44 Comments

Good report. Too bad wage theft policy was set up to fail and likely will stay the way it is, but articles like these can help. The removal of inspectors in all types of Commerce and industry has generally not served the public interest.

Keep pressing. The only way to effect change is to flip a high beam on the problem. You have great headlights here on PI.

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founding

Oh, is this kind of reporting ever needed! What a world of hopelessness and despair. Hey, Joe Biden, the victims of this abuse of low level, lowly paid workers would hardly be excited to vote for anyone. So, here's a cause our sitting president should take up immediately and with appointments to the DOL and quick hiring of labor inspectors.

By the way, I can't think of anyone sharp enough in speech and comprehension to deliver this news other than Elizabeth Warren (or Katie Porter). This crime being suffered by our under class must be dramatically explained and dealt with now,

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This is a stunning report, Judd, and as usual, it concerns an issue that has been right under our noses for years. Where to begin to resolve it? Labor law, one assumes, which at the moment, is stymied by our political dysfunction. I hope that the Substack community picks up the thread and takes it from here. Keep up the excellent work.

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I work retail. The rise in automated scheduling means an algothrim is deciding how many people are working per day, and how many hours per day, without a human really taking a close look, in a definite shift to cutting hours in general.

We haven't worked an 8 hour shift in several years. Even during Christmas, the most we worked was 7.50 hours, deliberately (if you are scheduled for 8 you might go into overtime, so if you schedule under you basically get the same amount of work out of me, but no chance of going over). Most shifts in my department are now 5-6 hours, since business is slow. This not only affects our paycheck, but those who get insurance through the company are at risk of losing insurance if they don't work enough hours. A co worker asked me to trade shifts, the resulting change left her several hours shorter because my shift was 5 hours while hers was 7. She will need to find a way to work 2 more hours, probably by skipping a lunch break for 2 days. Another co worker noticed that if she had been scheduled 30 minutes longer, she would have been entitled to a 1 hour lunch break. Instead, she got got 15 minutes. Of course, it's deliberate.

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founding

Thank you for the timely and welcome article. The only item and I may have missed it is the. Website is business centered, not customer centered. You have to search each company by name first. An employee should be able to enter their name and then search. Companies change names, hide behind other names, etc.

This DOL website is not good enough.

Thank you for bringing this to light.

Bill

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trickle down economy is just yellow rain... this is just so appalling

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The Minnesota Reformer reports <https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/01/08/minnesota-dairy-farm-faces-3-million-wage-theft-lawsuit-involving-hundreds-of-workers/> that MN Attorney General Keith Ellison announced one of the largest wage theft suits in the state's history: the theft from hundreds of immigrant workers by Evergreen Acres Dairy. The announcement cited horrendous conditions, blatant wage theft, threats of violence, and more. From the article:

"The dairy farm, owned by Keith Schaefer and his daughter Megan Hill, regularly shaved 12 to 32 hours from each two week paycheck and did not pay overtime premiums, Ellison said. Workers also said they weren’t paid for the first two weeks they worked and never received their final paychecks.

"In an attempt to hide its violations, Evergreen Acres Dairy did not keep employment records required by law, destroyed timecards and falsified records, according to the complaint. …

"Some employees who worked 12-hour day shifts shared the same bed with others who worked 12-hour night shifts, and they had their wages automatically deducted for rent.

"Workers lived in garages, barns and other buildings unfit for human habitation. Some lived with bedrooms and bathrooms covered in mold, while others didn’t even have toilets. …

"Schaefer allegedly threatened to kill one employee and reminded the workers of a dog he recently killed while he told other employees — many of whom are undocumented immigrants — that he would call the police on them.

“'This isn’t some dystopian fiction. This isn’t ‘The Jungle’ describing the meatpacking industry 100 years ago in Chicago. This is Minnesota. This is Minnesota right now,' Ellison said."

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Jan 9·edited Jan 10

Business loves dereuglation. All those pesky regulations that prevent business from booming. That's what some would tell you.

But there is great value in regulating commerce and putting limits on the rapaciousness of capitalism in it's wild state.

Because in the famous words of David Bowie: "It's a criminal world."

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Great reporting!

During the summers of the early 1970s, I worked in fast food, and it was a spoken understatement that you punched out at 37 hours to remain part-time (aka "no benefits") and continued working. Managers were salaried; I remember a first level manager saying he worked 108 hours in a week. Back then, there were several applicants for each job, so if you pushed back, you got fired.

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Thank you, Judd and Tesnim. Biden could vigorously pursue minimum wage, family leave policy, wage theft, and many other issues to win over working voters.

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This is interesting timing. Last night our local Minneapolis MN News station reported that the MNAG is filing a wage theft suit against a MN dairy farm for stealing millions from workers. https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/minnesotas-attorney-general-to-announce-action-on-wage-theft-enforcement-during-monday-event/

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If this amount is what is said to be owed workers, the true amount is surely much larger by omission or commission. As Lincoln commented, a mouse hole bears looking into. Repayment is not enough; prospective change is also required, but if Congress had not addressed this tip versus hourly rate in decades, it will not do so with current majority.

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From a political perspective, this is a tricky fight. Republicans will perceive and twist any attack against wage theft as an attack against small business. Absolutely, government needs to take action. Just get and stay out in front of any right wing misinformation.

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Thank you for this eye opening data!

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This is one reason employers love immigrants. Indentured servitude is profitable

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Thanks for this reporting Team PO. Unfortunately, the larger issue, that Capitalism is inherently corrupt—profit is wage theft, cannot be discussed. Capitalism is the umbrella under which Slavery, and general population control, exits. We do not need to look just at Marx-Engels for proof, Sheldon Wolin’s idea’s on “inverted totalitarianism”, and Elizabeth Anderson’s lecture series and book “Private Government” are contemporary examples showing how our economic system, Capitalism, removes any real democratic structure. Most of us work, or used to, an 8 hour day, which realistically means 10 with travel to and fro. In that ten hour shift we are governed by the rules of our employers. So, 10 plus 8, being generous, for sleep, leaves 6 hours for ourselves. Now, technological advances have furthered our submission via social control mechanisms like Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Stories abound on how employers monitor our feeds for any behavior that they may deem detrimental to the company.

Thatcher’s proclamation, “There is no alternative”, was more of a command, at best an opinion, but not fact.

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