Wage theft is one of the most common workplace violations happening today. Wage theft is a general term used for when employers do not pay employees all the wages they are lawfully required to pay. According to the National Consumer League, there are several ways that employers steal wages. The first is that they do not count all your work hours. Sometimes employers will tell you that they do not include certain work time as compensable time. The best example of this is in the construction industry. Many times, employers require workers to come to the company headquarters to load tools onto work drugs, but they will not pay the employees until they get to the construction site out in the field.
These employees are losing the time they spend loading the trucks and driving to the worksites. That can cost you an entire day’s pay each week or even more. The second thing that companies do to steal wages is by paying you in a lump sum salary or by the job when you work more than 40 hours in a week. A lot of times when employees work many hours, companies tell their employees that they pay a salary for all hours worked. But this is generally a scam. Employees never work fewer hours and employers are not allowed to not pay you overtime, even if they give you a salary or a set rate of pay. If you work more than 40 hours and you are not exempt from the overtime laws, then you should be getting an overtime premium.
The third thing that they do is that they just do not pay you the rates required by law. Some employers just bully you and tell you that they do not pay overtime. Unless there is an exemption, you are entitled to overtime pay.