solarpunk memes

Making too much profit and not passing it to employees may be highly unethical, but it's not legally wage theft.

That's capitalism.

I'm not religious but.... preach.

Thank you. I came to say something similar. Wage theft is already a big legal problem that doesn't get enough attention or action to fix it. Don't intentionally mix it with a separate ethical issue making the legal issue even less likely to be addressed. They are similar, even related, issues. But they are not the same, nor will they be addressed the same. Don't conflate them.

Thank you for this. I used to hear the term "wage theft" and associate it with underpaying workers relative to the value they produce, until I learned that wage theft refers to underpaying workers relative to what they're contractually entitled to.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that it's a problem to pay workers far less than the value they give, but "you're not paying me what I'm worth" is not as egregious a problem as "you're not paying me what you agreed to pay me."

In most cases, underpayment can't be fixed by an individual for themselves without a wide scale strike (which many workers aren't in a good position to risk,) but wage theft is currently illegal and can be addressed by filing a complaint. So it's better to keep it clear what wage theft is so that the average worker doesn't dismiss it as some communist idea, at least until wage theft is no longer the greatest form of theft in the US.

And "lemon" has a very specific definition when applied to used cars so that dealerships can sell junkers with engines that blow up after 6 months and get away with it. Doesn't make it right, and doesn't make the car any less of a lemon.

Yep. Big bird's description is the increase of exploitation on the workers. Wage theft is denying wages you are due. Very similar in how they effect you and how they feel, definitionally different.

I remember my first encounter with wage theft. Fortunately, I was drilled with the whole DONT WORK FOR FREE philosophy.

Boss asked me to go grab some things from the supermarket before my shift. I said am I on the clock? He said, "It's on the way. What's the problem?"

I pretended like I forgot and played stupid. And he sent me back out AFTER I clocked in.

I don't love the message, because that's not what wage theft is. Wage theft is literally not paying people their due salary.

This is wage theft

Several of the company’s employees told the Herald-Leader in January that ARC regularly paid workers late. In Perry County, several employees reported going weeks without a paycheck.

If you want a list of examples of wage theft this is it. Not paying Min Wage. Not paying due overtime. Classifying workers incorrectly to evade labor laws. Not paying your interns. Not paying into your staffer's SS/Medicare.

It has nothing to do with increasing wages to match profits. This is when you are defrauding your staff of their contractually due salary.

Profit is wage theft? How does that make any sense, or help anyone?

Extortionate profits is exploitation.

But profit per se is a person - or the company owners - receiving back some part of the value they created (helped create), on top of the expense put in.

Employees receive profit for their labour as salary; owners receive profit for their investment as 'company profit'. The problem is exploit their control and position to shift more of the profit to themselves, exploiting the labour of those doing most of the work.

But calling profit wage theft means investors and entrepreneurs should get exactly zero for their investment and work getting things started: and that seems to me a nonsense take that helps nobody - unless you rename profit as ' investor salary'.

Companies making record profits, which don't go proportionally to all the members/labourers therein, is a wrong. And I agree with other commenters that it needs a different name.

Wage theft is a different issue that (as I understand it) is massively under-addressed but legally recognised in America/UK/etc, of robbing employees of their wages as per the agreement/contract. This crime needs attacking, and expanding the name to include things that are not legally criminal, makes it harder to tackle this one - or you need a new name for this specifically.*

To address this other kind of wage theft, where employees are robbed, legally, of their appropriate/fair share of the resulting value**, you need a separate framework of legality of fair profit sharing, and illegality of the converse.***

* Incidentally, this is a concern I have about 'rape' as non-consent. (And maybe sometimes a parallel concern about some uses of 'terrorism'.) Should the couple who go into a room for sexy times, get naked, then one decides maybe not tonight, but the other emotionally presses them into it - should that be treated as severely as the man who accosts a woman in the alley at night and forcefully copulates with her? Perhaps? Should the man who forcefully copulates be treated as lax as the one who didn't take no for an answer after they were both naked in the bedroom? ...No. I hope people who actually deal with these things have ways to handle them properly, but it's seemed to me like the definition gets expanded to make a point, "these things are also bad and you should hate them just as much!" But in the process loses the force of the worse, more specific crime.

(Sorry, long, unrelated tangent.)

** Okay, so I'm calling it 'robbed' now. I guess that means I've kind of cone round to agreeing more than I intended to.

*** And that's your point, isn't it! Well, I thought I disagreed with you, then it seems I've talked myself into something at least similar. I'll let my long and boring comment stand anyway. It's not 100% useless ;-)

Profit is the excess resources generated when combining capital and labor. Capitalism predominately sends the profit to the holders of capital, and socialism sends the profit predominately to labor.

Profit is not wage theft. Sending that profit to investors rather than workers is.

Edit: as a matter of accounting, profit may be calculated after the workers get their checks. That's simply an accounting thing and doesn't really matter to a broader understanding of where the money goes.

It's an old picture.