You know the thing you do between actually living, it is no secret that our workplaces can lead to a lot of frustration for some. Ranting about work is an international past time you could say long hours having to constantly be reachable, burning the midnight oil. There is a good chance most of you have been through this.
We enjoy it until we don’t and all of us have a different threshold but that is not even the point. What have we told you that your company apart from putting you through all of this may also be stealing your wages. Tonight we want to talk about wage theft and we want to tell you how that works. You see companies are governed by labour laws across the world. All countries have such laws and a lot of companies flout them.
The result is wage theft among other things meaning your company is not paying part or all or what you are owed and how do they do it. Well there is something called overtime. I am sure you know this most of us do it. That is when you work beyond your regular shift. When you put in extra hours to complete that presentation or show up early to work for that meeting or work through the weekend for that crucial project it is all overtime. Now the law says you should be paid extra for it usually around double of your normal hourly wages but you get it. That is wage theft. The second example is work breaks or rather the lack of work breaks. How many times have you been at your desk from dawn till dusk with no time for any pause, no time for lunch, no time to go to the washroom. Definitely no time to stretch your legs.
What do you think during those moments?
You think it is just one of those days that you can take a break once that urgent task is complete. By denying you a work break your company is once again committing wage theft because most countries have labour laws that mandate a break. India for example has a law like this. Companies have to give you a 30 minute break during work hours and you cannot work more than five hours straight. That is the law.
Does your company follow it?
Next we look at leave. In other words paid offs.
How many do you get in a year?
Do you end up using all of them?
Do you waste leave even after carry forwards?
Have you had to give up on leave because your team is short staffed or you have been told you are indispensable?
It may sound like you have been given your due recognition but technically you are being robbed because the leaves you were promised in your contract are a form of compensation. And these are just a few examples of wage theft. There are many more. Like not reimbursing expenses or companies making random deductions.
Wage theft comes in a lot of forms and it leaves a huge unseen dent on the economy. I have the numbers in the US for example. Wage theft is estimated at about 50 billion dollars every year, 50 billion annually. That is more than the amounts stolen, bank robberies and shoplifting and credit card fraud, 50 billion of wage theft. It is actually more than all those combined. But wage theft usually goes under the radar.
If you are from India, all these examples of wage theft must sound quite common and most likely you cannot do very much about it. You want to impress your bosses. You do not want to file a labor case against your company that may drag on in courts for years.
So you take it on the chin but just know that your company is stealing from you and when you rise through the ranks perhaps you can try and change the system.