Wage Theft Research Articles

Working at the level above: university promotion policies as a tool for wage theft and underpayment

ABSTRACT Higher education has a strong relationship with wage theft, which has been examined throughout years of research, reports, and government enquiries. This paper examines the practices of wage theft that often surround academic promotions, and specifically, the common requirement that someone must already be working at the level for which they are hoping to be promoted. The work uses Australia’s higher education sector as an example, as Australia’s employment and promotion conditions are similar in many aspects to other higher education sectors. The paper provides an analysis of the promotion expectations to which academics are subjected to understand what tasks academics are expected to complete, and for how long, without being paid, before they can apply for promotion. The paper demonstrates to academics, policymakers, and unions, yet another exploitative practice that must be monitored and removed from the modern university as the sector looks to engage more equitable practices.

Unpaid overtime and mental health in the Canadian working population.

Unpaid overtime-describing a situation where extra hours are worked but not paid for-is a common feature of the labor market that, together with other forms of wage theft, costs workers billions of dollars annually. In this study, we examine the association between unpaid overtime and mental health in the Canadian working population. We also assess the relative strength of that association by comparing it against those of other broadly recognized work stressors. Data were drawn from a survey administered to a heterogeneous sample of workers in Canada (n = 3691). Generalized linear models quantified associations between unpaid overtime, stress, and burnout, distinguishing between moderate (1-5) and excessive (6 or more) hours of unpaid overtime. Unpaid overtime was associated with higher levels of stress and burnout. Relative to those working no unpaid overtime, men working excessive unpaid overtime were 85% more likely to report stress (prevalence ratios [PR]: 1.85, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.26-2.72) and 84% more likely to report burnout (PR: 1.84, 95% CI: 1.34-2.54), while women working excessive unpaid overtime were 90% more likely to report stress (PR: 1.90, 95% CI: 1.32-2.75) and 52% more likely to report burnout (PR: 1.52; 95% CI: 1.12-2.06). The association of excessive unpaid overtime with mental health was comparable in magnitude to that of shift work and low job control. Unpaid overtime may present a significant challenge to the mental health of working people, highlighting the potential role of wage theft as a neglected occupational health hazard.

Migrant sexual precarity through the lens of workplace litigation

AbstractTheories of precarity have emphasized workplace isolation, worker vulnerability and a lack of control over key features of work. Migration status has been viewed as an attribute that can exacerbate worker precarity, and sexual violence and bodily injury are viewed by feminist scholars including Violence Against Women scholars as sources of such precarity as well. Nevertheless, how the interaction of workplace conditions, migration status, gender and sexual violence impact migrants needs more attention. A new evidence base, the Migrant Worker Rights Database, explores workplace violations against migrants in 907 tribunal and court cases brought by migrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States over a 20‐year period. The data collected for this project demonstrates that female migrants experience higher rates of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual servitude, and sex trafficking when compared with men. Further, while such collectively termed “sexual violence” offenses comprise a small percentage of cases in the Database (1.3%), they are characterized qualitatively by key features that present a heightened form of sexual precarity when compared with citizens: misuse by employers of visa conditions, debt bondage, live‐in arrangements, entrapment and slavery, and the combination of sexual violence with economic infringements such as wage theft and physical assault. Sexual precarity, this paper argues, should be viewed as an overlapping and reinforcing form of workplace precarity that has distinctly sexual and bodily dimensions.

The impact of alternative arrangements, contingent jobs, and work secured through an app on the well-being of working age adults: Results from the California Work and Health Survey.

There is recognition of the growing prevalence of alternative work arrangements, contingent jobs, and work secured through an app. However, there have been few systematic efforts to understand the impact of these forms of work on individuals and households. The data derive from the California Work and Health Survey administered to a sample of the working age population of the state solicited through random-digit dialing of cell phone numbers. 4014 individuals completed the survey, 26% of those with an in-service cell phone number. We present odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals from logistic regression estimating the impact of being an independent contractor, in other forms of alternative work arrangements, in contingent jobs, and in work secured through an app, on economic and health status and working conditions in main jobs, with and without adjustment for covariates. Several of the forms of work analyzed are associated with lower earnings and higher rates of wage theft, household poverty, benefit recipiency, and expectation of hardships in food, housing, and medical care in the immediate future. Association between the forms of work and current health status is less consistent. However, several forms of work are associated with working conditions known to be risk factors for subsequent health problems. Public policy to mitigate the adverse impacts of work, largely developed in the 20th Century when there was an identified workplace, may be insufficient to protect workers' well-being for alternative work arrangements, contingent jobs, and work secured through an app.

Collective Voice without Collective Bargaining: Pandemic Induced Wage Theft Claims and Worker Responses in Apparel Supply Chains

AbstractConcentrated corporate power and failures to manage the distribution of risk mean that workers bear the heaviest burden in globalised apparel supply chains. Law and associated normative frameworks seek to strengthen collective worker voice and other worker rights to tip the scales of unequal bargaining power to benefit the workers. However, some of the traditional tools of labour law such as unionising and collective bargaining have weakened over the years and exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a conceptual framework based on regulatory theory, feminist insights, and semi-autonomous social fields, this article examines the law-practice gap for regulating just wages within the apparel supply chain, responses, and how workers fight wage theft and carve out pathways to demand just wage standards. Drawing from the case of Sri Lanka, the article discusses how alternative forms of worker voice seek to fill in the implementation gaps. The findings of this study demonstrate worker initiatives to shape the regulation of just wages and how networked labour activism, especially by women workers, prompts to re-imagine structures of actor accountability on wage rights.

The legacy of immigration policies and employment exclusion: Assessing the relationship between employment exclusions and immigrant health

Restrictive federal and state immigration policies create conditions of employment exclusion that may negatively influence the health of immigrants. In particular, these policy effects are reflected in labor market and workplace experiences that determine the types of work and employment opportunities that immigrants are able to access and pursue. This study examines the relationship between both cumulative and individual measures of employment exclusion and self-rated health and psychological distress among Asian and Latino immigrants in California, and whether this relationship is modified by legal status. We used data from the Research on Immigrant Health and State Policy (RIGHTS) study (n = 2010). We used both multivariable logistic regression and linear regression models for our analyses. For cumulative models, labor market exclusion was associated with poor health (OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.46). Workplace exclusion was also associated with poor self-rated health (OR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.82) and increased psychological distress (β = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.31, 1.07). For individual measures of employment exclusion, settling for a job – a labor market exclusion – and working in a dangerous job and experiencing wage theft – workplace exclusions – were associated with poor health and increased psychological distress. There was no evidence that the association between employment exclusions and health varied by legal status. These findings demonstrate that the combined effect of employment exclusions is detrimental to immigrant health. To improve population health, public health researchers should continue to interrogate the policy conditions at the federal, state, and local level that exclude immigrants from employment opportunities and workplace protections.

Wage Theft and Technology in the Home Care Context

Home care workers (HCWs) are professionals who provide care to older adults and people with disabilities at home. However, HCWs are vulnerable and especially susceptible to wage theft, or not being paid their legally-entitled wages in full by their employers. Prior work has examined other low-wage work settings to show how technology is designed and deployed has the potential to both cause and address wage theft. We extend this work by examining the relationship between technology and wage theft in the home care context. We collaborated closely with a local grassroots organization to conduct interviews with workers and labor, legal, and payroll experts. We uncovered how the complex, volatile, and diverse nature of home care complicates the errors in time-tracking systems. Through design provocations and focus groups with workers and experts, we also investigated the potential of technology as a part of broader efforts to curb wage theft through educating and empowering isolated HCWs. While we found that approachable design could reduce errors in existing systems, make employer processes more transparent, and help workers exchange knowledge to build collective power, we also discuss concerns around burden, privacy, and accountability when designing technologies for HCWs and other low-wage workers.

Agenda setting, framing and wage theft in Australia

ABSTRACT Over the past decade the problem of wage theft has burst onto the Australian policymaking scene, seemingly out of nowhere. Its meteoric rise, from a largely unrecognised issue to the broad public agenda, then onto the narrower governmental and decision agendas of state and federal governments, was a major feat in policy advocacy. It stands as a particularly outstanding example of the power of framing to change the salience and esteem of an issue. By tracing the journey of the wage theft issue through the different spheres of public and governmental attention, this research illuminates under-studied aspects of the re-framing and agenda-setting artforms and advances the study of advocacy group interventions in policy conflicts.

Wage Theft, Secrecy, and Derealization of ‘Ideal Workers’ in the Bangladesh Garment Industry

This study addresses how violence is mobilized through wage theft in feminized workplaces thriving within the global value chain. Guided by Judith Butler’s concept of derealization, this longitudinal case study on the Bangladesh garment industry advances the current debate on violence in organization studies. First, it re-conceptualizes the notion of an ‘ideal worker’. Empirical evidence reveals that, unlike in Western societies, young and childless women in the Global South and their vulnerabilities woven into poverty, inequality, climate change, patriarchy, social stratification, and limited employment opportunities make them ‘ideal workers’. This status remains valid as long as they remain vulnerable and demonstrate no agency in resisting the discourse on dehumanization, dispossession, and displacement. Second, this study illuminates the practice of wage theft, which has emerged as a dominant form of violence in feminized workplaces. Organizations also deploy secrecy to continue theft, thereby inflicting further physical and psychological violence. This study highlights the fact that socioeconomic vulnerabilities and unresisted violence oppress a docile workforce to become ‘ideal workers’. It is a neoliberal myth that helps powerful actors shore up their power and privileges through derealization.

Wage theft and the contours of accumulation

This article examines the theft of migrant workers’ wages in England by their employers, drawing from original accounts and testimonies of a sample of workers employed between 2018 and 2023. It builds on and establishes new conceptual understandings of wage theft by examining it as a violent form of accumulation, with a range of logics and functions including those which are connected to labour processes and the management of labour forces. In making this argument, the article situates the theft of migrant workers’ wages – in this context at least – at the apex of at least three convergent dynamics: namely, the contours of immigration control and attacks on migrants’ rights, a reworking and undermining of regulatory structures relating to labour protections, and ongoing forms of labour market restructuring. As such, it suggests that these dynamics are structural; and furthermore, at a point where each of these policy trajectories is being aggressively pursued, they are intensifying. In dominant narratives wage theft is frequently depicted as something carried out by ‘rogue’ employers, at the margins of labour markets. But in contrast, this article suggests it must be understood as a structurally-situated component of contemporary political economy. Indeed, it is a core contention of the analysis that follows that movements to resist and tackle wage theft must acknowledge these broader connections and the broader political economy of which they are a part.

Capital Market Pressure and Racial Inequality: An Examination of Workplace Safety and Wage Theft

Capital Market Pressure and Racial Inequality: An Examination of Workplace Safety and Wage Theft

Supply Chain Wage Theft as Unfair Method of Competition

Supply Chain Wage Theft as Unfair Method of Competition

Wage Theft of Nepali Migrant workers in Destination Countries: Grave Violation of Migrants’ Right

Wage theft is the grave violation of human rights and labour law of migrant workers which varies with background characteristics of migrants. Despite the international and national legal and policy provisions, the issue of wage theft has been increasing over time which compounds with the humanitarian crisis. The main objective of this article is to examine the drivers of wage theft of Nepali migrant workers at destination countries. Cross sectional design was used in this study in which 241 Nepali migrants were interviewed who were returned from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Malaysia and other countries. Of the total respondents majority were from age group 25-29 (26.14%), from Janajati caste (38.17%), married (78.42%) and from Koshi Province (33.20%). The duration of stay, documentation status, status and places of case filing of Nepali migrant workers has the strongest effect on implementation of salary agreement [24 months and above (OR=20.397, CI: 4.345-95.739), undocumented status is significantly lower i.e. (OR=0.278, CI: 0.147-0.526), and the absence of case file (OR=7.362, CI: 3.437-15.768)]. Similarly, the unpaid status of Nepali migrant workers is also significantly associated with duration of stay and caste/ethnicity [6-12 months (OR=16.6333, CI: 2.548-108.589) and Dalit (OR=0.763, CI: 0.202-2.885),]. The level of education and knowledge on minimum salary is also significantly associated with coercive working situations [lower secondary (OR=0.047, CI: 0.012-0.178) and having no knowledge (OR=0.993, CI: 0.509-1.938)]. The study reveal the fact that the prevalence of wage theft among Nepali migrant workers is high among migrant living in longer period of time, migrants with knowledge on minimum salary, illiterate migrants, undocumented, migrants without agreement paper, and low paid migrants. For improving both working situation and full with timely payment, the migrant sending and receiving countries need to adopt proper legal and policy provisions with their effective execution.

Work sucks, I know: Instagram as a platform for young people's labour grievances

In Summer 2020, young workers from prominent Vancouver, British Columbia-based cafes, restaurants and breweries took to Instagram to air grievances about their workplaces. Precarious and violent working conditions in the food industry are business as usual in BC, which is reflected in the stories these workers shared of wage theft, unsafe workplaces, erratic scheduling, harassment and sexual violence. Held within the context of widespread layoffs in the industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these workers built communities of complaint and, in some cases, fundamentally changed the ownership and operations of their workplaces. To do this, these young workers navigated a complex web of digital/physical spaces and relationships to challenge abuses in their workplaces. By centering their complaints in the interrelationship between complaint, digital political protest, economic grievance and known forms of worker organizing, this paper explores how young people leveraged their grievances through their digital networks to influence their economic relationships and create safer workplaces for themselves and other workers.

COVID-19 pandemic induced wage theft: evidence from Sri Lankan migrant workers

ABSTRACTThe COVID-19 pandemic-related labour market issues and the rapid departure from countries of destination have heightened wage theft issues faced by migrant workers. This article provides scientific evidence on pandemic-induced wage theft experienced by migrant workers with the aim of minimising migrant workers’ exposure to similar cases of injustice in the future. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of data on migrant workers who returned to Sri Lanka during the pandemic provides evidence of the dimensions of wage theft. These dimensions include non-negotiable wage reductions and delays in payment of dues, non-payment of salary dues, non-provision of other dues and benefits, unconsented setting off of benefits, non-transparent calculation of benefits and their setting off against other goods and services provided by employer and holding migrant workers in situations of bonded labour. The findings also highlight that non-payment of due wages is more common among vulnerable migrant workers. The article suggests strategies to remedy wage theft issues faced by migrant workers by changing the behaviour of the migrant workers as well as by changing the behaviour the employers. Moreover, the punitive measures to offending employers need to be combined with remedial financial compensation measures to victimised migrant workers.

Collective Bargaining in Fissured Work Contexts: An Analysis of Core Challenges and Novel Experiments

Facilitating access to effective and meaningful collective bargaining is at the heart of the most recent set of reforms to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (‘ FW Act’) enacted in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) 2022 (Act). In the shadow of these reforms, this article explores who can engage in collective bargaining in Australia and under what conditions. While there are a range of issues impeding the effectiveness of the collective bargaining system under the FW Act, this article focuses on the question of bargaining access under both labour and competition laws and reveals some of the formidable challenges facing employed and non-employed workers alike. It examines how the rise in dependent contractors and the disaggregation of firms—through labour hire, subcontracting, franchising and/or digital platforms—has destabilised the binary conception of employment. The decline in formal employment and the growth of the ‘fissured workplace’ have not only perpetuated the problem of ‘wage theft’, they have altered the way in which wages are set in the first place. Moreover, these factors have exposed the tensions that lie between the regulation of mainstream labour markets through worker-orientated labour legislation and the regulation of product markets and business relationships under consumer-orientated competition legislation. The discussion explores the limitations created by the siloing of regulatory approaches to enabling collective bargaining for workers covered by different statutory regimes. We identify that in both labour and competition laws, meaningful access to collective bargaining in fissured work contexts has been frequently stifled by misplaced assumptions about the nature of the regulatory target and the power distribution in business networks. The article contends that a regulatory response to fissuring (or the problem of ‘the networked firm’) would straddle the labour/competition law divide in various ways, to ensure fissured workers are no longer excluded from exercising collective power by both legal domains.

The Experiences of Children on Sri Lanka's Tea Plantations: Labor and Sexual Exploitation, Violence, and Inadequate Education

This article explores the difficulties faced by children living in Sri Lanka’s tea plantation areas. Data from 150 children reveal high rates of poverty, violence, and school dropout. Children in tea plantation schools report bullying and stigma from teachers and students. Many children do not envision completing school due to inadequate resources, family income pressures, and the need to work. Children who drop out of school face abusive labor conditions and poor pay. Over 30% of all children report experiencing sexual abuse, often in their own homes. Those working face discrimination, physical abuse, and wage theft. Initiatives are needed to improve family incomes, reform schools, provide affordable childcare, enforce child labor laws, and raise awareness of safety and rights. Governmental financial support is required to improve housing, expand agriculture production to generate family income for schooling expenses, and provide training for teachers. Government interventions and creating coordination between agencies, NGOs, and tea industry stakeholders are vital to alleviate the hardships faced by Sri Lanka’s tea plantation children and create opportunities for them to realize their full potential.

Rising wage theft in tea industry: consequences of ineffective labor market institutions

ABSTRACT This article discusses the processes and methods involved in appropriating wages through strict-compliance and non-compliance of different laws, leading to various economic and social rights violations in tea plantation which is one of the oldest industries in India. It addresses the various ways that are cited as the apparent grounds of wage appropriation, namely, self-made rules, management control, and workers’ non-compliance with certain norms at the workplace. The study, conducted in 2019, is based on 510 workers across 50 tea estates from 9 major tea-producing districts of Assam, India. In tea industry, wage theft through direct and indirect methods leads to labor rights violations that result from the exploitative ‘control and command’ system, uneven power relations, various information asymmetry on value share, and ineffective existing labor market institutions.

The informalisation of precarious work in fishing crew: Experiences of Fijian fishers on distant water vessels

This paper examines the experiences of local fishing crew in Pacific Island states who join distant water fishing vessels, drawing on Fijian fishers as a case study for our discussion. Locally recruited and deployed fishers often face precarious labour conditions on fishing vessels and we discuss their vulnerability using three registers of precarious work: unsafe and exploitative working conditions, wage theft, and the lack of mechanisms for compensation after exiting their work on board the vessels. The experiences of many such crew fit internationally accepted criteria for forced labour. We contest the current characterisation of forced labour on distant water fishing vessels as primarily a problem that applies to Southeast Asian migrants. In developing a greater understanding the experiences of Fijian fishing crew, we draw out how their mode of entry into distant water fishing crew work, and location as Pacific Island nationals recruited in port/ fleet states can contribute to their vulnerability to exploitation.

Development and refinement of a corner-based injury prevention programme for Latino day labourers.

Latino day labourers (LDLs) in the USA are at increased risk for non-fatal and fatal occupational injuries, which are compounded by stressors that include wage theft, job insecurity and discrimination. This paper describes the development and refinement of Vales+Tú (You are Worthy of More), an injury prevention programme currently being evaluated as part of a cluster randomised trial in which health promotion is taken directly to the 'corners' (e.g. street corners, home improvement store parking lots, and public parks) where workers gather to seek employment. Vales+Tú comprises two corner-based intervention approaches, group problem-solving (small group discussions) and brief motivational interviewing (one-on-one dialogue), that aim to activate LDL agency to control their safety and that of their peers. Corners in Houston, Texas, where LDLs seek employment. Intervention Mapping informed the refinement of Vales+Tú for the current trial. We provide a narrative review of the development process based on needs assessment and formative development activities (surveys, focus group discussions and pilot tests). In addition to documenting the need for LDL injury prevention, with 20.2%-41.6% of Houston-based LDLs surveyed between 2013-2014 and 2019 reporting a severe work-related injury in the past year, we describe key facets of the Vales+Tú corner-based intervention approaches - including their theoretical basis and LDL-centred activities, as well as enhancements made informed by formative evaluation. The community-engaged development process of Vales+Tú resulted in two practical intervention approaches that can be adopted by worker centres and other organisations to promote LDL worker safety.