Hacker News Reader

Comment by adrr | Hacker News Reader

Start sending manager and hr to jail for wage theft. If an employee falsified timesheets they can and have been convicted of theft. Why isn’t the reverse true?

Jail is a huge motivating factor and why you don’t see wide spread accounting fraud in public companies.

View on HN

That's probably not a path you want to go down. Do we start putting employees in jail for wage theft?

Yes, at appropriate levels. I worked in several regulated financial institutions. Every year it was part of compliance training to be reminded that if you notice, for instance, money laundering or financial fraud, you can be personally liable and go to jail.

This isn't a new concept at all. Professional engineers have similar levels of risk if they breach ethics, though I don't know if it's criminal or just self regulatory and civil.

Yup. When I worked in the defense industry, even as an unlicensed engineer, I was bound by threat of prosecution to report a wide category of violations. Per our agreement with the US DoD, even workplace injuries which could impact our readiness fell under this definition. Now that I'm over in the finance space, if I ever notice anything suggesting a financial crime, I am required by law to report it.

Yes. Theft is a crime regardless of how it's done.

We already put people in jail for false timesheets. Wage theft is in the billions .

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/nsa-contractor-pleads-gui...

Why not simply execute the criminals?

No, you should quit instead.

Making offering not enough money to someone a criminal offense sounds like a dangerous ground to stand on.

It's not about "offering" enough money it's about companies that are deliberately classifying employees as "managers" when they're anything but for the purposes of avoiding having to pay the employees overtime.

It's just semantics, you're not compelled to stay and work for someone who is low-balling you.

The people aren't compelled to let you to continue to peaceably do business in their country if you don't wish to follow their laws.

Employers can just fire people who falsify time sheets. Or take money from the register.

And they can have the employee prosecuted. Just let the inverse happen when employers steal from employees.

The classification fraud is a crime. It's also tax fraud because you're understating proper income partly to avoid paying taxes on it.

This is far from simply offering a low wage from the beginning.

It’s not about offering, it’s about having done it.

If an employees took the same amount of money it would be theft, so illegally not paying that amount is a very similar crime.

This is about following the law. Has nothing to do with offering money. Manager is a defined role with specific responsibilities and tasks.

> offering not enough money

This is not what would be illegal. Wage theft is actual theft in the sense that they knowingly have something (and even sometimes attempt to retain the something) which is legally not theirs. Yes, the worker should quit. Yes, the worker should go after what's owed them. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com