Combating Wage Theft

[billyoc]

It is great to see Kim Bobo's book on wage theft drawing attention on TPMCafe and elsewhere. It is outrageous that millions of workers have their earnings stolen from them by their employers. Hopefully, this book will help to ensure that enforcement is stepped up so that this practice is brought to an end.

However, one aspect to this issue has intrigued me. Wage theft is often seen as an issue of regulation. The idea is that we need an effective regulator at the Labor Department to ensure that employers do not steal wages from their workers.

This is intriguing because there is no reason to view this as a question of regulation: it is a question of law enforcement. Would anyone call the prevention of shoplifting a problem of regulation? How about the prevention of bank robbery?

In these cases everyone clearly recognizes the problem as one of law enforcement. We want the police to arrest people who shoplift from stores or rob banks. It's very simple. But, when it comes to employers who steal wages from their workers we want the government to "regulate" so that this does not happen.

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http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/combating-wage-theft/

[ThomCat]

1. You're right. The discrepancy is definitely a serious class issue.

Employers are usually significantly higher in social status and wealth than their employees. Oh No! You don't call the police on rich people. :eyes:

And if you work for a corporation, well, corporations are basically above the law. There is nothing the police can do.

It would be nice if you could call the police and have them arrest the people who are stealing workers' wages. But would they bother to listen to a mere employee against an employer?