When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic That’s Sweeping America‏

Most companies and organizations skim and are run by high level management who do what it takes to maintain and increase their salary and bonus.

All the organizations keep any financial info about the top people above top secret so they don't get mad and have thoughts like you posted.

I think we'll see more as the inflation goes up and dollar goes down, and the unemployment goes up and the standard of living is reduced further.

Its threads like this that make me wonder what the point of working is

On the one hand you have those that say "Dont like it? Leave your job/Set up your own business/learn a trade" - Like this simplistic answer has escaped everyone. The mindset is basically "Dont complain, feel lucky to have a job, even though its not bringing you anything in life"

On the other is just your average person asking the same question as me, why oh why should i spend my life working for NOTHING?

If you'll never own anything, cant raise a family, cant afford to see the world, cant educate yourself, cant live a simplistic life at peace then what really is the incentive to bust your arse for some big-time boss?

reply to post by ttobban


Fairness rarely comes into play in the real world. One of my old roommates is a transmission guy for a local car dealer, and a few other friends are also mechanics. I'm familiar with the type of story you have laid out.
Some of my friends have decided to change careers, some have started their own shops, some have stayed where they are.
At least around here, if I include places like tire stores and smog check stations, there's well over 50 auto shops in a 10 mile radius.

The employers can attempt to change pay or times needed to do a job. But they can do that if you're working hourly too. My last "full time job" tried to do that to me. I told them no, and they let me go. Now I work far less being self employed for about the same pay..

reply to post by proteus33


I live in the US of A. I'm self employed but I contract with local companies when I have the time, and they need the help. When working as a laborer, I would prefer to get paid for the job, not the hour.
What you are forgetting is that no one is forcing you to take work that you do not agree with.

reply to post by randomtangentsrme


It's a dog eat dog world... I fully understand that. It should hit home with people that sometimes money should not be put as a priority over happiness. We shouldn't let these issues arise... all for material objects of which usually have no real meaning in life anyway. It's the very reason I took on a career as a CNC machinst... to change what I didn't like. The new career is only a hold over until I am able to start my own companies, much like yourself. Maybe I can help reverse these money grubbing trends by employing people who might care about what they do, more than how much they are doing it for?

I can only hope that you are an employer that puts people before the bottom line dollar in your endeavors. I will certainly be starting my companies with motivations of employees being put as a priority over the customers.

Originally posted by ttobban
reply to post by randomtangentsrme

 

It's a dog eat dog world... I fully understand that. It should hit home with people that sometimes money should not be put as a priority over happiness. We shouldn't let these issues arise... all for material objects of which usually have no real meaning in life anyway. It's the very reason I took on a career as a CNC machinst... to change what I didn't like. The new career is only a hold over until I am able to start my own companies, much like yourself. Maybe I can help reverse these money grubbing trends by employing people who might care about what they do, more than how much they are doing it for?

Part of the problem with a lot of the pay issues today are because companies want their employees to care more about the job then what it pays.
I see it all the time in my industry (performing arts), performers working for free or low cost, in some cases even being required to pay to be in the performance. They are reminded constantly, that they should be doing this for the love of the art.

I can only hope that you are an employer that puts people before the bottom line dollar in your endeavors. I will certainly be starting my companies with motivations of employees being put as a priority over the customers.

When I hire people, it is for a mutually agreed sum, which is usually negotiated before I bid a job.

You should never prioritize anything over customers if you want a company to last.

double post

reply to post by stirling


I actually feel the same way, as I worked in a job similar to what OP described. Yes, loading packages is a tough job, and even though I thought I was getting enough money, It actually wasn't.

Originally posted by stirling
Maybe you have a decent job phage.
Countless other people are getting screwed by being hired part time instead of full time. they merely hire twice the staff they need and screw the workers for their full time benefits.
Sometimes i wonder for all your knowledgeable pronouncements if your head is really screwed on straight.
The gains that the unions have won over the decades have all mostly been clawed back in innovative ways by the greedy companies.

The unions pretty much screwed themselves. When unions become a parasite on the business that eventually drives the business under and will not cooperate in any way even to save their own jobs it is time for them to leave.

On the other hand, if companies are going to act irresponsibly there will eventually come a reckoning and unions will once again be needed and will contribute to society instead of just being a parasite that kills the entity.

You speak of the greed of companies and yet unions are rife with it. Tales (I have a few personal ones of my own) abound concerning union greed and abusing their own members. For instance, there is or was (havent followed their activities in some time) a paperworker's union that was infamous for collecting dues and then calling for a strike...soon as they would have to start forking over money to the members they would suddenly come to an agreement with the company, often for less than what was offered immediately before the strike.

I have had enough contact with unions of the negative kind that I do not want anything to do with them and will never trust them again. This is from a career of 40 years. I have been involved in the attempted unionization of 2 plants where the union lied so badly that all the company had to do was to produce the union contracts from surrounding facilities and let the employees read them. The lies were bad enough to result in lopsided votes that were so badly non-union that one wonders why they would ever show their face at the facility....ever..

Regarding the OP, our govt and "representatives" (senators and reps) are just as responsible as anyone for creating conditions that provide positive incentives to commit the atrocities against the common worker that we see.

30 years ago contract labor was a very very minor portion of the US labor picture and was normally used for temporary positions or temporary conditions. Now days, contract labor is just one way to get around Fair Labor Laws....consider this: The loopholes that allow for contract labor excesses are there because they were designed to be there.

They remain there because they were placed there by legislation intentionally. Frankly I blame our govt more than I blame companies or the unions for the current status of affairs, and I really HATE unions.

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by ItsEvolutionBaby

 

You're right on the money, OP. Too tired to post any relevant links, but yes its part of the attack on workers. All handed out in various ways. Should be obvious by now.

So improving productivity is an attack on workers???

Wait until the Obamacare taxes hit businesses this year! You may be begging for that job you complain about today.

We're obviously not interpreting the info the same.
I read "improving productivity" to read cutbacks in staffing.
As I experience every time I go somewhere, or phone for a service, or am recipient of in dealings with cutbacks - explained as "improving productivity".

As I see where you are going, I do not know 'Obamacare' - I do know the US citizens are getting ripped again on it, where ever it comes from.

You may be begging for that job you complain about today.
Where did this talk point come from?

I don't think getting paid for piece work is inherently unethical. Regardless of how many pieces you get paid for, a worker's pay must always be at least equal to minimum wage. This goes for waitstaff as well who typically make just over $3.00/hr plus tips. If their hourly wage plus tips does not work out to be minimum wage for the period (total pay for the pay period plus tip divided by number of hours must equal at least minimum wage) the employer must make up the difference. In fact, the restaurant employer has a choice to either pay $3.00/hr and let the staff keep their tips OR they pay at least minimum wage and keep the tips.

So, no matter what a person whose wages are based on piece work should, by law, never go home with a paycheck that is less than minimum wage based on the number of hours worked in the pay period. This is to ensure that the employer doesn't set an unrealistic rate of pay per piece to get out of paying a fair wage.

However, if your employer is not making up your wages to equal minimum wage because you had a bad week or for whatever reason, THEN that is stealing wages and against labor laws.

If I recall correctly, I think the bigger issue with OPs article was that the worker's in these warehouses were being treated as sub-contractors which meant the minimum wage requirement didn't apply to them. Aside from that, the workers weren't really sub-contractors. Wal Mart may have hired the warehouse as a contractor, but the people working for the contractor were employees, not sub-contractors. In order to be considered an employee there are several criteria that must be met (I'm an accountant and we deal with this all the time with our small business clients looking to get out of paying payroll taxes, etc.). Some of these criteria are that one is considered an employee if they are required to be on-site during a time frame set by the employer, do not get to set their own pay rates/scheduled pay increases, use the employers equipment to get the job done, must attend mandatory meetings, and must adhere to company policy or are reprimanded if they do not. I highly doubt that these warehouse workers were allowed to come and go as they please and set their own pay rates.

Originally posted by SearchLightsInc
Its threads like this that make me wonder what the point of working is

this is exactly what i worry about, constantly. we're pretty lazy to begin with, "give me convenience or give me death" and piling getting ripped off to.. worrying, struggling and knowing you already can't live any anything close to a reasonable life is beyond insanity.

rome elite worried that the slaves and gladiators would revolt, bite the hand that fed and usually always mistreated up to and including physical abuse and that's pretty much exactly where we're at now and really all throughout history really.. the have-nots tending to the haves..

i realize this structure is needed and important but it's ridiculous more so now than ever..

i think all rich people need to watch the movie fight club, well actually just this 20 second clip anyway, apply titled by the way haha...

Not to mention the existance of Temp and Staffing Agencies have built a scattered but organized empire that has diminished the amount of skilled labor here in Ohio.

Mostly Cleveland.

I have worked about at 14 different jobs in the past 2 years from various temp agencies. Each one telling me
that I have a bright future and will be hired in soon.
All the while the company I am working at is hiring people for my job off of the street or replacing me with higher skilled people from past employment that they fired for legitimate reason.

The job I work at now deals in Transformer engineering, and me and the other temps here have a motto.
"The path to acquiring a job here is you have to be fired first!"

I think that Temp agencies and Staffing Agencies should be abolished and stripped of their functions because it is robbing the dedicated worker the ability to strive to exceed, and especially the ability to support oneself.


I mean for Christ's sake I had to take out an $850 payday loan for me and my brother to make rent because we were both laid off from different jobs, and I am the only one with decent enough credit to do so. Thank God for that!

Thank Staffing Agencies for invading my behind in a financial sense!

Originally posted by RothchildRancor
Not to mention the existance of Temp and Staffing Agencies have built a scattered but organized empire that has diminished the amount of skilled labor here in Ohio.

Mostly Cleveland.

I have worked about at 14 different jobs in the past 2 years from various temp agencies. Each one telling me
that I have a bright future and will be hired in soon.
All the while the company I am working at is hiring people for my job off of the street or replacing me with higher skilled people from past employment that they fired for legitimate reason.

The job I work at now deals in Transformer engineering, and me and the other temps here have a motto.
"The path to acquiring a job here is you have to be fired first!"

I think that Temp agencies and Staffing Agencies should be abolished and stripped of their functions because it is robbing the dedicated worker the ability to strive to exceed, and especially the ability to support oneself.


I mean for Christ's sake I had to take out an $850 payday loan for me and my brother to make rent because we were both laid off from different jobs, and I am the only one with decent enough credit to do so. Thank God for that!

Thank Staffing Agencies for invading my behind in a financial sense!

Temp agency billing: take the hourly wage for the position, and pay 50% more. You end up paying time and a half, or OT wages for temp help.

When I see someone in our company using temp help, i come unglued. It is lazy management. It is costly. If you are going to pay those wages, then pay them to your own employees. Not some untrained yahoo from the temp agency.

If you are doing temp work for a company that doesn't try to not use temps.....be glad they don't hire you. They obviously a) don't value their employees enough to offer them OT at the same cost to them as a temp, and b) are not insightful enough to know it is a stupid decision to employ temps, and are lazy enough to not hire full time employees. That is a business that is going nowhere fast.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Why not train that temp so they can become among the employees that deserve said wages.

You gotta feel for the temp because they go through the entire training process a normal employee does that gets hired in after 90 days(on average) only they could go years before getting hired in and they generally make less to do the same job.

Let me ask you something, where does the skill to do most jobs come from? Training!

And if an employer wants to offer skilled work to temps without training them properly and paying them less, quality goes down and after 89 days the temp is fired for some made up reason because they don't want to have to pay for unemployment which doesn't happen unless they keep the temp for a certain amount of time.


This is the reason why skilled labor is leaving ohio, and I'm sure it is happening all over the country.

My job won't teach me # because I'm through the temp agency, yet because the company is losing money through lowered quality because of not teaching me better responsibilities, they are losing all of their skilled workers.

Jobs expect that there is always a plethora of skilled workers out there, and keep the lower end jobs for unskilled workers like me and they don't teach. This is why my company in particular has barely any skilled workers for the positions they require. They keep rehiring people they fired for legit reasons.


So for the last time, where do I find the skill to do the job when the company isn't willing to train me?

The answer is, I am currently going to school behind my employer's back for a phlebotomy certificate to get my foot in the healthcare field where jobs are not nearly as scarce, and cross training is encouraged.

6 weeks at around 50 bucks a session which is only an hour on sundays will bring me from making 10 dollars an hour to immediately between 12-14 an hour depending on whether or not I work for a hospital or a tiny healthcare or plasma care center.


Trust me I have a degree in how temp agencies work, and they keep people like me who are willing to grow and learn from doing so, and ensuring that they will never have a career!

Originally posted by RothchildRancor
reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

 

So for the last time, where do I find the skill to do the job when the company isn't willing to train me?

That has been my question since I started working, everyone wants people with training and experience, but no one wants to be the one to supply that training and experience in the first place

The biggest problem is ethics...the ethical treatment of employees by management and of employees of their employer and company... or these days, the lack there of.

Paying team members a good wage and taking a little less profit in exchange for higher productivity, less turnover, employee faithfulness and higher morale, better care of the facility and inventory actually results in a stronger company in the long run.

Instead, companies opt for minimum pay... which results into a non chalant attitude towards maintainance, inventory and facility damage, profits, customer service...etc.

I manage a nationally owned farm supply store... and see it on a daily basis. Always pushing for more, more MORE... and then giving a 13 cent an hour raise at a yearly evealuation.

I want to work and make a living, but my wages match what I made 16 years ago at a different company. I put up with it now, but am in the process of setting up my own business and exiting in smart fashion over the next couple of years. Unfortunately, so many of the people I manage are not able to do so.... especially in this economy.

I am not perfect, but I try to be a stand up guy and usually get myself in trouble interjecting myself into into company decisions that impact my team members... And as a manager that lives in the same community as my employees, I care about them. I see their families and children, their husbands and wives. I often piss off my District Manager because we push the envelope on payroll... but my team members need every penny to live on. I bought breakfast for everyone the other day to demonstrate my thanks to all they do. We have a real sense of family and team in our store... looking out for each other.

And what is the result? Number 2 in sales in our district... this results in bonuses for our entire team.

I say these things to not brag, but to illustrate my previous points. A company is only as good as it's employees... treat them right and the company will succeed and prosper... treat them poorly and the company will eventually fall. Idealic and naive, but I believe this.

That is why I do NOT shop Walmart. Yes, they make money... but at what expense. When all of our jobs are gone or of poor quality, who will buy their trinkets and wares?

And when the economic Satan... China... comes to collect on their Mephistopheles economic "deal with the devil," where will there precious CEOs and profits be then?

And if there is an afterlife... and I believe there is... How will these people be judged for how they treated people in the name of a little more profit or an extra click up on the stock market?

It's not Christmas, but Dickens has a lot to say in "A Christmas Carol."

Originally posted by RothchildRancor


Why not train that temp so they can become among the employees that deserve said wages.

You gotta feel for the temp because they go through the entire training process a normal employee does that gets hired in after 90 days(on average) only they could go years before getting hired in and they generally make less to do the same job.

Temps in this area make the same wage. The temp agency bills us "time and a half". Except nursing, where temp nurses make MORE (which pisses my wife off to no end, as she is a nurse). I don't know what temp markets are like elsewhere. They are a foolish business exercise as they are more costly and less reliable typically (due to lack of training and onboarding with company culture).

Let me ask you something, where does the skill to do most jobs come from? Training!

And if an employer wants to offer skilled work to temps without training them properly and paying them less, quality goes down and after 89 days the temp is fired for some made up reason because they don't want to have to pay for unemployment which doesn't happen unless they keep the temp for a certain amount of time.

Yeah....this isn't like that in Texas. In Texas unemployment is determined off of earnings from the prior year. Even if they only work there for 2 weeks.

This is the reason why skilled labor is leaving ohio, and I'm sure it is happening all over the country.

My job won't teach me # because I'm through the temp agency, yet because the company is losing money through lowered quality because of not teaching me better responsibilities, they are losing all of their skilled workers.

Sounds like your company is not going to last. Seriously....if what you say is true and widespread enough it is a drain on the company culture. Even if it isn't widespread, it is indicative of problems on a far, far deeper level than just "labor management".

So for the last time, where do I find the skill to do the job when the company isn't willing to train me?

The answer is, I am currently going to school behind my employer's back for a phlebotomy certificate to get my foot in the healthcare field where jobs are not nearly as scarce, and cross training is encouraged.

6 weeks at around 50 bucks a session which is only an hour on sundays will bring me from making 10 dollars an hour to immediately between 12-14 an hour depending on whether or not I work for a hospital or a tiny healthcare or plasma care center.


Trust me I have a degree in how temp agencies work, and they keep people like me who are willing to grow and learn from doing so, and ensuring that they will never have a career!

Know how I got my training? Self taught. Of course, that doesn't work in the medical field where you require licensing. But in other businesses? Well...like i said....i am essentially a CFO. I have no college degree. No connection (i come from poor oilfield trash, like most of us around here).

But not everyone has those same skills and opportunities. Not saying that. Just saying that, from someone who has done it themselves....it IS possible.

But (for what its worth), I don't think Ohio is the place to do that. Down here in Texas we have an economy that is literally booming, and about to absolutely go nuts (look up Cline Shale and "gas to liquid" or "GTL" technology).

I gotta say its your own fault. You make little money and instead of saving that little money putting it towards reiterment, healthcare and the like, you buy that iphone anyway or go shopping on black friday, because after all you save on that flat screen tv, so its a save or eat take out food.

Quit giving money to the S&P500 (where you can) and when they see that their income dries up or is less, it will be people with some pull lobbying for measures.

Right now you are in the poop, you give your money to those whom put you there anyhow, why should they care then.