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> few readers here will have been at the poverty line, where it might appear a little more ambiguous whether taking a small cut from a very successful business which pays minimum wage is so clearly immoral.

WalterBright's comment indicates some confusion with this, so I'll help explain.

There's a basic notion of fairness that what you've contracted to do (your job) in return for money (your wages) is fair. But a lot of people don't see minimum wage as a fair wage: it's simply better than no wage. As such, in the context of a business whose payroll policy is perceived as unfair, then the notion of "what's fair" begins to tolerate theft: what you're being paid for isn't fair, so you're making it fair by stealing.

I don't agree with this, but I do understand it.

I don't agree with it, nor do I understand it. I see the same behaviour in corporate bankers are are earning many millions per year. It's OK to steal because I deserve more. People like this are common thieves - and nothing more. Growing up, my family went from poor to middle class. We did the hard yards. We never stole. Why? Because its about principals and ethics. Never, never excuse a thief. If your statement were true, i'd rip off the volunteer organisations that I _volunteer_ in ... because they don't pay me enough.

I don't agree with your hardline ethics. This is one of the big points raised in "Les Miserables". Stealing a loaf of bread when you're starving is qualitatively different from corporate banking behavior. Humane empathy to the unfortunates is bigger than priniciples.

Here's another twist - by refusing to pay fair wages, the employer is stealing from the employee. "Hark in thine ear: change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?" - King Lear

> If your statement were true, i'd rip off the volunteer organisations that I _volunteer_ in ... because they don't pay me enough.

Presumably, you volunteer because you aren't interested in getting money from them. In that case, you wouldn't feel that the wages you're getting are unfair and thus wouldn't feel motivated to steal.

I think there is room to understand the actions of another without condoning or excusing those actions.

> positive light on surveillance

Positive for whom? Do you suppose NCR offers a product that helps waitstaff recoup tips stolen from staff by restaurant owners/managers?

Quite the opposite - a positive for restaurant managers and business owners:

"The software is intentionally set so that a restaurant manager gets only an electronic theft alert in cases that seem to clearly be misconduct. Otherwise, a manager might be mired in time-consuming detective work instead of running the restaurant."

Equals: "managers: persuade your boss to buy our product and you will have more free time"

"The impact, the researchers say, came not from firing workers engaged in theft, but mostly from their changed behavior. Knowing they were being monitored, the servers not only pulled back on any unethical practices, but also channeled their efforts into, say, prompting customers to have that dessert or a second beer, raising revenue for the restaurant and tips for themselves."

Equals: "restaurant owners: we will improve your bottom line, and nebulously your staff may end up working harder for tips, so it's all good, here's an argument you can use if anyone complains"

Interesting that customers are arguably pressured into consuming more by the new configuration as well.

In fact, it's conceivable that this may be a PR piece commissioned by NCR - the author is a freelance writer/photographer, and I know from experience that PR staff/agencies do contact writers to craft positive articles for newspapers.

Could be wrong - either way, this kind of stuff does happen unfortunately (a huge network of incentives which generally have negative impacts on the uninformed/powerless).

And if I was being even more cynical, I might theorize that they chose the subject of surveillance (even though this is far removed from ubiquitous monitoring, even if the implications can be similar) because they know it's a hot topic for social media discussion and SEO value at the moment.

I suspect you are right.

I don't agree with the notion that someone is entitled to steal just because they make minimum wage.

"When someone pays you minimum wage he is trying to say he would pay you less if it wasn't against the law." -- Chris Rock

I agree, but it is hard for me to find sympathy for businessmen who hold wages so low. This behavior is widespread in the restaurant business, and it isn't limited to the staff stealing from the restaurant.

Sympathy has nothing to do with it.

If you feel your wages are too low, negotiate for higher ones. If that doesn't work, accept it or quit. If you've been wronged, you have access to redress from the courts, and the courts are very sympathetic towards workers in disputes with employers.

I said I agree with you.

>If you feel your wages are too low, negotiate for higher ones. If that doesn't work, accept it or quit.

I wish more people would do just that. It's what I did, after about a month of working as a barback.

>If you've been wronged, you have access to redress from the courts, and the courts are very sympathetic towards workers in disputes with employers.

No, you really don't, and the courts aren't. Where did you get that idea?

> Where did you get that idea?

Details of cases I am familiar with, and talking with lawyer friends who tell me that, although it is not supposed to be that way, jurors and judges often give the benefit of any doubt to the perceived underdog.

There's a reason why lawyers carefully dress their clients in certain ways, select jurors based on socioeconomic status, etc.

You think a person who makes minimum wage-ish + tips can hire one of your friends to sue their manager / boss / restaurant owner over wage / tip discrepancies? Do you think your coworkers who depend upon their waitstaff job to support their family / college education will agree to testify or be deposed in proceedings against their employer? Have you really thought about this?

http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/er/labor_standards_bureau/publicati...

States all have their mechanisms where a worker can file a complaint without needing a lawyer.

The person assigned to investigate a labor standards complaint will mail the employer a letter informing the employer of the complaint, who filed the complaint and what will happen next.

Since unpaid wage complaints involving minimum wage or overtime issues may affect other current/former employees who are not listed in the complaint, the department may request the employer conduct a self-audit of its place of employment if the complaint before the department proves to be valid.

Yes that sounds like a fantastically powerful tool for workers to wield against their employers. I bet it keeps everything above board. /sarcasm

A lot of employment lawyers will take cases on in exchange for a portion of the damages if you have a valid case. Almost every employment lawyer will listen to you enough to figure out if you might have a case.

This is funny. I worked close to minimum wage at a restaurant before. There was no wage negotiation. We had people coming in every single day looking for a job to work minimum wage. I would have been replaced in an hour, there was no leverage. What was I going to do?

Reading your post closely, I infer a couple of things.

First off, you were being paid more than minimum wage, and could be replaced at an hour's notice with someone willing to work at minimum wage.

So at some point you successfully demonstrated a higher value than those others, thereby getting a higher wage.

Secondly, you are no longer there at that wage. So you did something to demonstrate even higher value and a higher paying job.

My advice: do more of that, since it was working for you!

Minimum wage, as I recall (it was a long time ago) was around maybe $7 an hour, I was being paid around $7.80. Whooooooooo.... Yeah, the reason for that is because you get a nickel and dime raises when you learn a job. That is pretty much the highest any non-manager employee got in the restaurant.

I was simply shocked as to how many people came in every day looking for an application. Every single day. It was amazing. These weren't teenagers either.

Yeah, I'm not working in the restaurant business anymore because I'm a software engineer now. However, not everyone can become software engineers, and there is still a market for restaurants. I know I enjoy them myself. There is also a latency between age of employment and age that one usually acquires skills to be hired as a software engineer and not everyone has rich [read: middle class] parents to support them through that time.

I also don't need your career advice.

I would like to also point out I would never steal from my employer, or anyone else, it still goes against my morals.

> I also don't need your career advice.

That's cool, but you asked and I answered, and I correctly inferred that you didn't need the advice.

Glad to see you doing well, and Peace, dude!

(I started out at min wage jobs, too.)

I didn't ask anything. The question was rhetorical. I am not going to go to the courts and say "my employer is paying me the wage they are legally allowed to pay me." That's ridiculous. That was the point

My somewhat snarky comment was due being felt as if I was being talked down to.

>Peace, dude!

I'm a woman. Please don't presume the gender of an unknown speaker. It's rude and excluding.

>If you feel your wages are too low, negotiate for higher ones. If that doesn't work, accept it or quit.

Labor rights in this country are so laughable that this isn't a realistic an option. Any attempt towards that end such as simply unionizing has been eroded away by the law written to favor the owners of capital.

Exactly, it is especially bad when there are so many unemployed, making labor a buyer's market.

You don't have to agree with it for it to be happening. Though, understanding that side of the argument can help solve the problem for both sides of the equation.

I understand it happens. I was disagreeing with the attempt at justifying it as acceptable behavior.

The moral way to improve your pay is to find a way to make your labor worth more to the employer.

For a restaurant worker, that could be things like finding ways to boost sales, reduce wastage, find less expensive vendors, improve efficiency, etc. It's highly unlikely that any restaurant has successfully optimized all aspects of their operations.

> For a restaurant worker, that could be things like finding ways to boost sales, reduce wastage, find less expensive vendors, improve efficiency, etc. It's highly unlikely that any restaurant has successfully optimized all aspects of their operations.

What, for free? He isn't being paid to do that.

Perhaps you misunderstood that the point of it was to demonstrate your higher value and hence you were worth more pay.

If you choose to do as little as possible, it does make for a tough negotiating position when asking for more pay.

When I've gone into my boss's office and negotiated for more pay, I'd come in prepared to show how I'd already demonstrated higher value to the company. Sometimes I walked out with a raise, and other times I failed and started looking for another boss who did value what I could do for him.

Forgive me for making assumptions about you, but, you sound as though you have never even known anyone who worked this kind of job. What you're describing would likely earn you enmity or a very antagonistic working relationship with your coworkers.

I do understand that demonstrating higher value and then successfully negotiating for a raise can earn you the enmity of your coworkers. People are only human, after all.

On the other hand, I knew coworkers who were thieves and justified it with their notions of entitlement. I didn't exactly feel inclined to trust them, either, and trust is a basic element of friendship.

So I guess we all get to make our choices and accept the consequences.

Nobody is trying to justify thievery and of course you shouldn't trust thieves. My point is that if you pay your workers the lowest possible wages, you shouldn't be surprised if quality suffers.

> What you're describing would likely earn you enmity or a very antagonistic working relationship with your coworkers.

I.e., the old crabs in a bucket story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

Thank you for that link, I had never heard it referred to as Crab Mentality. Note I wasn't describing my own life philosophy, but rather my observations.

Your comment suggests that you are analyzing the situtation as a static configuration rather than a dynamic system.

From a static point of view where the job situtation will never change it doesn't make sense to put in an effort that exceeds the compensation but that 'solution' is certainly non-optimal from dynamic point of view where the employment contract gets continually revised over time resulting in raises, promotions or perhaps shifting to a new employer where your experience and skills result in a better employment situation.