Wage theft is disturbingly routine.
By
No matter how small the
haul, a thief is a thief, right?
If a poverty-wage
fast-food worker sneaks out a couple of burgers to take home to the kids, the
bosses yell: “Thief!”
But what do you call it
when the bosses steal from those same workers? How about outrageous, disgusting
— or simply unbelievable? Well, believe it or not, it’s happening every day in
multiple ways, and not by a few bad apples, but in what has become routine
corporate practice by McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s, and other hugely
profitable giants.
Technically this
shortchanging is called “wage theft.”
Come on — isn’t it
shameful enough that these global behemoths pay rock-bottom wages without them
circling back like low-life pickpockets to steal from their own employees? This
isn’t just corporate thievery, it’s thuggery.
How low can fast-food
greed go? So low that the top bosses at headquarters play a sleazy game of hide
and seek, pretending that they have nothing to do with this ripoff. Personnel
practices, they airily claim, are left to local franchisees, who are
“independent business owners.” Bovine excrement!
Corporate central dictates how
much mustard each franchise can put on a bun, so to think that it doesn’t
monitor every dime in payroll is a ludicrous lie.
In a recent survey of
fast-food workers, 9 out of 10 said they’ve had wages stolen by their bosses. This thievery
has become business as usual, and it’s worse than shameful – it’s slimy. For
more information, go to the National Employment Law Project: www.nelp.org.
EDITOR'S NOTE: in Rhode Island, the leading organization fighting wage theft is Fuerza Laboral. Click here to find out more about them, and even better, to support them, as I do. - wc
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator,
writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The
Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org