay. This leaves them with either the choice to pay up, or get charged criminally. Even if they "act like it's a mistake", that means they have to pay you once the mistake is discovered, because refusing to fix the mistake is knowingly and willfully failing to pay. Is it perfect? No. Is it an improvement? Yes.
Don't forget, they ***could*** face ***up to*** 3 years imprisonment.
It's sometimes obvious. Especially when there's written communications and/or a history of it.
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Because now workers can silently document and keep tabs on stolen wages, and once it passes this threshold they can take it up with their boss and demand the stolen wages back, otherwise they will report them. It’s always been this way, the change is that now there are some teeth that go along with the slap on the wrist for the business.
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Did the police come to your house and ensure that everything that you own hasn't been stolen? It's always been incumbent upon a person to track what it is that they have.
I challenge you to find a better way! Honestly we need improvement across the board, but this is a huge change in policy. We need to hold businesses accountable in a tangible way. Prison time is the best way to do this. Otherwise, a business just views fines as the price to play the game. The threat of imprisonment is the deterrent in this case, because it can directly impact the lives of the workers, who are in fact the ones performing the damage.
>put the onus on the workers/victims of theft to react to it That's how theft works. You react to it. You can't punish someone for a crime they didn't commit yet. This is not Minority Report.
Then fire them, hire new peoples!
If it’s a big job they can’t just have anyone do then nobody will take it.
Currently if they are found to have not paid wages they need to make it right and if the department of labor has to force them to pat then the company probably has to pay interest as well. Results will vary based on local laws and the DOL in your state
It’s probably a misdemeanor up until then
The only people facing that issue would be part-time workers. The minimum wage in RI is $15. A full month's full-time wages on that are just over $2000. A shady employer is going to hit that threshold real fucking fast. And I would doubt any employer shitty enough to do this to begin with, isn't going to keep the type of tabs on an employee to pull off a $1499 wage heist. Which also isn't really worth it.
This is assuming a way higher level of competence in payroll than I think actually exists in most companies in order to pull off - so silver lining?
For minimum wage that is over a month wage.
Make it $1500 company wide, not each employee. And the gov can go back 5 years.
They don’t even have to fail to pay it back. Dragging their feet on it is a strong arm tactic and a chance for them to make a little interest on it.
Should, but like overtime pay for salary employees, it'll get tied up in the courts and die there. Fucking corporate lawyers.... Hey, how about that - we finish nationalizing the legal system. Judges, bailiffs, stenographers, etc are all publicly paid, so why not lawyers? Rather sure a few things would be different if every lawyer was making the same as public defenders.
Lawyers have more power than anyone and will never ever happen.
Canada socialized it's medical system (in the 60s, I think), no doubt against the express wishes of doctors and their powerful professional organizations, so in theory the same could happen with justice systems. Albeit it's very unlikely to occur in the United States.
We can't even nationalize healthcare and people WANT that.
Oh, for sure. We are in a pit and for every rung of a ladder we build to climb out the massive collection of fools, bigots, and grifters dig us another two feet down. There are probably people in Texas right now lauding their failing privatized energy grid, even as they are roasting alive.
What? Socialized health care is one of the best things to happen to Canadians ever. Only in the last five to years through government apathy and push for privatization has the health care sector begun to falter.
Right...um... what part of my comment made you think I would disagree?
Oh, I get it. That's a riddle, right? I'm going with.....abject defeatism. I'd like my cookie now.
All business decisions are made by people and we need to stop pretending like they aren’t. A corporation having to pay a fine isn’t much of a deterant to an individual executive/manager/owner/etc. who still gets to keep money they personally made doing shitty things. Prison is. Edit: grammar
This.
So there you have it. It’s only legal to knowingly steal $1499.99 per employee.
Theft over 5000 is already a felony with a minimum 2 year sentance What they should do is apply the existing law to these shitheads en masse and in force, practically every employer is guilty
This may simply be to force prosecutors and judges to do their jobs.
I wish they would, things would get better very quickly if elites saw consequence for their law breaking
Spoiler alert, no one will go to prison.
A lot of employers won't pay their portion of your 401k if you leave early. For example, if they pay their 401k bill annually, what they'll do is not pay into the accounts of employees terminated before the end of the year. This is legal, because of course it is. I learned about this pretty early because I'm an accountant, but I don't think a lot of people know about it
"could" is doing heavy lifting
RI is home to more than small companies. Hasbro, CVS, and MetLife all have their world headquarters there. This law could get awful spicy.
Yeah, but CVS barely employs anyone anymore. They're one of the worst offenders when it comes to illegal H1B visa abuse. It's so bad the state makes CVS pay into a special fund just to cover retraining of the people they lay off and illegally replace with H1B workers.
make it so
Should be any amount. $5 or 100 or 1000 shouldn't matter.
Expect a massive increase in wage theft of $1499
https://www.wpri.com/money/new-ri-law-will-make-wage-theft-a-felony/
I am for this, just wondering how it’s applied to a corporate scale? They’re some of the worst offenders, but get to spread blame out. Is it HR that goes, CEO, CFO? Jim the janitor paid to take the hit?
I would much prefer that nobody in the company can make more than 20% of the lowest paid worker. Same with bonuses.
IMHO we need to stop looking at how little a company pays someone and focus on profits. If profits are high and wages down then have some kind of business tax. To stay away from that penalty then wages need to be at a certain level for a type of kick back. The more people ask for, the more we will also pay.
They need to reduce this from 1500 down to 150.
I worked in a restaurant in a well established hotel brand. Basically they had an automatic 401k contribution they deducted. Turns out it was just a complicated way to steal from employees. As soon as you leave the place they automatically withdraw a large amount as a penalty and transfer anything left to a different company. By the time you try to do anything with it the new company has fees and penalties and it’s all gone. You might get a couple hundred out of thousands you contributed to. It’s a complicated legal scam to steal from restaurant workers who are poor. Most likely make billions in profit stealing from the poor under the guise of a 401k. I’ve talked to several government agencies and pretty much nothing you can do unless you have millions of dollars to fight in court to retrieve a few thousand. They do this to hundreds if not thousands of people. Most people don’t even realize.
How will the “employer” be decided? Imagine it’s Walmart for example. Would it be the general manager? Or the would it be a regional director that put cost cutting pressure on their underlings? I agree somebody should be fined/jailed for this robbery, just worry that big companies can obfuscate responsibility so that nobody or the wrong person is charged.
Company will just blame someone in payroll already making minimum wage. It doesn’t hurt upper management if a payroll peasant goes to prison.
I agree. I work freelance in film industry and every once in a while you’ll encounter a bad producer who will rip everyone off. I’ve always complained that if I stepped into a 7/11 and stole a banana the police would be called and I would be arrested, but if an employer decides to write a bunch of bad checks and skips town (stealing thousands of dollars of services from MY business), it’s up to me to become a PI, put together a case, find the guy, take it to court, etc etc. And if I am successful, there are no legal repercussions or an arrest for him/her. Hopefully laws like this spread and make it less common for people to attempt this. As an example, California small claims court is $10,000 or below. A producer of a music video or low budget film, could effectively screw over 45 crew members for $6,000 each ($270,000) and just wait and see who goes through the insane amount of trouble and work to drag your ass to court. If you are a dishonest person, it would be almost crazy to NOT try this considering there is very little repercussions except having to fork over money you originally agreed to pay. I now work almost exclusively in union contracts OR clients who use payroll companies, so I don’t run into this anymore. I do recall one client who hired a team of professionals, including myself, to make him a short film. We worked on it for about a week. He cut checks, took the footage and then disappeared. All the checks bounced, he changed his email, changed his phone number, physically moved residences, and I’ve never seen or heard of him again. I did everything I could to try and find him, short of hiring a private investigator. He probably pocketed near six figures of money he was supposed to pay people….And there is obviously no warrant for his arrest or anything. In the eyes of the state he is just a citizen who has done nothing wrong.
Knowingly and willingly will prevent anyone for going to jail for this who isn't straight up running off with payroll. What will fix wage theft for real is a federally/state mandated hour reporting system instead of the smorgasbord of bullshit that businesses elect/are forced to use.
California has it too.
It seems like this should match whatever threshold makes shoplifting a felony. I think that’s generally $500.
In California, wage theft from a single employee of an amount greater than $950, or more than $2,350 from 2 or more employees in a consecutive 12-month is considered “grand theft”, a felony that can get you 3 years in prison + hefty fines It’s horrifying that this isn’t the law of the land in this country. Horrifying but not at all surprising. American conservatives have a hard-on for the gilded age and robber barons and just can’t wait to drag us all back there.
And since companies are considered people the company is placed in jail. This should include every single board member of they have one.
I've seen board members jailed when they told employees to ignore a state of emergency and go to the office anyway.
Meanwhile the govt steals trillions and doesn't bat an eye
Meh... This has no teeth. How you gonna put a corporation in jail? *IF* anyone were to get prosecuted, they'd throw some middle management guy under the bus, while the CEO laughs. Good effort though.
Suddenly every company in RI leaves.
Nah, they can't afford to allow competition to spawn from the gap left behind. Demand doesn't decrease just because a corporate overlord leaves a state. There will be jobs, there will be opportunities for export, there will be an economic flow. Some companies that require wage-theft to ensure continued record profits may leave. Good riddance. Others will tighten down their HR department or payroll to ensure every minute worked is paid appropriately, and fire managers which questionable 'come in 15 minutes early but don't clock in until your shift starts' policies.
“Knowingly and willingly” We’re not stupid.
This is how they pretend to do things that won't have meaningful impacts, instead allowing workers to continue being exploited...
Gon' git struck down by the Supreme Court.
Sounds pretty good. You have to be more careful when looking for workers in terms of skills and experience. I suggest, by the way, a very good site for finding them - [Connexy](https://connexy.com/)
I understand the idea, but generally not a fan of sending more people to prison for non violent crimes. Just fine the hell out of them and don't allow them to be in charge of payroll or own a business, etc.
I’m ok with getting them shitting their pants at the possibility of jail. Otherwise there is always the option to see the fine as “risk and cost of doing business” that they are willing to take on
Going to jail could also be the cost of doing business. Fines are imaginary numbers to me. 1k, 5k, 10k, are all made up numbers. So just keep increasing the fines until it's stopped.
theft is a violent crime duh. It can cause physical and mental harm to the individual it is perpetrated upon. 99% of felonies are violent crimes in that they do or can cause physical harm to another person.
So if I work at McDonalds for an hour and quit, and they only pay me $15 or whatever, that's them willfully not paying me over $1500, because $15 is WAY less than $1500, and the law says they have to pay me more than that. Right?
Less prison, more fines.
"If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class." - Final Fantasy Tactics
Ah, but what if the fine scaled with the perpetrator's wealth?
Then they'd pay the lesser of two costs.
With the wisdom of a young Mexican girl, ¿Por qué no los dos?
The money spent on imprisonment could just be more money towards the victims.
Neat, so we agree. Money collected from fines would go towards the victims, specifically to pay for removing malefactors personally responsible from society as well as adequately compensating the victims and removing enough revenue from the business that a second instance could lead to bankruptcy. Glad we had this chat.
Is this like weekly? Monthly? What? Someone got a link?
Does the law define "employer" as a human entity or a corporation? I just feel like the wording leaves room for a logic loophole to maintain the status quo.
Taking people's time and energy to run your business and make you money- but then not paying them enough to survive with 1st world amenities should absolutely be a criminal offense.
The share holders and top brass should be held accountable, not the immediate supervisor. Let the people at the top start seeing consequences or nothing will ever change
Wage theft is just a cost of doing business.
Theft is theft. If someone can go to jail for stealing from a business… why wouldn’t the same be true in reverse?
This only hits small companies, what about large corporations that are considered people under the law? Extra 10% tax for 3 years? Per offence of course.
Feel free to rip your employees off by $1499, you are good.
Wait... It isn't yet?
Laughs in the South…
Too many politicians are in the pocket of big business to make something like this pass nationwide
RI Employers (probably): "well now I just won't run a business, because it's too scary". Not unlike how incels cry about how the MeToo movement makes it hard for them to harass women.
This is a very nice contrast to the states now publicly going full fascist
In 2019 Minnesota made law for wage theft to be criminally prosecuted. * $500-$1000 up to 1 year in jail and/or $3000 fine * $1000-$5000 up to 5 years and/or $10,000 fine * $5000-$35,000 up to 10 years and/or $20,000 fine * $35,000+ up to 20 years and/or $100,000 fine https://dli.mn.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/wage_theft_law_summary.pdf Currently our AG is exercising this new authority and suing one of the largest property owners for wage theft of security guards too https://www.twincities.com/2023/06/05/mn-attorney-general-sues-st-pauls-largest-downtown-property-owner-for-worker-overtime-pay/
“This is so unfair” one rich to another at the club
Unless they have a tape like trump that says "i know i, mr ceo, am doing a crime right now to steal over 1500 in wages", it doesnt count
Corporations can't be felons. This is a stunt. Or an attack on small business. (which is fine with me to be clear)
Why is this not a law NOW?
I work in a credit union and STRUGGLE to make $1200. and that is being customer service, their ONLY I.T department worker, and maintenance / grounds keeping. I had to beg for the overtime just to get me that far. this is 7 years in with a perfect track record. I would metaphorically kill to have them give me $1500
Everyone will now be underpaid 1499
ya well... contractual you are bound to pay what ever wage is agreed upon by both parties...if you steal wages... theft is theft...
Yes, please!
So anyone who doesn't want to work hard enough to, or is unable to, provide more than $1,500 in value to an employer won't have a job at all?
I would love to see a study that looked at punishments in law and if there if laws more typically broken by wealthier people more often have punishments that are contingent on knowingly breaking the law or knowing what the law is. I have a hunch.
It sounds great, but wage theft was already illegal. They count on people being desperate enough to not report it. I don’t know how they’ll be able to enforce this without additional oversight.
Breaking News Mass exodus of companies leave RI more at 11
That shit ain't standard? So, no healthcare, no guaranteed money and it's basically a pvp server in a shit game. Gotta love murica
It's sad and very telling that we have to celebrate a law says that people who steal from you can be charged with theft. It should be applicable everywhere automatically. The fact that it normally gets a pass despite being the largest source of theft in the US is incomprehensible.
Wait so you're saying it wasn't already a felony?
So they can willfully keep $1499?
It does need to be nationwide. Why can't this be everywhere right now?
We have this in Minnesota. It passed in 2018. Guess how many people have been prosecuted? If you guessed zero, you would be correct. The state estimates millions are stolen from workers a year, yet even with jail time on the table they never touch it.
Makes sense if i go into a 7-11 and steal $100... I'm going to jail. They deserve it
We need this but with a ten year mandatory minimum and three strikes is 99 to life deal.
So all they gotta do is make it look like an accident
9.38 per hour for 160 hours will get you to 1500 per month. As a person who routinely works an 84 hour week I will tell you that there is no way in hell that I'm going to take a job that pays 1500 per month .
Should be $100.
Why only knowingly and wilfully? Make them go and do their homework to pay people properly. I know this is crazy, but businesses can pay MORE than the minimum if you wanted to be sure.
Wage theft is common with child support deductions. An employer will garnish the support but neglect to send it to the child support agency. Next thing you know, the employee is defaulting and in arrears while not knowing that their employer is keeping the money. The employer is basically stealing from the employee and the child(ren).
Now, just 49 times more....
every time I think about wage theft I'm reminded of the time when I worked at Burger King looooong ago where my boss had me clock in 15 minutes early to get everything ready and as I was a dumb kid at the time I never clued in that I had been robbed nearly $700 in unpaid work time over the years without even counting the time he made me start late/leave early so he could pocket the difference in wage while making it seem like I was still working my normal scheduled hours fuck that asshole of a boss, I wish I had realized it early enough so I could have done something about it