If you have seen recent headlines about major wage-and-hour class actions, such as the FedEx misclassification case, Alexander v. FedEx Ground Package System, ___ F. 3d. ___ (9th Cir. 8/27/14), or the Wal-Mart decision about off-the-clock work here in Pennsylvania, Braun v. Wal-Mart Stores, 616 Pa. 354, 47 A.3d 1174 (2012), then you would know there is a growing problem of wage theft in the low-wage economy all over the country.
You may be wondering what wage theft even is. Wage theft is the preferred term used by employee advocates to encompass a range of corner-cutting activities by employers that come at the expense of their employees. The cases include nonpayment of overtime, withholding of the last few paychecks, worker misclassification, requiring work “off the clock” and unlawful deductions from pay. Although wage theft occurs in a variety of workplaces, it tends to occur more often in the low wage, nonunion and immigrant workforce where the workforce is perceived as more reliant on the job and therefore less likely to complain. Wage theft harms affected families, but communities also suffer when those families cannot pay the rent and from uncollected revenues caused by nonpayment of wages.
