The Rise of Digital Wage Theft

The days of punching a manual time-clock when you arrive at work are all but over. Digital time tracking systems now use things like facial recognition to monitor when a worker arrives and has finished for the day. However, the software that’s replaced the 19th century time-clock technology is helping some employers steal workers’ hourly pay.

This so-called wage theft is a problem for many healthcare workers, drivers, and food-service and factory employees, according to a study by Elizabeth Tippett, associate professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, published in the American Business Law Journal. An earlier report from the Economic Policy Institute found that wage theft in the US may account for more than $15 billion each year.

How digital wage theft works

Tippett’s study of 330 cases litigated in state and federal courts found three main types of digital wage theft:

• Rounding, which happens when the software is set to alter an employee’s starting and finishing times to pre-defined increments

• Automatic break deductions, which deduct preset time increments (for lunch or other breaks) from pay, regardless of whether the break was taken

• Time shaving, which takes place when managers alter time records to pare down the number of hours worked

Read more about this study in this article by John Detrixhe. 

Tip Pool Violations and Other Forms of Wage Theft Common in the Restaurant Industry

Restaurant Workers Are Often Victims of Wage Theft

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that wage lawsuits against restaurants have proliferated in troubling and damaging numbers:

“…The number of wage-violation lawsuits has been on the rise for more than a decade, driven by a successful worker-organization movement, increased attention by plaintiffs’ attorneys and complicated labor laws that leave some employers confused, according to legal analysts and industry leaders.

Nationwide, these lawsuits have doubled in the last 10 years in federal courts. In Texas, the number of overtime lawsuits and settlements continues to increase as well. The US Department of Labor recently reported that its wage and hour division found violations in 95 percent of its investigations of Austin-area restaurants between Oct. 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016. 

So why do the vast majority of restaurant employers continue to violate wage laws despite news reports of DOL investigations and lawsuits? 

Read more about overtime claims by restaurant workers.

Wage Theft Costs American Workers as Much as $50 Billion a Year

Wage theft is a nationwide epidemic that costs American workers as much as $50 billion a year, a new Economic Policy Institute report finds. In An Epidemic of Wage Theft Is Costing Workers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a Year, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey and EPI intern Brady Meixell examine incidences of wage theft—employers’ failure to pay workers money they are legally entitled to—across the country. The total amount of money recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million in 2012, almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. However, since most victims never report wage theft and never sue, the real cost of wage theft to workers is much greater, and could be closer to $50 billion a year.

“Wage theft affects far more people than more well-known crimes such as bank robberies, convenience store robberies, street and highway robberies, and gas station robberies combined, and can be absolutely devastating for workers living from paycheck to paycheck,” said Eisenbrey. “For low-wage workers, the wages lost from wage theft can total nearly 10 percent of their annual earnings.”

The authors also conducted a study of workers in low-wage industries in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and found that in any given week, two-thirds experienced at least one pay-related violation.  They estimate that the average loss per worker over the course of a year was $2,634, out of total earnings of $17,616. The total annual wage theft from front-line workers in low-wage industries in the three cities approached $3 billion. If these findings are generalizable to the rest of the U.S. low-wage workforce of 30 million, wage theft is costing workers more than $50 billion a year.

Read More:

Click here for a copy of the entire report.

Theoretically related posts:

Courts Make it More Difficult for Employees to Pursue Tip Theft by Employers

Wal-Mart Sued for Wage Theft

“Wage Theft”: The Trendy Phrase That May Not Mean What You Think It Means - From Daniel Schwartz's always excellent Connecticut Employment Law Blog

Wage Theft and Misclassification Report - Contains state by state grades.