Wage theft, or holding back, delaying or not paying wages due employees has grown to a crisis level, yet most of us are unaware it exists. Wage theft is one of the most solvable crimes committed, yet this widespread but silent crime perpetrated by corrupt employers is deepening the economic recession. Examples include employers paying workers less than minimum wage, changing hours on time and attendance records, not paying overtime hours or rate, or not pay a departing employee’s final paycheck.
Kim Bobo, Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org) Executive Director and author of “Wage Theft in America” states that wage theft is a national crisis that is continuing to grow, and it’s not just a small problem in a few mom and pop companies. She states that wage theft is found in some of the largest and most recognizable companies such as Walmart, Cyntas, Home Depot and even Target. The video below is an important description of this very real threat to our economy. Unlike the banking crisis or gas price increases, wage theft can be solved and in doing so can be part of the solution to the current recession.
Current Unemployment
In the midst of this wage theft crisis people are finding themselves increasingly out of work. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics continually reports a bleak unemployment picture:
“Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 345,000 in May [2009], about half the average monthly decline for the prior 6 months. The unemployment rate continued to rise, increasing from 8.9 to 9.4 percent. Steep job losses continued in manufacturing, while declines moderated in construction and several service-providing industries.”
The national rate of unemployment rate has gone from 4.4% to 9.4% in just over two years, rising 25 out of the last 27 months.
Having worked in the school system for over 18 years, I have seen it all when it comes to employees trying to increase their hours. I learned over the years that employees highly intent on doing this get very creative. Yes, it is stealing indeed. You are not actually taking a physical item away from the job site, but you are stealing from the company’s profits. In the long term, this will eventually cause both the company and employees problems in the form of less raises and bonuses.
We always used a spreadsheet type time sheet that had our name and title on it. Each employee had to make sure that the actual time they entered the building was put on this time and attendance sheet as well as the actual time left. There was even an employee time tracking chart for when we left the building for errands or emergencies. This meant that our poor payroll clerk had to keep up with two employee time and attendance tracking spreadsheets. Read the rest of this entry »
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Need to increase profits in your business? Here are six ways to increase profits that are designed to push your thinking by expanding upon proven best practices. Any one of these ideas can immediately improve your bottom line. Read the rest of this entry »
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If you own a small business you know the greatest expense is often payroll. Payroll and tallying up time and attendance hours is also one of the greatest sources of disagreements with employees. If you use a punch clock or electronic time clock such as those you can get from office supply stores, someone has to add up the hours at the end of the week. This always causes errors — always. Read the rest of this entry »
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Last night John Stewart of The Daily Show skewered the show-proclaimed “face” of recent finance company collapse that are the main cause of our economic woes. He accused Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money of knowing how to manipulate stocks and markets and that finance companies were overleveraged using pension fund, 401K and other investments intended to be long-term in nature as casino chips. Read the rest of this entry »
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Without time keeping software businesses and organizations are at the mercy of memory and old-fashioned employee punch clocks and paper time cards. At the end of every pay period, the time cards must be gathered, read and the time amounts totaled to determine how much to pay each employee. This method of tracking employees, attendees or participants in other organizations has been around for decades and a surprising number of businesses still do not take advantage of software time keeping (some spell it as “software timekeeping“). Read the rest of this entry »
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