“Wage theft” has a really scary sound to it. It sounds like some sleazy scheme concocted in smokey back rooms, or perhaps, street thugs hanging out in dark alleys, and stealing paychecks at gun point. What it really is, is underpaying people. For instance, not payingovertime when it’s legally owed.
As a business owner, you should cringe when you hear the term wage theft and you should fight against it. Why? Because, while some people are honestly stealing money from employees by falsifying time cards and such, most people who commit “wage theft” do so accidentally.
How do you accidentally steal wages from your employees? Extremely easily. The law that governs how employees are paid is called the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). It divides people into two classes: exempt employees who are paid the same amount each week, regardless of how many hours they work, and non-exempt employees who are paid for each hour and must be paid overtime when they hit 40 hours in a single week. When that law was written, 76 years ago, it was really, really obvious who was a “worker” and who was a “manager.”
To keep reading, click here: Why ‘Wage Theft’ Should Scare You