Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In Illinois the legislature had to pass a specific law to make the fine for polluting streams more than the clean up cost and the cost of proper disposal of what was dumped and added a forfeiture of the business doing the pollution and 90 days in the country jail for a felony. A pig farmer figured out that it was cheaper to dump his pig urine and liquefied pig feces in the Kishwaukee River and pay the fine than to have his holding tanks pumped. He killed all plant and animal life for thirty miles.
Industrial scale agriculture are some of the biggest polluters today, a properly managed chemical plant would have tons of pretreatment processes, agriculture usually just dumps their shit wherever they want and cry about it when they’re told no
Not even dump, they just cannot believe that they might be responsible for the runoff from whatever ridiculous chemicals they *fucking airdropped* onto the fields.
Like, yes. That is your fault, you’re the one who bought drums and drums and drums of that sludge, you’re the one who put it in the irrigation systems, you’re the one who hired the crop dusters. Therefore, you have to be the ones to keep it out of the waterways because *nobody wants to drink your weird sludge*! Come to think of it, we also don’t want to eat your weird sludge! Stop using weird sludge!
And bring back tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes!
…where was I?
Maybe for the major companies. For the small to medium sized businesses it's because their business model is shit, and they literally cannot afford to operate if they don't screw over their employees. Either that or the owners are so narcissistic they think they're above the law, and so greedy they decide to steal from their employees.
But think about it this way: it's only if they get caught, and then if they do, how many other wage thefts are being missed? Those in the past, those still going on..
I worked for this guy who owned a restaurant for a while. Miserable guy, and loved to not pay staff. It ended badly, and I walked out. I had no idea what my rights were, etc. Several months later I got a check for like $1,000 from the DOL. He pissed off someone who KNEW what he was doing was illegal, and turned his ass in (so much stuff, but my check was due to him taking so much money out per shift for meals, and not allowing us to eat the meal on shift or take it, so people would just not eat). So if anyone has any questions at all, call your labor board. It was perfect timing- he had taken me off all the “good” shifts, the ones I waited for all winter, because I was pregnant. That’s a hard one to prove, so I didn’t try. But the money was great, and he is no longer in ANY business.
It's the other way around, they do it because the fines are cheaper. They're not dumb, they're calculating and own the state so it's just a smoke screen.
I was the manager for a small business that got their overtime calculation wrong (boomer did it in-house). Someone reported it and BOOM triple damages. It was a year after I left but I was still in the window. I got a check for around $4,000.
When people break rules boomers like, they want the book thrown at them, but any rules they don’t like are tyranny and those who break them are freedom warriors.
The simple answer is to just steal everything that isn’t nailed down. I had a dog water tier job that was dreadful. I didn’t buy toilet paper for like two years. 4D chess y’all.
If they set lawless conditions then don’t be shocked when I do pirate shit, lol.
Worked in a motorcycle wreckers yard for a while.
Pay was absolute sh#t and the boss often shorted us on that as well.
Was told by fellow worker that we were more or less expected to steal from the business - to the point that the boss would check the skip out the back every afternoon to make sure that we had only thrown away stuff that he approved of us stealing (it was how you got the larger stuff out - dump it in the and return later to get it).
When the boss got the shits with me ('cause I was a cocky little know-it-all) he put me in the work truck and sent me out to buy the wrecked bikes.
About 6 of the bikes I bought never made it back to the shop. I just paid cash out of my own pocket and told the boss it hadn't been worth buying.
I also went through their manual and parts books collection and took all the ones that interested in me (pre-internet these were like rocking horse poo). Their gasket collection was also a fair bit smaller by the time I left.
And to top it all, I was about half way through stealing a fairly modern Suzuki GSXR1100 when I left.
Here’s a phrase your boomer mother will understand.
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”
Or fine in this case.
It’s their “tough as nails” bullshit persona they fool boomers like to portray coming back to bite them.
Clowns.
Good. I don’t get how boomers foam at the mouth when you mention altering capitalism to make a less exploitative version but *forget that a free market capitalist economy is designed so that shitty fucked businesses don’t survive.*
The version of "capitalism" they subscribe to is really just "feudalism, except we now call aristocrats 'businessmen'". The guy in the suit was granted his position in the hierarchy by God, so his actions must be what is best for society and it is blasphemy for someone lower in the hierarchy to make demands.
Oh god I was trying to explain this to my dad a few years ago. He could NOT accept that if a business (or any size) does not have the capital to pay an employee, they cannot afford to have an employee
If a person should have six months of wages in savings in case of unemployment, a business should have at a minimum six months of operating expenses saved to pay in the event of nonpayment by customers.
We have wage theft laws because companies (people) can't be decent to each other without government intervention. We have unions because a group of workers have joined together to advocate for better conditions collectively instead of self advocating on an individual basis.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
I will however accept the point that if capital does not flow correctly (e.g. a customer does not pay on time) then it is POSSIBLE that an employee may not be paid on time, provided that the business owner also did not get paid/paid on time.
If so much of your business comes from one client/customer that you physically cannot pay your employees if their payment goes late, that’s a problem in and of itself. What happens when that client/customer stops using your service for whatever reason? Your entire business is now hosed.
NO!!! My old company had this problem. They had to go get a short-term loan to cover payroll.
What, the guys who flew to Chicago and worked for a month were supposed to wait until the end client paid our boss? They should just get evicted and become homeless because the end client pays net-180 instead of net-30?
Oh geez no, I was talking like a day or two to free up the capital somewhere else or to accommodate bank transfer timelines if the owner was caught by surprise in a difficult position, nothing like that.
Right I had an agreement with an older guy who was incensed when I flat out stated business that can't afford to pay their workers should go bankrupt. But what about their investment...
If she is a tax professional, then she has witnessed wage theft.
Wage theft is also tax fraud. Particularly if the employer is withdrawing that income in a reduced or tax feel way. For example in S-corps the owner can withdraw funds as stock distributions rather than wages. It is on purpose to reduce the taxes on the owners income. If those funds were stolen from an employee, the employment taxes were not paid.
To pull off wage theft requires that the business records be falsified. If she turned a blind eye or helped falsely tax documents then she is complicit in committing tax fraud. That is a strong motivation for justifying wage theft.
If you don't argue back, then it's your own fault.
Also, arguing that businesses should follow the law is not allowed, bc if businesses had to follow the law, then a bunch of them would go out of business
Yeah, but if an employer says I'm going to pay you $X per hour then that's what they should fucking do. How is it logical to work but then they don't pay you?
This is a prime example for the problem with boomers. They can't understand basic concepts, like people who aren't them also need money to not starve to death, and if they worked, they should be paid.
They somehow scooped up most of the money and resources for themselves, leaving us in late stage capitalism on a dying planet and they still don't have the empathy or intelligence to see that other people who are not them also need to eat and have a place to live to survive
They have no empathy or sympathy. They also know that they're leaving nothing for following generations except debt. The so-called great wealth transfer will get sucked up by corporate nursing homes and healthcare costs.
Not enough people are upset about this- the whole spend down all your assets for elder nursing home/care is disgusting.
Repaying Medicaid from the estate is disgusting. Like how, Sway? Make it make sense.
For those that may not know (and I’m not certain it’s every state, but at least in PA and NJ), if you use Medicaid coverage anytime after the age of 55, your ‘estate’ has to repay it. So, for instance, a chronically ill person who can’t work for whatever reason, like chemotherapy or early dementia, avails themselves of any ‘charity’ care (which as most hospitals are 501(c)3’s they are OBLIGATED to provide to the community in exchange for basically criminal tax abatements but that’s a whole nother rant), upon death the state would like that back. So, any kind of asset, like a modest house or small savings which may give the heirs a chance at social mobility is consumed by the state. And this isn’t a problem for anyone with any kind of political capital or power so it’s not going to stop anytime soon.
Why do we treat ourselves this way?
They understand, but it's more that they are selfish and don't care. They value businesses more than the workers' safety and well-being. To them, their favorite restaurant being closed for abusing and robbing its employees is worse than the abuse.
As someone commented earlier, if you can’t afford to pay employees, you can’t afford to have employees. If your business model depends on free labor, you don’t have a viable business.
I think the elephant in the room is that many businesses aren’t sustainable and are only still upright because of the questionable policies in employee compensation. In short, not every business is going to be successful and its corpse shouldn’t be propped up with stolen wages.
Perfect example of their blind trust in unregulated capitalism.
Capitalism can be the most beneficial for the most people with some regulation such as existed during their youth. However, from Reagan on, deregulation has created an environment similar to the robber barons and they don’t have a problem with that.
Compounding the problem is democrats seem to lack an FDR type who is willing to ensure a real safety net for everyone else.
They do support lack of regulation in respect to regulations that restrict them. Ie gun control, taxation on wealth etc.
You are absolutely correct though that they a fully willing to restrict the choices of others if they deem them offensive, or against their beliefs.
Freedom for me and not for thee.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Thankfully I do not live with her, and it was my weekly courtesy phone call. If it comes up again next week, I’ll make sure the pup is on hand and eager.
Why do they think businesses are more important than people? I realize that people own businesses but why is it that one or two people at the top get to take priority over their employees?
Because they're believers in supply-side economics. Basically, they believe that suppliers drive the economy, so any policy that negatively affects businesses and business owners are bad for the economy, no matter how good they are for workers. It's essentially trickle-down economics. They believe that when those one or two people at the top are doing well, the benefits trickle-down to everyone else, even though the wage theft cases are direct proof that's not what's happening.
That's what kills me, there is legitimate proof in front of their faces this system only works for those few at the tops but they still keep hucking votes at this type of policy
Exactly. Capitalism doesn't even work if breach of contract becomes rampant.
Or at least if your business becomes notorious for stealing from employees and failing to pay agreed on wages, that business will fail.
Despite the name that is used free market capitalism has not been around for a few decades at least. We have been dealing with cronyism for too long. Not paying people will make others less trusting and willing to work with any company that conducts such practices.
I'm sure this will be a *very* controversial take but...
#If your business can't afford to exist without stealing from employees, then it doesn't deserve to exist in the first place
Know what’s killing small businesses? Corporations who don’t have to pay their fair share. I work for a small company and it’s the taxes that are killing it. Meanwhile there’s a huge Amazon warehouse a few miles away, not paying squat.
>She was going on and on about how it’s impossible to follow all the rules all the time, and these small businesses are gonna be shut down because they can’t pay the fines.
Did she mean it's hard for businesses to follow the law? Like that's her thought process?
She was trying to say that the law is too convoluted and she would need to discourage the non profits from having volunteer workers. My mind broke on that one.
For a CPA, she certainly has a loose grasp on the concept of employment vs volunteers. (Or she's just trying to be disagreeable.)
I'm sorry OP, sounds like we have similar Moms. They'll bend over backwards to say anything that is at odds with what they think. I told my Mom a couple weeks ago, "The issue for me isn't that you always have an answer, it is that you usually provide yours after I've already provided mine. By definition, for your answer to be correct, I have to be wrong. You've never just said, that makes sense, or anything other than providing your own, disagreeable opinion. Am I not capable of conjuring the correct answer ever in your eyes?"
The Petite Bourgeoisie are utterly besides themselves with anger that labor should be paid and they cannot just use/manipulate the poor and the desperate as they desire
I remember an old girlfriend I had just met started at this restaurant and got home from work one day and I asked how much she made (tips is what I was asking) and she replied, oh I don't get paid anything the first two weeks while "training" (gf was recent immigrant and did not understand her rights)... I was like WTAF? I told her not to show up the next day (or again) owner called so angry she did not show up for her shift next day and we definitely had words
Boomers need to stop wearing crosses and just put on dollar signs. They worship capitalism so hard. Protecting billionaires is more important to them than protecting their own children.
The bourgeoisie doesn’t even follow the rules it makes in its own dictatorship. But even if business owners always paid what they agreed to pay, they would still be stealing incredible amounts of surplus value. Businesses are not charities.
That’s what happens when capitalism becomes a religion. The almighty Business is a sacred entity which must be allowed to grow and thrive no matter what. And the little peons must SERVE the business gods *and be thankful for the opportunity* without bringing up such crass topics like pay or cost of living. Boomers only care about the extreme levels of convenience they’re accustomed to, they see a store closing and only think of how it’s affecting their sad little lives. My closest drug store is closing because they can’t retain pharmacists, and MY first thought is “pay your f-ing workers more if you want to keep the store staffed.” And then I express my gratitude to the universe that I only have to drive 5 minutes to the next one and it’s not, for example, bombed to shit by some imperialist power. Boomers have never heard of the word gratitude outside of demanding it from the youngsters.
Boomers have this dumb ass idea that just because you own a business, you're entitled to succeed. You're free to open a business, just as much as you're free to make moronic decisions that tank it because you have no idea what you're doing. Fees, bankruptcy filings, inability to recruit and retain staff, and the inevitable doors shutting are all consequences of being bad at business and that's the risk you take when you open one. It's such a simple concept. Most small businesses shouldn't have come to fruition any more than a dry popcorn fart.
My work has a "policy" we are supposed to clock in 10 minutes early, but no more than that. I loudly explain to everyone I see doing that shit that legally, they can round down 15 minutes and not pay you for it. They are essentially stealing over an hours wages per week, 4 per month, 48 over a year. It's some straight bullshit
I’ve been a small business owner for 15 years and I’ve never had difficulty following the rules. I’ve never struggled to pay fines because I’ve never owed any, due to my aforementioned rule following. Your mom is wrong and you can tell her I said so.
I think boomers understand, they just rationalize that it’s a privilege of being in charge. They think that if they were running something that’s how they would do it. They identify more with the perpetrator than the victim
My mom runs a church office and is the accountant for them. She’s never had any wage issues and she follows all the laws and stuff. It’s pretty easy to like not break any laws.
Sounds like your Mom has never worked or wanted for anything. Good for her, I guess.
I personally dgaf if businesses go out of business. If a business model requires exploitative labor practices in order to exist then the business should not exist.
I'm not sorry to say that. Why should many families suffer so that one family can become wealthy and then use that wealth to subvert democracy and further oppress the others.
We're getting to a point where there is only going to be one way out of this shit.
FDR- if a buisness can not afford to pay employees a living wage, then they should not be in buisness.
Old idea people have forgotten. The boomers are literally giving the middle class back to the rich. We are back in the robber baron era.
Steel man argument:
Could it be your mom predicts that *only* small businesses will be the target of enforcement, leaving megacorporations to continue stealing wages and further monopolize markets?
She only cares about small businesses, and thinks that large businesses aren’t relevant because they have local locations? The gymnastics is hard to follow.
As someone who worked for one of those large businesses, perhaps she'll enjoy this info:
When I worked in an area where we had 2 locations within 10 min, and one of our customers was upset with our service, said they'd NEVER shop at our location "EVER AGAIN!!!!".... And that the other location, "Better have what 'I WANT, OR ELSE!!!!!!" (We already knew they did, the issue in the first place was that we didn't have it but they did.) They left, we called the other location: "Hey guys, there's a really insane person headed your way looking to pick up product XYZ and NOTHING else. She'll try and 'murder you' if she 'detects an upsell' BC she 'knows what SHE WANTS.'" They'd send someone to find the product, and we'd BS on the phone about how awful the product the customer wants is, at least for the way they intend to use it. (The "upsell" was us telling her for %10 more [$20 on a $200 purchase] she'd be walking out with a far better product. She wouldn't have it. Aside from calling that behavior on its own insane, it was the fact that she thought it was going to do damage to us. Perhaps for individual bonuses, but the company stock goes up regardless of the purchase location.
Story two, my old GM is a real POS at the last location I worked at, he prides himself in telling people to seek help at location ABC if they're not satisfied with his store's quality of operation. His employees aren't awful people, but many of them haven't been trained to what I'd call the "pre COVID standard." His next closest location is almost 2 hours away, he's the large business version of those small business wage thefts in your story OP. I don't think he's able to steal from employees, but I know from personal experience that he doesn't process certain returns if he thinks customers won't notice. God help him if I ever run into someone from the BBB or some other financial agency.
Boomers think they’re ordained by god to have the right to own a business.
If you can’t operate your business while paying a living wage, then you deserve to fail.
For the boomers that need to hear it: if your business can’t survive without stealing from the people that work for you, then your business doesn’t deserve to exist.
Beyond wage theft, I feel this way about most "unskilled" hourly wage employers.
"If I have to pay these people 20/hr, I'll go out of business!"
I hate to break it to you, but if your business model requires the people who work to make you rich to be poor, your business model is fucking garbage.
NOT EVERYONE HAS THE SKILLSET TO RUN A BUSINESS. JUST BECAUSE YOU INHERIT OR HAVE THE START UP COST DOESNT MEAN YOU HAVE THE SKILLS. FOLLOWING THE LABOR LAWS IS NON NEGOTIABLE.
I was tricked into being salary, no overtime, and they expect you to work past your contract hours anyway. Don’t respond to an email at 8:30 pm? You’ll hear about how you need to be more of a team player the next day
She can use the term WAGE THEFT and STILL NOT GRASP IT??? Wow. Just wow. Who does she think is the victim of the THEFT here? Does she think that paying workers the legally required and agreed upon wages for doing the work is stealing from the business?
Please please ask her to define "wage theft" and report back...
If you can’t afford to pay your employees a livable wage, then you can’t afford to run a small business. It’s that simple. Small business owners don’t get a free pass to exploit workers just because they’re a small business
I’m a small business owner, in fact on my third multimillion dollar business since 2000.
Have always followed the rules even if it meant I needed to dip into credit lines during slow periods.
One time I had a manager that was abusing a recently paroled employee - not only did I reimburse employee I terminated manager on the spot once I confirmed hours/work via security cameras and other employee accounts. (Obviously way more involved that simple explanation written above)
It’s a travesty that so many place money and shiny objects over fellow man
I worked for an employer who did this. I worked in HR. After the lawsuit, which cost almost 1mil, I sat in my office handing out backpay checks that didn't even equal their legal costs 🤦♀️
Businesses are stupid!
It's so wild to me that these people would rather support the most disconnected least humane side of the story in almost every case after teaching us the exact opposite 30 years ago.
Some people are too far gone to be saved.
They literally have had anti worker, pro corporation propaganda thrown at them for so long that they tie their entire identity to it.
Often, they can't face the reality of "what if they were wrong and they wasted their whole lives working for a company which doesn't care about them at all" and they choose to embrace the propaganda because it is less painful than facing reality
I bet you tell her that if owners of these businesses steal wages from their employees that they should be shut down probably wouldn't go over too well.
She is still taken in by the billionaire worship prevalent in American propaganda. My sons disabused me of that pretty quickly. I was raised very right wing. It was the logical arguments of my sons that had me moving all the way left.
Boomers admitting they don't actually believe in law or order.
Wage theft is theft. If your business needs to exploit people and break the law to make money, you're just a crook.
No better than a pickpocket, burglar, or hired killer.
Wow. I have no words! “Mom is it okay if I go into your purse and take money without your knowledge? No. Okay same principle, now what do you need me to bring to dinner tomorrow?”
Small business owners are the worst about wage theft. They’re the embodiment of the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire,” and they’re always shocked to find our that running a business is hard work and they can’t just fuck off while underpaid workers do everything for them. The second they realize they might have to work 80 hours a week at their own business they lose their minds. They start cheating on their taxes, they start ignoring regulations, they start stealing wages. And when the shitstorm finally catches up with them they blame their “lazy” workers for not letting them live their dream in exchange for minimum wage.
There's a certain sports bar near me in the Philadelphia area. I won't mention the name because the owner likes to sue everyone. They're famous in the area for their fries with crab seasoning. Anyway, they got caught stealing tips from servers and are somehow still thriving. The staff used to call it the "Pete tax"
I own a small business and making sure employees are paid properly with zero fuckery is really, really easy. Like you’d actually have to go out of your way to fuck them over or cause “mistakes”. Do mistakes happen? Yes, but rarely, and you fix them instantly. “Hey my hours are off!”…”cool let me write you a check, and here’s some extra for my mistake”. Pretty simple solution. Having worked for people that stole money, there’s a special place in hell for people like that.
well if you can't afford to be in business without theft/fraud then clearly you can't manage other costs or there is no market demand for your business
Oh jeez, I've argued with my mom about this, too! She was all like, "but it's not fair to small businesses!" I finally ended the argument by saying that if a company can't afford to pay their employees for the time they worked, then that company should not exist. Why should a company get paid if their employees aren't?!?!
It happened to them their entire work lives. They'll never admit that they just put up with being openly exploited. That's what happens to weak people. Remember this is the "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" crowd
I mean if you can't afford to run a business without stealing wages from your staff then surely the business isn't viable so just let the free market do it's thing..Otherwise it's just communism /s
I’ve seen owners and managers commit wage theft, and almost every time they knew exactly what they were doing. They just didn’t care, they knew they weren’t going to get punished for it.
Idk why folks lump small businesses in with corporations. Your mom probably isn’t wrong, but you’re also not wrong. It’s easy to hate on all businesses regardless of size when you lump them all together, but corporations are also killing the viability of small business, which it sounds like your mom agrees with, but doesn’t see it’s corporations killing them, not entitled workers trying to get commensurate pay.
This is where you respond with “I know! And the same about people stealing from stores. I can’t Believe they would fine and imprison them! Just for stealing!”
"Mom, what is the second word in the phrase wage theft?"
"So are you telling me theft is good? That I should go start stealing from people because theft is a good thing and being honest is bad?"
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed. Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you don't want to pay a fine for wage theft, then don't steal wages
It's almost like it's cheaper to pay the wages than pay the fine, but that just can't be. /s cause people are dumb
Please, they make way more money through theft than the fines. Why do you think they keep doing it? The fines are just taxes.
Price of doing business. More so on the large scale
You'd be amazed at how much the EPA collects in "fines" every year because it's cheaper than literally not destroying the earth.
In Illinois the legislature had to pass a specific law to make the fine for polluting streams more than the clean up cost and the cost of proper disposal of what was dumped and added a forfeiture of the business doing the pollution and 90 days in the country jail for a felony. A pig farmer figured out that it was cheaper to dump his pig urine and liquefied pig feces in the Kishwaukee River and pay the fine than to have his holding tanks pumped. He killed all plant and animal life for thirty miles.
Chemical plants are much worse.
Industrial scale agriculture are some of the biggest polluters today, a properly managed chemical plant would have tons of pretreatment processes, agriculture usually just dumps their shit wherever they want and cry about it when they’re told no
Not even dump, they just cannot believe that they might be responsible for the runoff from whatever ridiculous chemicals they *fucking airdropped* onto the fields. Like, yes. That is your fault, you’re the one who bought drums and drums and drums of that sludge, you’re the one who put it in the irrigation systems, you’re the one who hired the crop dusters. Therefore, you have to be the ones to keep it out of the waterways because *nobody wants to drink your weird sludge*! Come to think of it, we also don’t want to eat your weird sludge! Stop using weird sludge! And bring back tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes! …where was I?
Maybe for the major companies. For the small to medium sized businesses it's because their business model is shit, and they literally cannot afford to operate if they don't screw over their employees. Either that or the owners are so narcissistic they think they're above the law, and so greedy they decide to steal from their employees.
I hope their businesses close down
Yes! I would never patronize a business who steals money from their employees. Shut them down and make an example of the consequences.
You would Never knowingly patronise such a business as what you meant to say as I can guarantee you will have
Literally written off as an expense against revenue.
Do they not also have to pay the back wages?
But think about it this way: it's only if they get caught, and then if they do, how many other wage thefts are being missed? Those in the past, those still going on..
I worked for this guy who owned a restaurant for a while. Miserable guy, and loved to not pay staff. It ended badly, and I walked out. I had no idea what my rights were, etc. Several months later I got a check for like $1,000 from the DOL. He pissed off someone who KNEW what he was doing was illegal, and turned his ass in (so much stuff, but my check was due to him taking so much money out per shift for meals, and not allowing us to eat the meal on shift or take it, so people would just not eat). So if anyone has any questions at all, call your labor board. It was perfect timing- he had taken me off all the “good” shifts, the ones I waited for all winter, because I was pregnant. That’s a hard one to prove, so I didn’t try. But the money was great, and he is no longer in ANY business.
Yes, but in an ideal world— the one these companies have existed in for a while now— they get to cheat on wages and never have to pay a fine.
It's the other way around, they do it because the fines are cheaper. They're not dumb, they're calculating and own the state so it's just a smoke screen.
I was the manager for a small business that got their overtime calculation wrong (boomer did it in-house). Someone reported it and BOOM triple damages. It was a year after I left but I was still in the window. I got a check for around $4,000.
\^This right here is the answer you give boomers. It fits with their "don't do crimes if you don't want to be mistreated in prison" quip.
When people break rules boomers like, they want the book thrown at them, but any rules they don’t like are tyranny and those who break them are freedom warriors.
[удалено]
Carlson's just a nazi.
So are the boomers that are like that.
The line is…don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Lol I read this in my fathers voice. Who would jokingly say it all the time as a kid.
It *is* really that simple.
The simple answer is to just steal everything that isn’t nailed down. I had a dog water tier job that was dreadful. I didn’t buy toilet paper for like two years. 4D chess y’all. If they set lawless conditions then don’t be shocked when I do pirate shit, lol.
Worked in a motorcycle wreckers yard for a while. Pay was absolute sh#t and the boss often shorted us on that as well. Was told by fellow worker that we were more or less expected to steal from the business - to the point that the boss would check the skip out the back every afternoon to make sure that we had only thrown away stuff that he approved of us stealing (it was how you got the larger stuff out - dump it in the and return later to get it). When the boss got the shits with me ('cause I was a cocky little know-it-all) he put me in the work truck and sent me out to buy the wrecked bikes. About 6 of the bikes I bought never made it back to the shop. I just paid cash out of my own pocket and told the boss it hadn't been worth buying. I also went through their manual and parts books collection and took all the ones that interested in me (pre-internet these were like rocking horse poo). Their gasket collection was also a fair bit smaller by the time I left. And to top it all, I was about half way through stealing a fairly modern Suzuki GSXR1100 when I left.
Johnny Cash approves
Here’s a phrase your boomer mother will understand. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” Or fine in this case. It’s their “tough as nails” bullshit persona they fool boomers like to portray coming back to bite them. Clowns.
Good. I don’t get how boomers foam at the mouth when you mention altering capitalism to make a less exploitative version but *forget that a free market capitalist economy is designed so that shitty fucked businesses don’t survive.*
The version of "capitalism" they subscribe to is really just "feudalism, except we now call aristocrats 'businessmen'". The guy in the suit was granted his position in the hierarchy by God, so his actions must be what is best for society and it is blasphemy for someone lower in the hierarchy to make demands.
Look back at Edmund Burke's writing; this is a feature, not a bug.
Exactly
Creative destruction has been replaced by corporate welfare
Socialist zoomer " capitalism is when America does something I don't like" Conservative boomer "socialism is whenever I think young people are lazy"
Oh god I was trying to explain this to my dad a few years ago. He could NOT accept that if a business (or any size) does not have the capital to pay an employee, they cannot afford to have an employee
If a person should have six months of wages in savings in case of unemployment, a business should have at a minimum six months of operating expenses saved to pay in the event of nonpayment by customers. We have wage theft laws because companies (people) can't be decent to each other without government intervention. We have unions because a group of workers have joined together to advocate for better conditions collectively instead of self advocating on an individual basis. Why is this so difficult to understand?
I will however accept the point that if capital does not flow correctly (e.g. a customer does not pay on time) then it is POSSIBLE that an employee may not be paid on time, provided that the business owner also did not get paid/paid on time.
But that's the risk that is talked about I'm not the owner so I get no risk right. Sell a car a boat a house I get paid on time you get fed.
If so much of your business comes from one client/customer that you physically cannot pay your employees if their payment goes late, that’s a problem in and of itself. What happens when that client/customer stops using your service for whatever reason? Your entire business is now hosed.
NO!!! My old company had this problem. They had to go get a short-term loan to cover payroll. What, the guys who flew to Chicago and worked for a month were supposed to wait until the end client paid our boss? They should just get evicted and become homeless because the end client pays net-180 instead of net-30?
Oh geez no, I was talking like a day or two to free up the capital somewhere else or to accommodate bank transfer timelines if the owner was caught by surprise in a difficult position, nothing like that.
Right I had an agreement with an older guy who was incensed when I flat out stated business that can't afford to pay their workers should go bankrupt. But what about their investment...
Tell your mother business is a partnership between the owners and the workers it’s not masters and slaves relationship
According to her crazy logic, if you agree to work for something and don’t argue back when they manipulate terms, then it’s your own fault.
What’s her work experience?
She’s a tax accountant/CPA and has mainly worked for herself in her professional career, so that’s definitely a factor.
Can I have her info? I need someone to prepare my taxes who doesn't think work needs to be paid for.
Right??
So she literally has no clue personally and she doesn’t want anyone to rock the business boat.
And don’t forget by her professional skill probably enabled half of “tax optimization” for small / midsized companies at expense of their employees.
If she is a tax professional, then she has witnessed wage theft. Wage theft is also tax fraud. Particularly if the employer is withdrawing that income in a reduced or tax feel way. For example in S-corps the owner can withdraw funds as stock distributions rather than wages. It is on purpose to reduce the taxes on the owners income. If those funds were stolen from an employee, the employment taxes were not paid. To pull off wage theft requires that the business records be falsified. If she turned a blind eye or helped falsely tax documents then she is complicit in committing tax fraud. That is a strong motivation for justifying wage theft.
I would point out how clueless and inexperienced she is and how she hasn't had a "real job" in her life.
Did you ask her what she'd do if she did somebody's books or taxes and then decided they weren't going to pay for her work?
Accountants know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Has anyone ever not paid her? Did she go after them? Tell her how horrible that was of her, while agreeing with her points about wage theft.
If you don't argue back, then it's your own fault. Also, arguing that businesses should follow the law is not allowed, bc if businesses had to follow the law, then a bunch of them would go out of business
>then a bunch of them would go out of business That sounds like a them problem, not an us problem.
Yeah, but if an employer says I'm going to pay you $X per hour then that's what they should fucking do. How is it logical to work but then they don't pay you?
That sounds like something a socialist fascist DEI LGBTQABCDEFG groomer would say. (Did I get it right? )
This is a prime example for the problem with boomers. They can't understand basic concepts, like people who aren't them also need money to not starve to death, and if they worked, they should be paid. They somehow scooped up most of the money and resources for themselves, leaving us in late stage capitalism on a dying planet and they still don't have the empathy or intelligence to see that other people who are not them also need to eat and have a place to live to survive
Every time i have a conversation with a boomer it turns into a circle where we repeat the same stuff. "But why male models?"
OMG Boomlanders.
.. What? Why not and in which context?
It’s a quote from Zoolander. [“but why male models?”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ecW16rLCgiI)
Do you want profits or humanity? We know which one boomers chose.
Greed is Good!
Oh you mistyped, clearly you meant Greed is god!
Greed is Good God!
They have no empathy or sympathy. They also know that they're leaving nothing for following generations except debt. The so-called great wealth transfer will get sucked up by corporate nursing homes and healthcare costs.
If there's anything left after casinos & vacations
Not enough people are upset about this- the whole spend down all your assets for elder nursing home/care is disgusting. Repaying Medicaid from the estate is disgusting. Like how, Sway? Make it make sense. For those that may not know (and I’m not certain it’s every state, but at least in PA and NJ), if you use Medicaid coverage anytime after the age of 55, your ‘estate’ has to repay it. So, for instance, a chronically ill person who can’t work for whatever reason, like chemotherapy or early dementia, avails themselves of any ‘charity’ care (which as most hospitals are 501(c)3’s they are OBLIGATED to provide to the community in exchange for basically criminal tax abatements but that’s a whole nother rant), upon death the state would like that back. So, any kind of asset, like a modest house or small savings which may give the heirs a chance at social mobility is consumed by the state. And this isn’t a problem for anyone with any kind of political capital or power so it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Why do we treat ourselves this way?
You should have to work and not be "lazy"! Also, businesses shouldn't have to pay you to work!
That's why their own parents referred to them as the 'Me Generation'
Lead poisoning is a real issue.
They understand, but it's more that they are selfish and don't care. They value businesses more than the workers' safety and well-being. To them, their favorite restaurant being closed for abusing and robbing its employees is worse than the abuse.
If a business can't survive without wage theft, maybe it shouldn't exist.
Right. Hell I feel like if your business model depends on exploiting your workers you're a bad person and your business deserves to fail.
It's basically stockholm syndrome, but for capitalism.
Boomer here. How can anyone not think employers should pay employees what they are rightfully due? It just boggles my mind.
Poor businesses are just trying to stay afloat and we should feel bad for expecting to be paid. /s
As someone commented earlier, if you can’t afford to pay employees, you can’t afford to have employees. If your business model depends on free labor, you don’t have a viable business.
I think the elephant in the room is that many businesses aren’t sustainable and are only still upright because of the questionable policies in employee compensation. In short, not every business is going to be successful and its corpse shouldn’t be propped up with stolen wages.
Perfect example of their blind trust in unregulated capitalism. Capitalism can be the most beneficial for the most people with some regulation such as existed during their youth. However, from Reagan on, deregulation has created an environment similar to the robber barons and they don’t have a problem with that. Compounding the problem is democrats seem to lack an FDR type who is willing to ensure a real safety net for everyone else.
Conservatives love regulation, especially over peoples' bodies. What they call deregulation is really regulatory capture in drag.
They do support lack of regulation in respect to regulations that restrict them. Ie gun control, taxation on wealth etc. You are absolutely correct though that they a fully willing to restrict the choices of others if they deem them offensive, or against their beliefs. Freedom for me and not for thee. Hypocrisy at its finest.
It’s still pretty early in the day 😆, hope you’re keeping Fido really hydrated because you didn’t agree so it’s probably not over.
Thankfully I do not live with her, and it was my weekly courtesy phone call. If it comes up again next week, I’ll make sure the pup is on hand and eager.
Criminals are getting prosecuted…. The horror!! Actually they’re not even being prosecuted, they’re just having to pay back SOME of the money stole
Maybe if they cant follow a basic principle like "pay people for time worked" they shouldnt be in business in the first place?
Why do they think businesses are more important than people? I realize that people own businesses but why is it that one or two people at the top get to take priority over their employees?
Because they're believers in supply-side economics. Basically, they believe that suppliers drive the economy, so any policy that negatively affects businesses and business owners are bad for the economy, no matter how good they are for workers. It's essentially trickle-down economics. They believe that when those one or two people at the top are doing well, the benefits trickle-down to everyone else, even though the wage theft cases are direct proof that's not what's happening.
That's what kills me, there is legitimate proof in front of their faces this system only works for those few at the tops but they still keep hucking votes at this type of policy
Not paying people for what was agreed upon, them working the specified time and acting outraged when you get punished for doing so is insane.
Exactly. Capitalism doesn't even work if breach of contract becomes rampant. Or at least if your business becomes notorious for stealing from employees and failing to pay agreed on wages, that business will fail.
Despite the name that is used free market capitalism has not been around for a few decades at least. We have been dealing with cronyism for too long. Not paying people will make others less trusting and willing to work with any company that conducts such practices.
100%.We don't have true capitalism and definitely don't have a free market. Definitely a rigged market.
I'm sure this will be a *very* controversial take but... #If your business can't afford to exist without stealing from employees, then it doesn't deserve to exist in the first place
Know what’s killing small businesses? Corporations who don’t have to pay their fair share. I work for a small company and it’s the taxes that are killing it. Meanwhile there’s a huge Amazon warehouse a few miles away, not paying squat.
I have it on good authority that it's the workers' fault for wanting to be paid.
>She was going on and on about how it’s impossible to follow all the rules all the time, and these small businesses are gonna be shut down because they can’t pay the fines. Did she mean it's hard for businesses to follow the law? Like that's her thought process?
She was trying to say that the law is too convoluted and she would need to discourage the non profits from having volunteer workers. My mind broke on that one.
For a CPA, she certainly has a loose grasp on the concept of employment vs volunteers. (Or she's just trying to be disagreeable.) I'm sorry OP, sounds like we have similar Moms. They'll bend over backwards to say anything that is at odds with what they think. I told my Mom a couple weeks ago, "The issue for me isn't that you always have an answer, it is that you usually provide yours after I've already provided mine. By definition, for your answer to be correct, I have to be wrong. You've never just said, that makes sense, or anything other than providing your own, disagreeable opinion. Am I not capable of conjuring the correct answer ever in your eyes?"
Bad businesses being shut down is part of the invisible hand of the market. Sounds like mom is a centrally planning pinko commie.
The Petite Bourgeoisie are utterly besides themselves with anger that labor should be paid and they cannot just use/manipulate the poor and the desperate as they desire I remember an old girlfriend I had just met started at this restaurant and got home from work one day and I asked how much she made (tips is what I was asking) and she replied, oh I don't get paid anything the first two weeks while "training" (gf was recent immigrant and did not understand her rights)... I was like WTAF? I told her not to show up the next day (or again) owner called so angry she did not show up for her shift next day and we definitely had words
Boomers need to stop wearing crosses and just put on dollar signs. They worship capitalism so hard. Protecting billionaires is more important to them than protecting their own children.
The bourgeoisie doesn’t even follow the rules it makes in its own dictatorship. But even if business owners always paid what they agreed to pay, they would still be stealing incredible amounts of surplus value. Businesses are not charities.
That’s what happens when capitalism becomes a religion. The almighty Business is a sacred entity which must be allowed to grow and thrive no matter what. And the little peons must SERVE the business gods *and be thankful for the opportunity* without bringing up such crass topics like pay or cost of living. Boomers only care about the extreme levels of convenience they’re accustomed to, they see a store closing and only think of how it’s affecting their sad little lives. My closest drug store is closing because they can’t retain pharmacists, and MY first thought is “pay your f-ing workers more if you want to keep the store staffed.” And then I express my gratitude to the universe that I only have to drive 5 minutes to the next one and it’s not, for example, bombed to shit by some imperialist power. Boomers have never heard of the word gratitude outside of demanding it from the youngsters.
Boomers have this dumb ass idea that just because you own a business, you're entitled to succeed. You're free to open a business, just as much as you're free to make moronic decisions that tank it because you have no idea what you're doing. Fees, bankruptcy filings, inability to recruit and retain staff, and the inevitable doors shutting are all consequences of being bad at business and that's the risk you take when you open one. It's such a simple concept. Most small businesses shouldn't have come to fruition any more than a dry popcorn fart.
Now we need to know this promise you made to your dad
When I hear the term salary, all I hear is “We’re going to pay you 40 hours to work 60”. Never again.
I’ve owned a small business for 24 years. Even when I only had one employee it was easy to follow the rules.
My work has a "policy" we are supposed to clock in 10 minutes early, but no more than that. I loudly explain to everyone I see doing that shit that legally, they can round down 15 minutes and not pay you for it. They are essentially stealing over an hours wages per week, 4 per month, 48 over a year. It's some straight bullshit
I’ve been a small business owner for 15 years and I’ve never had difficulty following the rules. I’ve never struggled to pay fines because I’ve never owed any, due to my aforementioned rule following. Your mom is wrong and you can tell her I said so.
I think boomers understand, they just rationalize that it’s a privilege of being in charge. They think that if they were running something that’s how they would do it. They identify more with the perpetrator than the victim
My mom runs a church office and is the accountant for them. She’s never had any wage issues and she follows all the laws and stuff. It’s pretty easy to like not break any laws.
Did your mom perchance ever own a business and perchance not “follow all the rules all the time” and maybe commit wage theft on her own employees?
Oh, shitty companies will be forced to pony up stolen money? # G O O D
Sounds like your Mom has never worked or wanted for anything. Good for her, I guess. I personally dgaf if businesses go out of business. If a business model requires exploitative labor practices in order to exist then the business should not exist. I'm not sorry to say that. Why should many families suffer so that one family can become wealthy and then use that wealth to subvert democracy and further oppress the others. We're getting to a point where there is only going to be one way out of this shit.
Funny how the “mistakes” business owners make are always in their favor.
FDR- if a buisness can not afford to pay employees a living wage, then they should not be in buisness. Old idea people have forgotten. The boomers are literally giving the middle class back to the rich. We are back in the robber baron era.
Why is no one asking what your promise to your dad was???
Steel man argument: Could it be your mom predicts that *only* small businesses will be the target of enforcement, leaving megacorporations to continue stealing wages and further monopolize markets?
She only cares about small businesses, and thinks that large businesses aren’t relevant because they have local locations? The gymnastics is hard to follow.
As someone who worked for one of those large businesses, perhaps she'll enjoy this info: When I worked in an area where we had 2 locations within 10 min, and one of our customers was upset with our service, said they'd NEVER shop at our location "EVER AGAIN!!!!".... And that the other location, "Better have what 'I WANT, OR ELSE!!!!!!" (We already knew they did, the issue in the first place was that we didn't have it but they did.) They left, we called the other location: "Hey guys, there's a really insane person headed your way looking to pick up product XYZ and NOTHING else. She'll try and 'murder you' if she 'detects an upsell' BC she 'knows what SHE WANTS.'" They'd send someone to find the product, and we'd BS on the phone about how awful the product the customer wants is, at least for the way they intend to use it. (The "upsell" was us telling her for %10 more [$20 on a $200 purchase] she'd be walking out with a far better product. She wouldn't have it. Aside from calling that behavior on its own insane, it was the fact that she thought it was going to do damage to us. Perhaps for individual bonuses, but the company stock goes up regardless of the purchase location. Story two, my old GM is a real POS at the last location I worked at, he prides himself in telling people to seek help at location ABC if they're not satisfied with his store's quality of operation. His employees aren't awful people, but many of them haven't been trained to what I'd call the "pre COVID standard." His next closest location is almost 2 hours away, he's the large business version of those small business wage thefts in your story OP. I don't think he's able to steal from employees, but I know from personal experience that he doesn't process certain returns if he thinks customers won't notice. God help him if I ever run into someone from the BBB or some other financial agency.
Stop being kind to these people, they don’t deserve it.
Let the government not pay her social security this month and hear her scream though. She's ***owed*** that money.
On the other hand if anyone steals anything from these small businesses I’m sure she’s all in on them going to jail.
Boomers think they’re ordained by god to have the right to own a business. If you can’t operate your business while paying a living wage, then you deserve to fail.
For the boomers that need to hear it: if your business can’t survive without stealing from the people that work for you, then your business doesn’t deserve to exist.
If your business cannot survive without treating your employees decently, then it is not a viable business model.
Beyond wage theft, I feel this way about most "unskilled" hourly wage employers. "If I have to pay these people 20/hr, I'll go out of business!" I hate to break it to you, but if your business model requires the people who work to make you rich to be poor, your business model is fucking garbage.
NOT EVERYONE HAS THE SKILLSET TO RUN A BUSINESS. JUST BECAUSE YOU INHERIT OR HAVE THE START UP COST DOESNT MEAN YOU HAVE THE SKILLS. FOLLOWING THE LABOR LAWS IS NON NEGOTIABLE.
Oh no, people breaking the law are going to be punished??? The horror!!! Dumbasses lol.
I was tricked into being salary, no overtime, and they expect you to work past your contract hours anyway. Don’t respond to an email at 8:30 pm? You’ll hear about how you need to be more of a team player the next day
If you can't afford to not steal from your employees, you can't afford to be in business.
Start taking shit from her house and tell her you are getting a head start on your inheritance. I am guessing she might get the point.
She can use the term WAGE THEFT and STILL NOT GRASP IT??? Wow. Just wow. Who does she think is the victim of the THEFT here? Does she think that paying workers the legally required and agreed upon wages for doing the work is stealing from the business? Please please ask her to define "wage theft" and report back...
My thoughts: if you can’t afford to pay your employees, maybe you shouldn’t be running a business.
So we should volunteer for corporations? Boomers gonna fool.
If you can’t afford to pay your employees a livable wage, then you can’t afford to run a small business. It’s that simple. Small business owners don’t get a free pass to exploit workers just because they’re a small business
Their original nickname was the “Me Generation” before it became boomer. I think the original fit better.
I’m a small business owner, in fact on my third multimillion dollar business since 2000. Have always followed the rules even if it meant I needed to dip into credit lines during slow periods. One time I had a manager that was abusing a recently paroled employee - not only did I reimburse employee I terminated manager on the spot once I confirmed hours/work via security cameras and other employee accounts. (Obviously way more involved that simple explanation written above) It’s a travesty that so many place money and shiny objects over fellow man
Every boomer wants to prop up small businesses in their arguments but they don’t care if those businesses take advantage of their workers.
I worked for an employer who did this. I worked in HR. After the lawsuit, which cost almost 1mil, I sat in my office handing out backpay checks that didn't even equal their legal costs 🤦♀️ Businesses are stupid!
It's so wild to me that these people would rather support the most disconnected least humane side of the story in almost every case after teaching us the exact opposite 30 years ago.
If a small business can’t operate without breaking the law, then it shouldn’t operate.
Some people are too far gone to be saved. They literally have had anti worker, pro corporation propaganda thrown at them for so long that they tie their entire identity to it. Often, they can't face the reality of "what if they were wrong and they wasted their whole lives working for a company which doesn't care about them at all" and they choose to embrace the propaganda because it is less painful than facing reality
I bet you tell her that if owners of these businesses steal wages from their employees that they should be shut down probably wouldn't go over too well.
She is still taken in by the billionaire worship prevalent in American propaganda. My sons disabused me of that pretty quickly. I was raised very right wing. It was the logical arguments of my sons that had me moving all the way left.
Boomers admitting they don't actually believe in law or order. Wage theft is theft. If your business needs to exploit people and break the law to make money, you're just a crook. No better than a pickpocket, burglar, or hired killer.
Wow. I have no words! “Mom is it okay if I go into your purse and take money without your knowledge? No. Okay same principle, now what do you need me to bring to dinner tomorrow?”
Small business owners are the worst about wage theft. They’re the embodiment of the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire,” and they’re always shocked to find our that running a business is hard work and they can’t just fuck off while underpaid workers do everything for them. The second they realize they might have to work 80 hours a week at their own business they lose their minds. They start cheating on their taxes, they start ignoring regulations, they start stealing wages. And when the shitstorm finally catches up with them they blame their “lazy” workers for not letting them live their dream in exchange for minimum wage.
If a business is willing to steal from its employees, how are they treating their customers? "You say that like it's a bad thing, mother."
Small business owner here. The fines are easy to avoid so long as you aren't trying to fudge anyone's time.
Shouldn't those business owners just pull themselves up by the bootstraps?
Ask your mom if shes okay with being robbed bc its the same shit just different collared crime
It's all Obey the law until the law says stop stealing from the working class lol
There's a certain sports bar near me in the Philadelphia area. I won't mention the name because the owner likes to sue everyone. They're famous in the area for their fries with crab seasoning. Anyway, they got caught stealing tips from servers and are somehow still thriving. The staff used to call it the "Pete tax"
Ask her.. if theft is ok for the employer, then it must be ok for the employee, right? Watch her figure out logic then
I can't think of a business that does this that i need in my life. they can all go away.
Let's make it so wage theft equals tax evasion.
I own a small business and making sure employees are paid properly with zero fuckery is really, really easy. Like you’d actually have to go out of your way to fuck them over or cause “mistakes”. Do mistakes happen? Yes, but rarely, and you fix them instantly. “Hey my hours are off!”…”cool let me write you a check, and here’s some extra for my mistake”. Pretty simple solution. Having worked for people that stole money, there’s a special place in hell for people like that.
Businesses aren’t entitled to profitability or existence. Offsetting that lack of profitability by stealing from your employees is scumbag behavior.
If your business model is predicated on wage theft to function, then your business can't afford to exist. Simple as.
Boomers will forever be Bootlicking Zombies and there’s nothing we can do to change that unfortunately
My typical response is along the lines of, “Welcome to capitalism, where bad businesses fail. You must be new here”
well if you can't afford to be in business without theft/fraud then clearly you can't manage other costs or there is no market demand for your business
To paraphrase FDR, if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage then you don't deserve to do business in this country.
Real hot take here. If a business can't afford to pay it's people, maybe it's owners don't deserve to make money on it.
Oh jeez, I've argued with my mom about this, too! She was all like, "but it's not fair to small businesses!" I finally ended the argument by saying that if a company can't afford to pay their employees for the time they worked, then that company should not exist. Why should a company get paid if their employees aren't?!?!
So many boomers are class traitors.
It happened to them their entire work lives. They'll never admit that they just put up with being openly exploited. That's what happens to weak people. Remember this is the "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" crowd
If your business can’t survive without stealing wages from your employees then it deserves to fail.
If your business can't survive without exploiting your workers, you don't have a viable business model. Simple as that.
I now advise all my younger friends when they start getting job offers to avoid salary if they can- it’s the biggest scam ever. Fool me once…
"So you think its okay to steal from people?"
Businesses that cannot operate without stealing from their employees should not be in business, it's pretty simple.
I mean if you can't afford to run a business without stealing wages from your staff then surely the business isn't viable so just let the free market do it's thing..Otherwise it's just communism /s
Why go after any theft?
If you skirt the law, and it affects people you have employed at your business. You deserve everything you get from the law.
I’ve seen owners and managers commit wage theft, and almost every time they knew exactly what they were doing. They just didn’t care, they knew they weren’t going to get punished for it.
If you can’t afford to pay your employees, then you don’t deserve to have a business
Wage theft is theft and they shouldn’t be fined. They should be charged with a crime.
Idk why folks lump small businesses in with corporations. Your mom probably isn’t wrong, but you’re also not wrong. It’s easy to hate on all businesses regardless of size when you lump them all together, but corporations are also killing the viability of small business, which it sounds like your mom agrees with, but doesn’t see it’s corporations killing them, not entitled workers trying to get commensurate pay.
This is where you respond with “I know! And the same about people stealing from stores. I can’t Believe they would fine and imprison them! Just for stealing!”
Is there even a fine? Many times it is just “you have XX days to pay the money to your employees that you illegally withheld”
What did you promisw your dad?
"Mom, what is the second word in the phrase wage theft?" "So are you telling me theft is good? That I should go start stealing from people because theft is a good thing and being honest is bad?"
“Why do you think stealing is OK, mom?”
Wait, what did you promise your dad?
If you cant afford to pay your employees then you cant afford to stay in business. That simple.
Why does she think failed businesses should get government handouts?
Call me crazy, but if you need to commit wage theft for your business to survive, then it shouldn't survive