People tend to forget that social constructs are very very real things that can have major material impacts on our lives. Those who don’t understand this use “it’s just a social construct” to dismiss the importance of certain concepts or abstract ideas. But most of human’s reality is made out of social constructs.
B) why are you following the imaginings and rules that were created out of thin air by sociopaths and psychopaths
C) why do we continue to ignore the societies set up by the other sapient species? They are millions of years older than us, and the basic rules of their societies took us till the 19th century to understand as basic principles.
The point of saying that something is a social construct isn’t to say that it doesn’t matter, it is to show that it isn’t some immutable requirement of nature. It’s something we decided to do, and most importantly, could decide to do differently if we all just pulled our heads out of our asses. It’s the reply to people who say “it’s always been that way” and look at you like you are crazy for suggesting we do something different.
Yep! Like gender. It may be a social construct but obviously that social construct is very important.
The only reason I can think of to remind people that something is a social construct is to help them remember change is possible and entirely within our control as a society.
The very real use of Force - sometimes of the deadly kind - of this specific “social construct” should make it painfully clear it has real - often life changing - consequences, to even the greatest of fools, but apparently it doesn’t.
Ask Chimpanzees, Orcas, Elephants, or many other advanced natural societies that have evolved over the last few million years. They absolutely have a definition of crimes that they will punish if their members engage in those behaviors. Shunning would be the least brutal of their punishments. Capital punishment is far more prevalent.
Failure to pay someone money they are owed resulting in jail time only sounds good when you imagine employers being carted off for not paying employees what they’re owed.
It’s not so fun when you consider a mother of 2 carted off for missing a car payment.
Yes, also what will happen if you walk out the store with 100€ of groceries depend mostly on how you react.
The thing, is, its not because they’re poor that they are going to steal. Homeless people steal a pack of pasta and a water bottle, not a month worth of food.
It does happen, though if someone walk out with 100€ there is more chance he is walking out with a tv than pasta, be an asshole and be belligerant.
In the end the difference goes back to surveillance, it is very easy to prove you are walking out of the store with 100€ of things, there much less surveillance that would even be legal today to see they are paying you correctly. Don’t be fooled by the politicians who say “let’s just bails every robbers and shoplifter cause bosses withold pays” because this is a zero investment solution. For the politician its just writing, no need to rework the system that is causing the issue or deploy law enforcement. This is literally politics without action, which is indeed nonsensical
The harm from wage theft is generally worse, as the employee is much more likely to be negatively impacted from missing that $100 than the employer is.
To call something a social construct doesn’t diminish the impact of that thing. Race is a social construct as well, and that too has very real impacts on people. Much of what humans interact with on a daily basis are social constructs. That doesn’t make those things meaningless or trivial.
Marriage is a social construct, but that doesn’t mean I can go around acting like I’m single without consequence.
Does anyone really go to jail for wage theft though? Especially at the same severity that walking out with $100 till bucks would?
From my perspective, it seems like the boss gets a slap on the wrist the first time, while the worker gets fired and carted off to jail the first time.
I think that’s the point of this meme, but there are some nuances involved (aka why does the law treat these people differently? I think there may be a reason having to do with intent here, but that is discussion outside of the scope of what this meme is getting at.)
Not familiar with the laws of California but I think the spirit of the post is that the cops will be on your ass immediately and you will be put in jail if you walk with $100.
If your boss steals $100 from you it then becomes a matter for the courts before anyone in the company faces even the slightest threat of jail.
I’d add Wilhoit’s Law: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect”
But I’d adjust: “North American Democracy consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups (the rich) whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups (workers) whom the law binds but does not protect
Crime is ABSOLUTELY a social construct. Why was it legal several months ago to have an abortion across the US but now several states are criminalizing the same? Have abortions changed? No - politics did, I would argue spurred on by the desire for capitalists to keep a steady supply of low wage uneducated exploitable desperate workers.
Why is it suddenly criminal in the state of Georgia to give food and water to people lining up at polling stations? Because one class wants to make it uncomfortable and inconvenient for another class, and I would argue race, of people to vote.
At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Same as it ever was - criminalizing social classes to disempower them is the name of the game. If you aren’t wise to this you haven’t been paying attention.
Adding - it’s illegal in Japan for me to possess and consume cannabis but perfectly legal in Canada for me to do the same.
It would be illegal for me to walk around in certain countries without a headscarf, how is that not a social law?
It’s illegal in Russia to speak against the war, and people have been imprisoned for the softest infractions of this. In North America I have free speech in this regard.
Not familiar with the laws of California but I think the spirit of the post is that the cops will be on your ass immediately and you will be put in jail if you walk with $100.
If your boss steals $100 from you it then becomes a matter for the courts before anyone in the company faces even the slightest threat of jail.
Because one of these things is stealing a possession, and one of these things is failing to pay a debt. And.we generally don’t jail people for failing to pay debts, at least not immediately. And that’s a good thing to, otherwise the poor would be getting jailed all the time.
Crime is a social construct = wage theft is a social construct, and according to the law of internet arguments something being a social construct means it doesn’t matter and/or it’s dumb to complain about it, so don’t worry, it’s all fine.
Just because the rich are protected from their white collar crime doesn’t mean the concept of crime as a whole is a social construct.
Crime exists, crime is crime. Your boss short changing you money wouldn’t get the same reaction as lifting money from the till but you’d still have legal recourse to either get the money from them or take legal action to sue them.
Double standards under the law doesn’t equal “crime is an invented concept.”
The way I viewed it, if they short you a $100 on your paycheck you will have to prove them the hours, bring it to HR and try to get it fixed on the next paycheck. They borrowed $100 for 2 weeks and wasted company time.
If you borrowed $100 from the till for 2 weeks without asking you would just be fired. I doubt any real legal recourse would be brought in either case. They would mark down your register was off and terminate employment.
$100 isn’t worth anyones time (In regards to creating a legal case), but it might land you unemployed for a long time and ruin your life.
Mostly on-the-money, but no, they have to prove the hours if the labor board gets involved. And that’s a simple phone call, no lawyers or money involved. (Don’t sign off on your hours, literally or digitally, if they are not correct.)
And no, you can’t “borrow” $100 from the till. That’s theft, plain and simple. Many employers have a system by which they can easily loan you a small amount like that. Just ask. You might be surprised. (Often not advertised because of the potential for abuse.)
$100 isn’t worth anyones time
No lie. When I was 16, a long time ago, my ex-Marine tough-guy McDonald’s manager sat me down over a missing $10. Almost surely my fuck up, but he made it out like I stole. Got very threatening.
Inside I was like, “Are you shitting me?! I make $3.34/hr. Would it be worth 3 hours pay to lose my job you numb nut?!”
Outside, “I… uh… I mean, is $10 bucks worth getting fired? Why would anyone do that? Uh, I made a mistake making change… or something… Uh, I’m sorry. Won’t happen again. ^please don’t kill me^”
Fuck me. Humiliated and treated like a thief over a measly $10. 35-years later and I still remember that asshole beating up a teenager over chicken change.
Anyway, I went out drinking vodka with my fellow punkers, trashed an abandoned bowling alley, dodged the police helicopter and skated talking to the cops because my friend’s dad was cop, crashed at some popular punk’s apartment, crawled home in the 100° Oklahoma summer sun, and called in sick. LOL, he fired me and I was grateful. Got my leather motorcycle jacket out of frying those fries and working the register. Fuck 'em. 80’s were good times. I got stories. 😁
Haha agreed, the borrowed for both sides was more joking terminolgy than realism. As for signing hours, I haven’t had that since 2011/2012. Since then it has always been submit hours for approval and direct deposit. If the amount was off is where you’d have to bring it to HR for the companies I’ve been with.
My experiences with employment don’t reach the 80s though. Been working full time hours since 16, but I’m in my mid 30s.
From my understanding a social construct is something that is that is formed through an agreement between people in a society as opposed to something that is an objective observation of physical reality. Like for example money is a social construct, because we all agree that it has value and treat it as such, even though objectively a hundred dollar bill is just a piece of cloth and otherwise would only have as much value as any other piece of cloth. Democracy is a social construct, marriage, the calandar, gender norms, fashion, and crime are all social constructs. It doesn’t mean they aren’t “real” things, just that they’re only real because we all collectively agree they’re real.
If you don’t agree with that definition, I’m curious what you think a social construct is and what things you would believe to be social constructs?
Drinking and driving used to be legal. Now it is a crime.
Nothing changed except our society via our elected representatives opted to enact punishments if an individual is caught drinking and driving.
It is illegal for me to purchase or possess a firearm in Canada unless I acquire a license to do so. If I don’t meet these requirements and am found in possession of a weapon, I will be prosecuted and face jail time if convicted. However, in American states pretty much anyone can own a gun. The guns are the same; the difference is the values each society places on gun ownership and the contexts under which owning guns is a crime.
Canada has no stand your ground laws / castle doctrine. It is almost impossible to mount a defense here if you severely injure or kill someone trespassing in your home unless your life is at risk and even then it is difficult to prove that. Many US states allow people to use lethal force to protect property and there isn’t even a trial. The act in question here is the same; the difference is how our societies have invented and constructed our laws.
I am technically not allowed to cross the border into Quebec, 15 minutes away from my home, purchase a case of beer where it is cheaper, and then bring that beer back across the border to Ontario. The beer itself is not illegal. Consuming the beer is not illegal. The act of transporting the beer across provincial borders is technically a crime.
My friend has a house in Quebec. I have a house in Ontario. Cannabis is legal in Canada at a federal level. It is a crime for my friend in Quebec to grow their own cannabis for personal consumption on their own property. In Ontario, 15 minutes away, I am permitted to grow 4 plants per adult who lives in my household for personal consumption. The pot plants are the same; the social constructs surrounding the plants are not.
There are so many current examples throughout history and throughout the world of things that used to be legal or illegal in different countries, cultures, and societies that are now the opposite. Slavery, segregation, discrimination, gay marriage? Nothing has changed with these acts - society has changed their definition of what is a crime and what is not. That makes crime something that is invented by humans, the nature of which constantly changes.
If you were one of the last 2 people on earth and the other person killed all of your livestock, has a crime been committed? How can a crime be committed if there is no social contract which dictates what the consequences should be for that act?
Setting aside morals and ethics for a moment, intent (and malice) is a key component of crimes. Unfortunately it’s easier to show in some cases than others. It’s also worth noting that the at-will contract goes both ways in this case. Unfortunately there is an insurmountable power imbalance in this situation.
I was about to say I’m glad I was never in this situation, but I just remembered a time where I switched from an employee to a contractor and stopped getting paid.
If my boss goes into my locker and lifts $100 from my wallet the same thing happens to him as if I take it from the till. If he fucks up my pay he can shrug and say it was an honest mistake. Same as how I have a garage full of the sorting tubs we use at work for organising things because I “accidentally” brought them home with work in them and “forgot” to bring them back.
I’ve found Americans are woefully ignorant of employment law. But the employers are not.
Employers are scared shitless of a call from the state labor board. 2 jobs ago I had a really weaselly, small time, company owner. My god, the things that man would say and do to fuck you around. But he stayed within the law and did not fuck around on paychecks.
One time I was shorted $200. Honest mistake. He called me personally and said he would give me $200 out of his wallet, that afternoon, if it was not in my bank account by EOB.
My last job was for a payroll firm. I don’t think it’s common knowledge, but most places farm out the payroll. Let the experts handle it because the laws and taxes get complex in a hurry. Even our shitty clients wouldn’t play around with pay.
Example; You work overtime and aren’t paid, or paid correctly. You call the labor board and the employer is on the hook to prove your hours. One call, guilty until proven innocent, and it’s on them. If they cannot, the labor board defaults to the employee.
“I worked 80-hours a week for these assholes and got paid for 40!”
Aight. One call and the employer shows your signature agreeing to the hours worked, or they pay. All of it. Every time.
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Of course crime is a social construct. No examples are necessary. What else could it be?
People tend to forget that social constructs are very very real things that can have major material impacts on our lives. Those who don’t understand this use “it’s just a social construct” to dismiss the importance of certain concepts or abstract ideas. But most of human’s reality is made out of social constructs.
A) they are literally imaginary, but agreed upon.
B) why are you following the imaginings and rules that were created out of thin air by sociopaths and psychopaths
C) why do we continue to ignore the societies set up by the other sapient species? They are millions of years older than us, and the basic rules of their societies took us till the 19th century to understand as basic principles.
The point of saying that something is a social construct isn’t to say that it doesn’t matter, it is to show that it isn’t some immutable requirement of nature. It’s something we decided to do, and most importantly, could decide to do differently if we all just pulled our heads out of our asses. It’s the reply to people who say “it’s always been that way” and look at you like you are crazy for suggesting we do something different.
Yep! Like gender. It may be a social construct but obviously that social construct is very important.
The only reason I can think of to remind people that something is a social construct is to help them remember change is possible and entirely within our control as a society.
The very real use of Force - sometimes of the deadly kind - of this specific “social construct” should make it painfully clear it has real - often life changing - consequences, to even the greatest of fools, but apparently it doesn’t.
It’s not a social construct, it’s a legal concept
Which is a social construct?
Calling things a social construct is a social construct. Leave LSD to the adults please.
I think this was an attempt at a joke?
Ask Chimpanzees, Orcas, Elephants, or many other advanced natural societies that have evolved over the last few million years. They absolutely have a definition of crimes that they will punish if their members engage in those behaviors. Shunning would be the least brutal of their punishments. Capital punishment is far more prevalent.
If crime is a social construct struct then how come we have laws of nature and laws of physics. What do you think happens when you break a law?
Obviously, you change the law to match reality :P Thanks for the giggle.
The quote is still in the wrong mindset with bad use of language.
It’s not withholding. It’s stealing. It’s thievery.
Counterpoint:
Failure to pay someone money they are owed resulting in jail time only sounds good when you imagine employers being carted off for not paying employees what they’re owed.
It’s not so fun when you consider a mother of 2 carted off for missing a car payment.
Good point, let’s not bring jail into the equation and just do it how it’s done today:
If a mother of 2 misses her car payment, they take her car
So if your boss misses their payment for your labour, you should take back your labour, destroy whatever you’ve made but not been paid for
Yes, also what will happen if you walk out the store with 100€ of groceries depend mostly on how you react. The thing, is, its not because they’re poor that they are going to steal. Homeless people steal a pack of pasta and a water bottle, not a month worth of food. It does happen, though if someone walk out with 100€ there is more chance he is walking out with a tv than pasta, be an asshole and be belligerant.
In the end the difference goes back to surveillance, it is very easy to prove you are walking out of the store with 100€ of things, there much less surveillance that would even be legal today to see they are paying you correctly. Don’t be fooled by the politicians who say “let’s just bails every robbers and shoplifter cause bosses withold pays” because this is a zero investment solution. For the politician its just writing, no need to rework the system that is causing the issue or deploy law enforcement. This is literally politics without action, which is indeed nonsensical
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Yes but which one leads to worse consequences despite taking the same value of currency?
This is an argument for punishing wage theft not that crime is a made up concept.
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One crime has far less harsh sentences, far less enforcement, and a much more significant impact. Yet harm is the same by the money amounts.
The harm from wage theft is generally worse, as the employee is much more likely to be negatively impacted from missing that $100 than the employer is.
To call something a social construct doesn’t diminish the impact of that thing. Race is a social construct as well, and that too has very real impacts on people. Much of what humans interact with on a daily basis are social constructs. That doesn’t make those things meaningless or trivial.
Marriage is a social construct, but that doesn’t mean I can go around acting like I’m single without consequence.
deleted by creator
Does anyone really go to jail for wage theft though? Especially at the same severity that walking out with $100 till bucks would?
From my perspective, it seems like the boss gets a slap on the wrist the first time, while the worker gets fired and carted off to jail the first time.
I think that’s the point of this meme, but there are some nuances involved (aka why does the law treat these people differently? I think there may be a reason having to do with intent here, but that is discussion outside of the scope of what this meme is getting at.)
It might be a felony, but is it enforced?
If something is illegal but isn’t enforced, it’s not illegal.
Not familiar with the laws of California but I think the spirit of the post is that the cops will be on your ass immediately and you will be put in jail if you walk with $100.
If your boss steals $100 from you it then becomes a matter for the courts before anyone in the company faces even the slightest threat of jail.
I’d add Wilhoit’s Law: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect”
But I’d adjust: “North American Democracy consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups (the rich) whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups (workers) whom the law binds but does not protect
deleted by creator
How did you manage to come to the dumbest possible interpretation of what was being said?
Crime is ABSOLUTELY a social construct. Why was it legal several months ago to have an abortion across the US but now several states are criminalizing the same? Have abortions changed? No - politics did, I would argue spurred on by the desire for capitalists to keep a steady supply of low wage uneducated exploitable desperate workers.
Why is it suddenly criminal in the state of Georgia to give food and water to people lining up at polling stations? Because one class wants to make it uncomfortable and inconvenient for another class, and I would argue race, of people to vote.
For more, from Harper’s Magazine “Legalize It All” (How to Win the War on Drugs):
Same as it ever was - criminalizing social classes to disempower them is the name of the game. If you aren’t wise to this you haven’t been paying attention.
Adding - it’s illegal in Japan for me to possess and consume cannabis but perfectly legal in Canada for me to do the same.
It would be illegal for me to walk around in certain countries without a headscarf, how is that not a social law?
It’s illegal in Russia to speak against the war, and people have been imprisoned for the softest infractions of this. In North America I have free speech in this regard.
Because one of these things is stealing a possession, and one of these things is failing to pay a debt. And.we generally don’t jail people for failing to pay debts, at least not immediately. And that’s a good thing to, otherwise the poor would be getting jailed all the time.
The place burns down misteriously in both cenarios?
removed by mod
Crime is a social construct = wage theft is a social construct, and according to the law of internet arguments something being a social construct means it doesn’t matter and/or it’s dumb to complain about it, so don’t worry, it’s all fine.
Just because the rich are protected from their white collar crime doesn’t mean the concept of crime as a whole is a social construct.
Crime exists, crime is crime. Your boss short changing you money wouldn’t get the same reaction as lifting money from the till but you’d still have legal recourse to either get the money from them or take legal action to sue them.
Double standards under the law doesn’t equal “crime is an invented concept.”
The way I viewed it, if they short you a $100 on your paycheck you will have to prove them the hours, bring it to HR and try to get it fixed on the next paycheck. They borrowed $100 for 2 weeks and wasted company time. If you borrowed $100 from the till for 2 weeks without asking you would just be fired. I doubt any real legal recourse would be brought in either case. They would mark down your register was off and terminate employment.
$100 isn’t worth anyones time (In regards to creating a legal case), but it might land you unemployed for a long time and ruin your life.
Mostly on-the-money, but no, they have to prove the hours if the labor board gets involved. And that’s a simple phone call, no lawyers or money involved. (Don’t sign off on your hours, literally or digitally, if they are not correct.)
And no, you can’t “borrow” $100 from the till. That’s theft, plain and simple. Many employers have a system by which they can easily loan you a small amount like that. Just ask. You might be surprised. (Often not advertised because of the potential for abuse.)
No lie. When I was 16, a long time ago, my ex-Marine tough-guy McDonald’s manager sat me down over a missing $10. Almost surely my fuck up, but he made it out like I stole. Got very threatening.
Inside I was like, “Are you shitting me?! I make $3.34/hr. Would it be worth 3 hours pay to lose my job you numb nut?!”
Outside, “I… uh… I mean, is $10 bucks worth getting fired? Why would anyone do that? Uh, I made a mistake making change… or something… Uh, I’m sorry. Won’t happen again. ^please don’t kill me^”
Fuck me. Humiliated and treated like a thief over a measly $10. 35-years later and I still remember that asshole beating up a teenager over chicken change.
Anyway, I went out drinking vodka with my fellow punkers, trashed an abandoned bowling alley, dodged the police helicopter and skated talking to the cops because my friend’s dad was cop, crashed at some popular punk’s apartment, crawled home in the 100° Oklahoma summer sun, and called in sick. LOL, he fired me and I was grateful. Got my leather motorcycle jacket out of frying those fries and working the register. Fuck 'em. 80’s were good times. I got stories. 😁
Haha agreed, the borrowed for both sides was more joking terminolgy than realism. As for signing hours, I haven’t had that since 2011/2012. Since then it has always been submit hours for approval and direct deposit. If the amount was off is where you’d have to bring it to HR for the companies I’ve been with.
My experiences with employment don’t reach the 80s though. Been working full time hours since 16, but I’m in my mid 30s.
From my understanding a social construct is something that is that is formed through an agreement between people in a society as opposed to something that is an objective observation of physical reality. Like for example money is a social construct, because we all agree that it has value and treat it as such, even though objectively a hundred dollar bill is just a piece of cloth and otherwise would only have as much value as any other piece of cloth. Democracy is a social construct, marriage, the calandar, gender norms, fashion, and crime are all social constructs. It doesn’t mean they aren’t “real” things, just that they’re only real because we all collectively agree they’re real.
If you don’t agree with that definition, I’m curious what you think a social construct is and what things you would believe to be social constructs?
Crime is absolutely an invented concept.
Drinking and driving used to be legal. Now it is a crime. Nothing changed except our society via our elected representatives opted to enact punishments if an individual is caught drinking and driving.
It is illegal for me to purchase or possess a firearm in Canada unless I acquire a license to do so. If I don’t meet these requirements and am found in possession of a weapon, I will be prosecuted and face jail time if convicted. However, in American states pretty much anyone can own a gun. The guns are the same; the difference is the values each society places on gun ownership and the contexts under which owning guns is a crime.
Canada has no stand your ground laws / castle doctrine. It is almost impossible to mount a defense here if you severely injure or kill someone trespassing in your home unless your life is at risk and even then it is difficult to prove that. Many US states allow people to use lethal force to protect property and there isn’t even a trial. The act in question here is the same; the difference is how our societies have invented and constructed our laws.
I am technically not allowed to cross the border into Quebec, 15 minutes away from my home, purchase a case of beer where it is cheaper, and then bring that beer back across the border to Ontario. The beer itself is not illegal. Consuming the beer is not illegal. The act of transporting the beer across provincial borders is technically a crime.
My friend has a house in Quebec. I have a house in Ontario. Cannabis is legal in Canada at a federal level. It is a crime for my friend in Quebec to grow their own cannabis for personal consumption on their own property. In Ontario, 15 minutes away, I am permitted to grow 4 plants per adult who lives in my household for personal consumption. The pot plants are the same; the social constructs surrounding the plants are not.
There are so many current examples throughout history and throughout the world of things that used to be legal or illegal in different countries, cultures, and societies that are now the opposite. Slavery, segregation, discrimination, gay marriage? Nothing has changed with these acts - society has changed their definition of what is a crime and what is not. That makes crime something that is invented by humans, the nature of which constantly changes.
If you were one of the last 2 people on earth and the other person killed all of your livestock, has a crime been committed? How can a crime be committed if there is no social contract which dictates what the consequences should be for that act?
Setting aside morals and ethics for a moment, intent (and malice) is a key component of crimes. Unfortunately it’s easier to show in some cases than others. It’s also worth noting that the at-will contract goes both ways in this case. Unfortunately there is an insurmountable power imbalance in this situation.
I was about to say I’m glad I was never in this situation, but I just remembered a time where I switched from an employee to a contractor and stopped getting paid.
removed by mod
Yeah this is pretty absurd.
YOU HAVE TO PROVE INTENT!
If my boss goes into my locker and lifts $100 from my wallet the same thing happens to him as if I take it from the till. If he fucks up my pay he can shrug and say it was an honest mistake. Same as how I have a garage full of the sorting tubs we use at work for organising things because I “accidentally” brought them home with work in them and “forgot” to bring them back.
I’ve found Americans are woefully ignorant of employment law. But the employers are not.
Employers are scared shitless of a call from the state labor board. 2 jobs ago I had a really weaselly, small time, company owner. My god, the things that man would say and do to fuck you around. But he stayed within the law and did not fuck around on paychecks.
One time I was shorted $200. Honest mistake. He called me personally and said he would give me $200 out of his wallet, that afternoon, if it was not in my bank account by EOB.
My last job was for a payroll firm. I don’t think it’s common knowledge, but most places farm out the payroll. Let the experts handle it because the laws and taxes get complex in a hurry. Even our shitty clients wouldn’t play around with pay.
Example; You work overtime and aren’t paid, or paid correctly. You call the labor board and the employer is on the hook to prove your hours. One call, guilty until proven innocent, and it’s on them. If they cannot, the labor board defaults to the employee.
“I worked 80-hours a week for these assholes and got paid for 40!”
Aight. One call and the employer shows your signature agreeing to the hours worked, or they pay. All of it. Every time.
Wage fucking theft, everyone.