We are just finding out about a child sex trafficking ring involving politicians and billionaires, the world’s richest man does a Nazi salute at a political rally, and the President being an adjudicated sex criminal is probably not the worst thing he has done…
Meanwhile I’m standing here in the checkout line feeling guilty about whether or not I should tip a barista
Something is wrong with our collective notion of morality, and my individual understanding (Oh well, here we are)
No, lets be clear wage theft covers a lot of things. Here we are talking about a very specific situation where an employer is clearly violating the FLSA. You can even see it in this thread, so many people dont even believe that its illegal. So they dont even know they can sue for it.
“they’re going to find an arbitrary reason, or better yet write down “I didn’t like that person” because it’s a right to work state and even in non right to work states” nah that does not hold up in court. A judge isnt going to look at an employer getting sued for wage theft and then said oh i guess you just happened to fire this person. Nah thats never goign to hold up. Also yes US labor laws are fucking dogshit but they exist.
They may succeed with the lawsuit, but that job is gone, and it’s gone the moment it’s filed.
The path of least resistance is unionization, and it would accomplish more faster.
Unionization is great but thats a much bigger ask and far less likely to suceed. And risker as the employee can be fired with no protection as soon as they’re found trying to unionize.
I think employees should be trying to unionize as a default and then if they’re the victim of wage theft seek legal recourse.
I can agree with the second part 100%
The first though, the same lack of employee protections against forming a union are the same that will get you canned for bringing a lawsuit.
Being fired for forming a union is a completely different case than committing wage theft then firing your employee for bringing it up.
The end result for the employee is the same. Very likely you and I, and statistically, 99% of the people potentially reading this.
Its not though. The employee is far more likely to win the wage theft case than the union firing case and I just think its wrong to try and dissuade people from fighting this issue. Its actively harmful to people to push that kind of a narrative.
I’m not dissuading anyone. Just laying our real world consequences for doing so. I’ve personally seen very little success with wage theft, the most common form of theft by the longest shot ever, compared with seeing companies unionize like once a month minimum. It helps more people and you’re not just risking it by yourself.
People doing both would be great, but let’s not pretend either will be just peachy.