How American Workers Are Losing Billions
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ธ.ค. 2021
- How American Workers Are Losing Billions - Second Thought
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You've probably heard the term "wage theft" before, but do you know just how big a problem it is? In the US, wage theft is dwarfs all other kinds of theft combined. Let's take a look at why this is happening and try to understand the underlying problems that enable it.
New video every Friday!
Citations and Further Reading:
Wage Theft in America (Stats & Theory)
books.google.com/books?id=eE9...
www.epi.org/publication/epide...
www.nelp.org/publication/forc...
www.epi.org/publication/emplo...
nclnet.org/wage_theft_six_com...
inthesetimes.com/article/walm...
www.goodjobsfirst.org/news/re...
Conventional Theft Data
ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/...
ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/...
Marxist Criminology
books.google.com/books?hl=en&...
revisesociology.com/2016/06/0...
revisesociology.com/2016/10/3... blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseupr/2018/0...
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/...
Corporate & White-Collar Crime
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full...
openoregon.pressbooks.pub/ccj...
books.google.com/books?hl=en&...
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I like your videos but u always talk about America and it negative economics.
One of the 7 deadly sins is greed and that can be found in every place.
Why u don't talk about and slave camps in china or Russia history of war and famines. Social credit score rings a bell talk bad about government then can't take a bus.
One only attack one angle one country. There more to world. U can always change people mind but can't change people well for power.
This is one of the biggest cancers in society today. Does the 50Bn calculation include tax evasion?
Im from the EU, and personally know people having been evicted, under large scale police operations, obviously funded by the public, by court orders benefitting shell companies residing within EU tax heavens. They dont pay real taxes and get police funded by my own taxes to evict honest people? Fuck that!
On another note, I´d be interested to hear about your definition of "neo liberalism" and "post neoliberalism" as i find that to be phrases mostly used to be understood implicitly, without anyone ever being able to come up with a solid definition.
NOTES on "The Deprogram":
DON'T WORRY about the episodes being TOO LONG!
So, so, SO good! LOVE IT! 👍😊
Episode 5 "Cross Cultural Dialogue" was... The chemistry between you guys!!! 🤩😍🥒💦😲🍑🍆 MORE PLEASE 🥺🙏😘
Podcast is 🔥 🔥 🔥
You should reach out and do a collaboration with Jim (Stephanie) Sterling. She tends to do a lot of work talking about wages and poor treatment in the games industry.
And _no one_ is in prison for wage theft. Literally no one.
Well yeah, the law only applies to the poors, no one told you?
Because crimes like these only get punished by fines. And whenever a crime is punished by a fine, it effectively means it just applies to poor people.
@@whysocurious7366 and although 'the poors' is basically everyone where I live, there are still a few with a bit more money that seem to escape prison for the same reason, while thinking they are the top 1%
You make 20k more than I do. You're a ducking peasant, too, and they'll come for you next.
But there is still wage theft in prison. So, a win I guess?
In my country wage theft is rampant, it is like a problem that everyone knows but avoids talking about :/
This happened to me once. I reported it to everyone. EVERYONE. Police, IRS, you name it. There is no system in place for addressing wage theft. It simply isn't a real thing. Naturally, I quit after the first incident, because I'd rather go hungry while I find a new job than work for an abusive employer who would make me go hungry anyway.
Pretty sure the DOL is the one that handles wage theft
This is why we love our unions here in Denmark ;) but many Americans call us communist :(
@@juuk3103 American union member here. I admire your nation's strength. Americans used to understand how beneficial unions are. Decades of anti-union propaganda have brainwashed many people into thinking unions are bad, though.
He said a lot in the video so I don't really understand what happened. Care to sharre what ur former employers did to you?
@@Praisethesunson I'm sure employers who cheat workers won't be shy about cheating the IRS either, so IRS is a good step.
I definitely would sit through a video essay on the labor theory of value. Gladly lol.
th-cam.com/video/Hb6dXR6AfXE/w-d-xo.html
^This is the best video-essay (series, divided into 10 parts) you can find on the labor theory of value on YT.
Edit: seems like YT algorithm hid the link I posted above, so if anyone is interested that video is titled "Law of Value by Kapitalism 101", it's 3 hours & 12 minutes long.
They could do a deprogram episode on it where JT tries to explain the whole time in the narrator voice and then Hakim and Yugopnik just make fun of him the whole episode
Support ✊🏻
Same.
It's disgusting that employers steal wages. Worst part about it is that some of them are actually proud of themselves for doing this.
Lib right win
It's kinda like kleptomaniacs
This country elected a guy that made a career of wage theft.
@tjuyftutjyfudt the government doesn't have a profit motive. Taxes are supposed to help the people. Sadly corporations don't make enough money here and so they need corporate handouts to sate their greed.
So not only do they steal wages, but they take your taxes too
@tjuyftutjyfudt
No. I like paying my taxes in exchange for roads, public libraries, public schools etc.
Wage theft isn’t just bad for the employees who are victimised (which is a good enough reason to put a stop to it in itself), but it’s also bad for the local and national economy. Employees are far more likely to spend their wages in their local economy, or at least within the national economy. This means that honest businesses lose out on revenue from customers, and the state loses out on revenue from taxation.
Yeah but politicians are bought and sold by mega corps so they don't care about the well being of the state.
The only "honest businesses" are Worker Owned Cooperatives.
@@AndyMorrisArt no dude, small businesses, especially those who have no or few employees, are cool. While petty bourgeois have to be kept an eye on because they can become big bourgeois or have a bourgeois mentality, they arent the enemies of the proletariat they are our allies, they are oppressed by modern capitalism just as much. They will benefit just as much from socialism
@@paiosfranen Exactly. the petite bourgeosie are oppressed. Small buisness owners, black and immigrant owned buisnesses. They got hit hard by 2020. They exploit laborers too. But they are oppressed by the big bourgeoisie. They need to have solidarity with working class. If not then they will be class traitors and be pawns for fascists. Trotsky highlights this in his book about fascism. When the peitie bourgeoisie are made to fear the workers and the hobos and the sex workers and the drug dealers or black people or immigrants they will uphold the system and the state and be blinded by ideology like racism to give power to the wealthy.
Huh?
I absolutely cannot overstate how important this kind of content is for educating the general public who dont think about these things often if at all. Thank you for another great vid Second Thought 👊🏾
I think it's also great because shifting and using platforms like this will help videos like this reach more people, and hopefully make them realize the problems in this world
Absolutely agreed- and wage theft goes way beyond just this through examination, all across the country. For example: the landscaping office I work in miraculously must be the only company that can handle 120 maintenance clients and only within 40 hours maximum for every crew member, not a penny of reported overtime?!?!? In reality each gets their respective overtime but paid cash at straight rate not the legally required 1.5x … so many illegal aspects to this practice it’s not even funny, hopefully I get called to testify someday cuz that SOB deserves it. 😳
Sure it's nice to know, but it also sucks knowing my entire life will be terrible and unfair because I can't afford to go become a citizen of another country.
@@amber619pop You have the right to make your own country better.
@@jd-yo2is This is sad.
I remember one time where payroll accidentally gave us another day of holiday pay (right after memorial day iirc). The next paycheck, they took back the extra pay and made us sign a waver consenting to it. One of my co-workers wanted to chew out management. There happened to be someone from regional that day and said, "What's the problem? It's just $30."
The same place, when I got $1/hr raise took at least a month to put through. I'm not even sure if they back paid for the month.
Point is, they'll drag their knuckles when it comes to a raise, but then act immediately when they shell out a few extra bucks.
Somewhat similar to modern monetised videogames where game-breaking bugs take months to fix, but the moment a glitch either allows players to exploit the system or otherwise unintentionally gives them free stuff, they "fix" it immediately.
Take the Fifa franchise for example - with the addition of the world cup mode to Fifa 18, there was a glitch that caused players to receive tons of free packs. Guess what? EA responded by shutting the store down almost immediately.
I was delivering Pizzas for a while and I accepted a check from someone that ultimately bounced. They told me they were going to take it out of my next check. I informed them that I did not consent to that. They argued and argued, but I refused to consent. They finally gave up. I've got hundreds of stories of wage theft and other abuses by employers. It's standard procedure in every company I've ever worked for.
@White Kings88 I don’t see that. I see more people relating to their fellow coworkers and unifying.
As a temp worker, I am currently am owed $1400 that I've yet to receive. I am not playing games with my paycheck and I am planning to take the company that has yet to pay me, to court.
Just be extra careful that nothing is "accidentally" broken or stolen in the meantime. "Accidents" happen, you know. Things just go "missing". There's really nothing you can do about that, to be honest.
Be careful friend
And if they try to retaliate that's another charge ;]
Check your state laws, if you were fired for example there's a limited amount of time they have to pay you before they owe you $50 a day in fees in Colorado for example.
I was told I wasn't getting my paycheck for three weeks from a job that fired me, I drew up a letter that pursuant to that Colorado law, we would be filing suit for the entire estimated cost, with the penalty money... And implied we'd be happy if they dragged it on indefinitely.
Got my full check with missing back pay, by Fed Ex the next business day.
I had my friend drop off the letter dressed down like a bicycle courier, and had them sign for it. ❤
@@saturationstation1446 Yep. Last time I worked with one about 7 years ago I found out the difference between what the business was paying for me and what that agency actually paid me after I became full time at the business.
If I had gotten paid the difference as if it were paid as a raise, I would have gotten an extra 70% pay.
I've had two separate employers get taken to court for stealing money from their employees. Each time current and past employees were compensated for it. They took about $200 from me or at least that's what the amount I was paid out totaled too. I'm at my wits end with American Capitalism
Hot take but in my opinion capitalism is poo poo pee pee
Oh you just went on a CIA watchlist.
That’s just capitalism in general.
@@jonathanjuarez5544 yes but no other country has achieved the level of cruelty america has
The problem is that capitalism only affects poor people negatively however all of the people in power who can do anything about it are rich and are therefore unaffected by it and that is why it will never change.
"You probably wouldn't sit through a 15-minute video on the Labour Theory of Value"
Why you gotta do me like that, JT? 😭
Hahaha your videos are the exception ❤️
My man really called you out like that
To be fair, the Socialism 101 videos are only about ten minutes each
@@gregs1646 The one on the Labour Theory of Value was 17 mins 😭 lmao
@@Marxism_Today Thanks for that one, comrade! I watched it fully at least 3 times to refine my understanding until I was able to internalize the equations and build my own scenarios with it
Wage theft gets worse when workers do not know their rights. This is the kind of thing that local progressive civil rights non-profits can do the most work in imo
Yes, but "knowing your rights" (and even hoplessly trying to protect them *within* the system) is not enough to stop objective laws of Capitalism.
This video alone will probably lead to millions of dollars of wages being fought for harder.
@@user-uc3ey8uj1c The only option that feasibly acts against the predatory nature of capitalism: revolution.
The humour is getting really good. I quite enjoy how dry and sarcastic some of the humour is. Excellent video!
Thanks so much! I appreciate the feedback
@@SecondThought maybe u might become the next moistcritikal with the dry humor
@@SecondThought I agree please keep it up I love sarcasm
Yes more memes please. Don't overdo it tho
The best part about it are the people in the comments who don't get it.
Watching this video makes me realize our society doesn’t discuss wage theft. There’s no movies about John Wick killing his boss because he didn’t pay overtime or withheld his tips
Thats why we have had revolutions all over the world. US is a young country and hasnt learned its lesson.....yet.
@@ellengran6814 other countries revolutions or social movements give me hope
But there is Assau** on Wall st
Well, Squid Game recently blew up in popularity and that is a series that critiques capitalism by showing how people are literally pitted against each other.
Moreover, there was this one scene where Ali's employer was withholding his paycheck for some time, so Ali grew impatient and forcibly took that paycheck off the employer.
I'm not sure... The end of John Wick 3 set up for a pretty disgruntled Wick in 4.
When very few hold more money than literal billions of people and the system just accepts that as some fair success there's certainly something wrong with the world
The sad thing is some people think they can one day be like them too which is why they rabidly defend them.
In Russia they killed the tsar, in France they killed the King, in China they started a civil war, in England they created labour unions and labour party. Only time tells us what americans will do
@@mindblade101 Yawn, more of the same propaganda, do you bots have a list you read off of?
@@mindblade101 Hah! You picked the wrong channel to FUD like that about socialism! That just won't impress the regulars on this channel.
Either you explain how exactly socialism and communism would run into the same problem more severely than capitalism, or you will be dismissed as someone just repeating the propaganda that has been worked into thier thinking.
@@mindblade101 I see, so tell me, what is "your" echo chamber that you're coming from, so I can see it and get a peek out of mine?
Exchanging view points is important, traveler.
I became self-employed after too many times of playing "chase the paycheck" with my employer. Then there's the annoy crap, like offering you a job for $21 per hour in your offer letter, but when you start signing the paperwork, the wage is listed as $20. Then being told that it was a typo in the offer letter, and the REAL OFFER was supposed to be $20/ hr the whole time. When I told the HR person that this isn't going to work and that I'm just going to return to my old job (left on good circumstances), suddenly the documents got edited to reflect the original $21 per hour wage.
That was a HUGE red flag. I was only in the job 6 months as my commission checks were ALWAYS short. Sure, I was usually able to resolve the issue, but I got tired of the run-around and quit.
Home depot was like that but I got paid less cx. They'd purposely change my hours over n over then I'd have to mention it to them and they'd change it but ding ding it happened every fucking week cx so I lost so much mo ey because I wouldn't always notice cx gods I lost so much time and money there it's ridiculous
Then after you sign it because your sure they will fix it they don't and when you bring it up they say. You already signed the contract.
@Cody Waggener Man im in the same boat. I make 12 an hour though still waiting on that promotion I was promised last year ugh.
@@exemida the only way to move up in America is diagonally. Always be looking for a better job than the one you have.
@@TheModdedwarfare3 Usually the case but I surprisingly got a 3 dollar raise last week which caught me by surprise since my employers didn't say anything they just kinda tacked it on quietly. Checked with my co-workers apparently they got it as well. Still waiting on the promotion promised to me which is the supervisor position but my supervisor keeps postponing retirement but the raise was a good start.
Unfortunate that Taxes eat up so much of it I almost mistook it for overtime pay. I think I made 60 dollars more It says 600 a week now but drops down to like 494.04 Which is brutal.
I love how so many businesses rely on low paid immigrant labor, while simultaneously supporting candidates who vilify and demonize hard working immigrants, if they’re not guilty of it themselves. I live in an area with a large population of undocumented Mexican immigrants and I have had good friends who were dreamers or simply undocumented immigrants and they were, in a vast majority of cases, lovely people who would make wonderful Americans if given a reasonable chance.
There are millions just like them except their country doesn’t share a border so they can’t just smuggle themselves in and cry at white liberals
They do that on purpose to turn workers against each other. Also, by dehumanising working immigrants, it becomes much easier to turn the other way to their exploitation
Yeah, you're right
@@flyingmonkeys96 so?? That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give the ones that are here proper treatment.
I feel like it’s justified to not want people to be exploited. It’s justified to be upset when people who do a lot for your country are snubbed just for existing.
They’re not “crying to white liberals” and even if they were it still wouldn’t make their point wrong.
I find nothing odd or ironic about that. They want a Workforce that has no recourse to report abuse. If more immigrant workers were more secure in their residency and status employers couldn't under pay or over work as much. Anti immigrant people don't want immigrants out they just want them afraid and powerless.
So don't feel bad about "forgetting" to pay something on Walmart. They steal way more.
Zé Bro roba loja!
Amen brother. 🙏
I've stopped respecting any major business years ago, myself; now all I feel is pity for the employees.
Others doing wrong is not a logical justification for doing wrong yourself.
Instead inform the employees there about what labour unions actually are and shatter some of the propaganda in thier heads.
They might start fighting thier exploiter!
@@jannikheidemann3805 Okay, go stop a certain WW2 leader without doing a wrong. The reason not harming others won't work is because you can't fight back.
The bad people know you won't do a wrong... so they aren't afraid.
Videos like this are vital. I work in a Canadian harm reduction clinic and your channel has helped me to find new ways to empathize with and understand my community. You have also materially improved the conditions of our workers by inspiring me to actually grieve something with my union and employer for the first time in my career and it was a success. Thank you so much for doing what you do
What is a harm reduction clinic?
Does it do similar stuff as an harm reduction pharmacist, just on a bigger scale? I read that the harm reduction refers to the harm from drugs. Is that accurate?
I just recieved a 250 dollar settlement check from a company who didn't pay me for my overtime about 4 years ago. I literally got in a fight with my district manager about my check being wrong and got fired over it. I don't know who in the company was able to fight the theft going on but it's nice to know I wasn't crazy for thinking I got screwed when I worked 16 days straight but somehow didn't acquire overtime in that pay period.
This happened to me too many times that's why I'm not employed!
As another victim of wage theft, I thank you for this succinct and well researched episode. We need to get organized and fight this hell.
I once worked for a company that would have us pay for food, fuel, etc... while out working out of town. Then reiburse us.
I was the first person to realize that if we spent $100, they'd pay us $100 on our check.... MINUS taxes. I brought this up, and quit within 1 day as I knew I was being fired for noticing.
What do they even get from this?
They have to pay the same ammount of money, but you get less. The only winner: IRA
Is that supposed to be some weird kind of patriotism with extra twists and turns?
If you are talking sales tax - then yeah, that is messed up. If you are talking income tax - you might have the option of deducting those expenses from your income. The IRS lists which qualifies as tax exempt travel expenses.
Reimbursement should never be taxed, that's horrible!
@@jannikheidemann3805 6$, because the tax on 100$ should be 6$. So they save 6$.
I spend a lot of time on "antiwork" and have noticed jobs that people believe to be important and high paying, haven't had pay raises since the 90s.
Thanks for making your content. I believe it helps a lot of people.
You do realize that antiwork is a subreddit run by the communist Chinese government and this channel is also run by the communist Chinese government
This is all commie propaganda to destroy America
@@xblade11230 You do realize you have literally no evidence to back up your claims, right?
@@xekron61 if it looks like a commie, walks like a commie, sounds like a commie then its a commie
@@xekron61 nothing but anticapitalism pro communist drivel and it magically sprung up overnight with millions of subs, obviously voted botted posts
It's just agitation propaganda from china
@@xblade11230
Good
Let it destroy America
I worked a fast food job for a year. I worked about 40-45 hours a week, but my employer adjusted my time clock to read 39.5 hours every week to avoid having to give me any benefits. Wage theft is real, and if you're outside the capitalist class, there's almost nothing you can do. They hold all the cards
You can take them to court.
You can unionize and go on strike.
You can distrain your valuable workplace assets.
And if all else fails you can take to the streets and revolutionize your country.
Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
Document your hours and show they’ve been reduced and take them to court for lost pay and benefits. You’ll win if you have it documented.
And at the same time they raise prices and make portion sizes smaller to rip off customers.
What is capitalist class ? Lol. You can start your own business.
@@mobilmag864 Wow because startinga business is just SOOOO easy for every average American. Also the capitalist class is basically the upper class (which is comprised of capitalists, hence the *"capitalist"* class)
This exists because the people have allowed it. In my experience, the average American have been trained to believe that if someone has money, it’s because they’re gifted or blessed or some kind of genius. Alot of people secretely cheer these theives on for “getting one over on the system”. Also, many Americans have been bs’d into either believing they are not poor, even if they are. Because for a lot of Americans, they’re “lower middle class”, because the title of “poor” belong to “those others”. And also, I think it’s pretty widely know that the average rural American will vote even against their own interests, in the name of more guns and “keeping the others down”.
And don't forget Jesus. They justify most of their idiotic, self defeating, bigoted ideology with their cherry picked Bibles.
you nail it! man . excelent analisis
@@belladonna8425 Ironic considering what Jesus said and did, as well as the Apostles... This channel has a video on it.
Hahaha we the people definitely need weapons rn we shouldn't be getting rid of our rights to bare arms. Also yes the military budget is fucking way too high
It's not just America, people all over the world seem to believe that having money is a self legitimating thing: If you have money, that means you deserve to have it and therefore, by extension, you clearly deserve even more money. If you don't have money, you don't deserve it and therefore shouldn't receive any.
Decades of propaganda have convinced the rich and poor alike that the gap between poor and rich should get bigger.
I still don't get how people can defend this system.
They are a part of it with thier minds.
It's called brainwashing
Many have never been presented with the inherent flaws of capitalism and likewise, an alternative. And the constant stream of corporate and state propaganda telling you that you can 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' and that it's just the way things are, doesn't help either. But once people are confronted in such a direct manner with the systems predatory and exploitative nature as they are now, it becomes harder and harder to make excuses.
Simple answer: Stockholms syndrome.
It’s called propaganda. The average American is not intelligent enough to realize almost from birth they’re being manipulated to accept and support things that ultimately work against them.
We are definitely entering dark times. But the American imperial machine cannot destroy love, solidarity, and knowledge. Love, solidarity, and knowledge will destroy the American imperial machine.
Fuck the corrupt workforce companies in this country
Yknow when you expanded the definition of “white collar crime” to include unethical sales it kinda opened my eyes. Because what is crime but things we’ve deemed unethical and punishable
I'm not sure if that's what you're saying, but crime is a social construct. You can have the most harmful acts be de facto legal (like all the examples in this vid of unpunished acts), yet have the most benign things punished, like being black and sitting at the front of the bus or being homeless and sleeping pretty much anywhere. You can throw 99% of police ressources at the $15B problem and do nothing at all about the $50B+ problem. They're more like tools for the convenience and whims of the powerful, bad excuses to control the population really, not much to do with logic, reality or ethics, particularly "our" ethics. I guess what I'm saying is that not only is "crime" a concept built on the shakiest of foundations, a concept that should be met with as much skepticism as humanly possible, but it's also mostly propaganda that has been sold to us, telling us who the bad guys are supposed to be (while ignoring or even idolising the actually harmful people/acts) and what we should and shouldn't do, not really something that "we", through careful analysis, deemed as the very worst of immoral, unethical and/or harmful behavior.
@@Hubcool367 And this is why many people are pushing for prison reform, the decriminalization of weed, and the end of harsh punishments to nonviolent crimes.
@@linagreenlyfe6705 and that's a whole other issue, the way we respond when something actually harmful happens (which in our societies is pretty much only punishment). Eye for an eye, pretty much no thought given to the victims. No one caring to know if it's the best way to decrease occurrences of harmful behavior, or if it actually just creates a more violent and less safe society. But totally agree with you, obviously haha
I worked between 32 and 35 hours a week at the Twin Cities/North Compass YMCA. I would add up the hours from the time clock and then calculate my gross pay. When I would get the check, the gross would work out to 28 to 30 hours a week despite the correct numbers of work hours on the pay stub. I asked how. I was given a vague answer about time correction. What's corrected, I asked. My job was for 36 hours max and I was often told to work until 39.5 hours per week. I never worked up to forty and never missed a punch. And never worked over my shift unless approved. They told me to, "talk to someone." Edit: A coworker who only worked for 20 hours a week got the same gross pay. Even when I discovered he was paid more and by how much, the numbers did not add up. He even said so. He was best buddies with the Boss's boss who had him tell me to say he actually got less pay. That happened after months of him showing off his pay stub and referencing the contrary. He was egotistical like that.
He probably takes what you should have had...
I remember when Wells Fargo employees were caught using customer information to create accounts. All they got was a fine. If a regular person did the same they would get convicted of fraud...
*Wells Fargo* intentionally ruined my credit.
@@jd-yo2is You could seize it from shareholders and nationalise it, actually.
I'm in my 60's... If I had my brain/mind stimulated like this, when I was in my teens... my life would've turned out so much better!!! #TheMoreYouKnow #InternetIsGreat.
even if your not an marxist, socialist..., this is still educating the protelarien worker class in the capitalist system explaining them what is wrong in the system and helps them to formulate their emanzipation
If all I know is that I have invisible chains on me, how can I figure out how to get them off me? Knowledge means nothing without a way to actualize it.
@@intricatic Quite the contrary. Knowledge and theory provide a pathway to actual change. What's most important is multi racial unity and class solidarity.
@@intricatic marxism leninism
@@inaneartifact6336 fuck trotskysm lol jokes apart, if you are a trotskist and think trotskism is the answer, thats fine, anything but capitalism, but please dont lie about Stalin, its very irritating
@@paiosfranen wdym lie about stalin?
I whole heartedly wish everyone in the United States could see your vids Second Thought. Your videos are straight up revolutionary. Keep doing yo thang mang
Yes it would be awesome if a hacker could take over something important playing on the news like a presidential inauguration and have these videos come up instead in real time for everyone!
@@jd-yo2is how to say "I don't actually watch the videos" without saying it.
@@amber619pop it would be better than the brain rot that is being spewed on FOX and CNN that's for sure
@@Ty-ix3bc Yes, how a News Network that is solely made up of Lies can even exist in the first place and be shown as though it's real is beyond me. Fox shouldn't be legally allowed to air any news programs.
@@jd-yo2is you have no details because you didn't actually watch it... how you can watch this dudes masterpieces, and say " bro that shit is trash" is beyond me. They are so digestible, so easy to follow, so well edited and so well thought out. You would have to be TRYING NOT to take anything away from these videos, actively turning your brain off. Please explain to me how his videos are bad because I'm curious.
Honestly, I wish salaried people counted toward wage theft. If you get hired for 50k to work full time (40hrs) but get forced to work late and weekends regularly, you are being shorted of money big time
good point...salaried jobs are almost never based on a 40 hour week....usually 45-50 hours...ill never work a salary position no matter how much they offer...
This! I worked at a shipping store. They paid me by the hour and most times I would make more that the Manager that’s been there for 13 years and worked 58hrs a week with no benefits. Also took care of the store when the Already absent owner would go on vacation for 1-2 months straight. I liked the customers and the manager and tried to fight for her but she really wouldn’t help herself. Thanksgiving, christmas, and tax season were hell and she never got a bonus or a raise or anything. Also had a second job that she was always late to or cutting hours from even though it paid more, cuz “it wasn’t stable as that shipping store”.
40 hours is too much being worked probably refuse to work that much it is called being overworked to death
Used to work a movie theater pre covid and a month before the end of the world. I got my last check and I was super happy. I went to go cash into my account and it just bounced. I was super confused as to why it bounced called my bank and told me the check being reviewed for fraud. The reason why my manager "put the wrong routing number on my check" that day. Something that never happed before on any of the other checks. That theater still owes me around $300 of labor that I will never get back. Fucking hell -____-
Wtf?!? What is up with the shady-ass business practices. I am sorry that happened to you. You deserve better than that. We need all workers to unite and claim their full value of their labor!
The employers are not on the side of their employees.
In better run countries this is the job of government and unions.
I think it's time for everybody to stop working
Companies caught breaking the law should be seized and sold off again. The owners incarcerated for life.
Or seized and redistributed to the workers as a co-op.
It is time for all workers to get paid a living wage and get mandatory paid vacations
@@Nick84525 you can raise wages forever. It does nothing to control commodity prices. Ending subsidies would be a good start.
I once saw this image that said that if someone lived for 80 years and earned an average of $5,000.00 every day of their life, they still wouldn't be a billionaire, but rather have about $150,000,000.00. At the bottom of the image was a line that said that no one works to become a billionaire. So yeah, we should be taxing multi millionaire and billionaire individuals and corporations in this country more then we currently are! And if you want to argue that taxes shouldn't be raised on the wealthy and corporations, how can you defend them when they send their U.S. dollars to other countries so they can't be taxed and help fund domestic programs to help poor people here in the U.S.?
Taxing won't do anything
We need to get rid of them completely
The billions people have are in stocks and assets. They aren't liquid.
@@SecondTake123 That's an excuse.
@@KrasMazovHatesYourGuts that's not an excuse, that is literally the legal classification of assets. You can't tax assets like income because you will run into a multitude of problems, for example, if we tax Jeff Bezos because Amazon share prices went up (hence his net worth) then we must also compensate him if Amazon shares go down (the same way that you get taxed less if you suddenly earn less).
It's amazing how financially illiterate the viewers of this channel are, no wonder they fall for Marxism easily.
@@yt_nh9347 No, we don't have to compensate him. At all.
Yet another reason I'm glad to be in a union. I've been a victim of wage theft multiple times. I was able to file a grievance, and get my money back in full, plus penalty pay.
edit: I suppose it's wrong to say I got the money "back", since it hadn't been paid to me in the first place. I got what I was owed. That said, those are the times I caught it. When I was a newer employee, they probably got away with it a bunch.
So I dealt with wage theft at my first job.
Though I worked in the kitchen, I got paid waitress wages (the tipped minimum wage...not the regular one)
I didn't realise at the time I was working 15+ hours a week and that $40 every check was suspicious. I was in middle school and had other things going on...
There's no excuse for exploitation.
I would also like to add they lied to us about how to file taxes, too, so i never got it in taxes at the end of the year, when we learned they were supposed to pay the difference to ensure you got minimum wage.
Stupidest ducking system. Just pay the same minimum across the board.
@@trashcatlinol as minor you shouldn't be paying taxes period since taxation without representation is considered unconstitutional.
@@petelee2477 at least some of it counted towards my social security. I saw it as I was using those roads and services, so I have no problem paying the fees to maintain them. I was guaranteed my right to representation when I hit voting age. As a kid I couldn't even comprehend the damage they were doing with that money Instead of making sure people could function.
If anyone wants to learn more about the scale and depth of these corporate and political white collar crimes, I highly recommend reading the book Saving Capitalism. It's by Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the US.
He exposes down to the roots what is causing these issues, who is benefiting them, and the scale of funds stolen. He shows how broken the US political system is regarding the classifying and policing of these issues, and how we actively encourage many of them.
Thanks for the information. I'll check out the book.
Here in Portland the police recently released a statement saying that they don't have the manpower to respond to phone calls that aren't an immediate emergency such as violent assaults. but whenever I go into a grocery store or corporate shopping center there's Police officer standing guard to arrest any would be shoplifting. I think its clear who law enforcement is protecting and serving and its not the citizens.
If TH-cam wasn't heavily censoring this channel, these videos would go absolutely viral and real change MIGHT be possible.
This video at least wasn't demonetized yet, as I saw ads.
If you want this to go viral, do your part in virality by sharing!
@@redrkstone Lol, so videos that go viral are all revolutionary, then?
For my first job, I was a cashier. They routinely stole wages from me and other employees. One of there favorite ways of doing so was deducting 30 minutes from your timesheet for each day regardless of whether you took your full lunch break. Sometimes it would be so busy in the store, you would work a 7 to 8 hour shift with no break, but on your timesheet they would pretend you did and manually enter one in. Another way they liked to steel wages as to round your total weekly hours down or just generally reduce them by an arbitrary amount, especially if you came close to or passed 40 hours.
This was the wage theft I encountered the most. Pretty much all my food service jobs did this to me.
This is absolutely ridiculous workers deserve to get treated better and get mandatory paid vacation time along with a living wage
Fantastic piece, not like I expected anything less lol. There are no poor people. There are more or less exploited people.
Good to see you here, mate. Keep up the great work.
I was denied unemployment three times during the pandemic because my employer the federal government the United States census refused to report that I had enough earnings to collect unemployment. In fact they wouldn't even respond to request from the Ohio department of unemployment. I was never approved for my unemployment despite having worked well over a year for the US Census at part-time.
I live in Texas my husband also didn't recieve it , but his boss hated him and said bad things that weren't true so he wouldn't have to pay him after he fired him and despite being a good employee he now has to risk a 8 month work gap due to it because if the job calls they will say he was a bad employee and he won't be able to be hired anywhere.. hes a skilled electrician and has mechanical knowledge working at Walmart because that was the only people that hired him .. not to mention his boss would take alot of vacations , have his worker work from 6 am - 10/ 11 at night / no breaks , no time off .. most people quit and that man lost abit of profits tdue to the lack of employees he screwed over .. and I don't feel sorry for him .. we had a baby on the way and everyone knew about it .. my check and our savings were the only thing holding us up
It is time for all of these corrupt workforce companies to be completely shut down for good
Texan here. I had to apply for partial unemployment and was approved but didn't receive payments because I "made to much" a week. Now they want the to pay the money I was never paid back. Sent an appeal and told the I refuse to pay back money I never received.
My boss at my last job did everything he could to underpay me. He "forgot" how much the raise I was supposed to get was and straight up ignored me when I confronted him about it. Thankfully my direct supervisor went over his head to get it approved but that was weeks after my boss was supposed to put it through
This is another reason why people don't want to work anymore
I got a check for about $500 recently because a company I worked for many years ago lost a class action suit. They scheduled our shifts in a way where I would be scheduled to end work at 7, and a replacement worker would be scheduled to start at 7. At the same time, they required a shift change procedure that took 5-10 minutes per shift change and required both employees. It meant people had to work anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes extra every single day without pay. It was a tiny amount per check, but over the years I should have made $1200 to 3500 more than I did. It literally took a decade to recoup even a fraction of what was stolen from us.
That is fucked up no wonder people don't want to work anymore
I've always said that Capitalism is working at it's best whenever it's failing the most people possible.
That's a good saying
@@redrkstone North Korea treats its people the way it does because it's *authoritarian* and not because its use of socialism in its government.
@@redrkstone The "best system humans have ever developed" is leading to medical debt that people will never pay off, corperations corrupting the goverment, is destroying human civilization by harming the climate, and has in the past reared its ugly head in the form of 400 years of slavery of Africans for capital gain what became the United States of America.
@@redrkstone That's one hell of a lie. There are countries that adopt socialist policies that are nowhere near as authoritarian as North Korea (Norway as an example).
@@redrkstone The Nordic model is a model used by Nordic countries that also implements socialism.
In those 20 most free countries you referenced, 3 countries that use the Nordic model (which utilizes socialist policy) made it to the top-10 (Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland).
Employer: "WE'VE HAD RECORD PROFITS OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS THIS YEAR!!!"
Employee: "Can we get enough money to eat please."
Employer: "WHY ARE WORKERS SO ENTITLED!? >:("
Fuck corporate America
I didn't realize this was so common, back with my second job in 2019. I had been working 40hr a week regularly, as a minor in school - homeschool, of course. Most of the time, I'd be working 2-3 hrs overtime at least. One week, I had a 51hr work week and the other part of the two week pay period was a 42 or 43hr work week. I fully expected at least 600$, given that my usual check for working 40hrs min was 500$. When it got deposited into my bank, weeks after I'd quit? 300$. Just 300$. The smallest check I'd ever gotten from them. Come to find out from another previous employee, they did that ALL the time, going in and manually changing the hours a worker did. People would have to confront the bosses to get it changed back, because the district manager didn't like us doing overtime, so why not just prove we weren't doing it? Regardless, I didn't have my time-stub that we'd get after clocking in and out for the 51hr work week, and I didn't find it until a whole year later, and by that point I figured it was too late to report the issue.
Regardless, it's fucked.
I used to work at Taco Bell during 2020. I decided to not work during my first semester of college and so quit my job. During my last two weeks, I worked around 50 hours and never got a paycheck from it. They had the audacity to message me months later offering the job again. Fuck them.
I was a pro chef for decades and wage theft is just beyond rampant in the industry , And yeah! I never had any problem getting very nasty to get the money owed .
When I was a teenager, my boss told me if we came up short when counting the money from the cash register everyday, it would come out of our paycheck. Because I was so young, I thought that was normal.
Man you’d be so proud of me. I got to tell an ex investment banker who wheeled and dealed in the subprime market and still Is, but this time with buy here, pay here used cars, that I couldn’t stand the fact that we keep doing excessive corporate welfare but keep cutting social welfare. I shocked him and he was surprised by the term corporate welfare when the banks were bailed out and then more recently with the PPP money that were given to companies either for the lowest interest or didn’t even have to pay all of it back. How is it corporate welfare? How is it not welfare I responded.
As a working American for the last 35 years, I will express to the facts in this video are all accurate and informative.
It is time for all workers to get paid a living wage and get mandatory paid vacation time
My boyfriend's employer threatened to take $500 out of his check to replace the drill they lost and blamed on him. The drill would have cost less than $100 to replace, but they wanted to take a week of pay from him. He quit then got a job that paid him $5 more per hour.
That is fucking ridiculous no wonder people don't want to work anymore
It is enlightening and sad at the same time.
Your channel have helped me see the reality of lots of things.
This video reminds me of an old Czech proverb, "The big crooks hang the little crooks."
That's about the size of it.
Im sharing this video.... to MANY people. Everyone I know is low wage workers, I am a low wage worker. If everybody know about this, this bs can change
It is time to have a strike against all these corrupt workforce companies
Misclassified as an independent contractor. That happened to me as a taxi driver. The state of Illinois had to actually tell my boss that he couldn't dictate our schedules and he couldn't make us wear uniforms. After three audits they eventually told him one more time and he's facing prison time.
Here in Australia, some states have criminalised wage theft (up to 10 years in prison) with it set to be passed federally soon. There is also the fair work commission, a free government tribunal where you can any claims if wage theft of incorrect pay or entitlements, and they will investigate, and if need be bring proceedings against your employer all without costing you anything
When I worked for walmart, and then home depot, both companies would always say to cut overtime. I learned after walmart to work extra time on sundays to make up for cutting overtime. Big box stores commonly does this.
Nobody needs to be working overtime that is called being overworked to death that is too much I refuse to work that much
this video made me think of the time when Activision-Blizzard fired a lot of employeed and at the same time gave its CEO Bobby Kotick a HUGE bonus. At that time, a friend worked at Activision-Blizzard and I asked them what they thought of the situation, if he/she was enraged. They said, "Well, we were bloated anyway, so some people had to go sooner or later." And then regarding that big fat CEO bonus, he/she shrugged and said, "If you don't pay top dollar, then you can't get someone competent to lead your company. I'm sure the bonus is justified when compared to other executives." This compartmentalization and twisted logic that is perceived as entirely natural still shocks me to this day
your friend must be new to the company. my fave game company, Blizzard, destroyed by Kotick. I knew early on Blizzard getting acquired is a bad idea.
if you feel like a company only j
has lazy or inept employees, that's because they keep poor performing employees (or keep their development and performance low either morally or on paper) so they can give the bad performance reviews to justify giving a larger amount of the budget allocated for raises to management.
this entire system is a network of interconnected grifts.
The podcast is fucking awesome. I can't wait for episode 5
It’s live today!
@@SecondThought what?! Screw this video gonna listen to it mow
Me too, I love listening on my way to work
@@TheSundownState i listen to it in school
@Flame lol o
Capitalism will be the nail in the coffin for America if videos and people like him don't reach even more people.
@@jd-yo2is Tell that to the tens of millions here homeless or one paycheck away from becoming homeless and having trouble affording food. Even the middle class is shrinking and living paycheck to paycheck now. Then there's the fact that the country's debt is increasing at near exponential levels and the dollar devaluing further and further. No, the US is a third world country wearing a fake Gucci suit and the house of cards is dangerously close to collapse. Saying our economic system has issues is a massive understatement, these types of problems are what have always lead to the fall of empires throughout history.
@@jd-yo2is actually, you’re wrong. How a country cares for its poor and the rate of maternal mortality determines whether a country’s standard of living is high or low, according to WHO. Hate to break it to you, but just on maternal mortality the U.S falls in line w/ “3rd world” countries and even their rates are getting better. This is not the shiny country on the “hill.” Cry about it. 🙄
@@jd-yo2is Just because person A suffers more doesn't mean person B is invalid and should be happy.
If you STILL truly believe that B is invalid... then you are part of the problem.
I always see myself as capitalist leaning person but apparently only be EU standards, your videos always show me that US is on whole new level. Not that EU is perfect but at least in general ambulance ride is not going to bankrupt you.
You can probably get hit by the ambulance here and still get charged the hospital fees.
@@Blackdragon271 at least the fees are more affordable
im with you...im capitalist but admit much work needs to be done....healthcare needs major real reforms for starters.
Man I always found it annoying when people tell me "work overtime." but then every job I get they avoid it and if you get it they somehow forget it existed.
@@dewaldt8104 I know this. That is why I said they somehow forget that it existed.
I will never work overtime because I know that is being overworked to death
Who else gets the “Amazon pays at least $15 to all its workers” ad every time they watch one of his videos
In all anti capitalist videos too lol. The Amazon where I work pays 19.25 an hour and doubles the pay for overtime days (temporary btw) but they think I don’t know my labor’s being exploited smh
@@jd-yo2is that’s an idealistic scenario, but even if I were paid $100 an hour for a ten hour shift, the company would still exploit not only my labor but the million plus people working for them. Wage theft is how billionaires keep afloat. Their material conditions are elevated at the cost of everyone else being in poverty or by barely scraping by.
@@jd-yo2is Yes. Becoming rich off the labour of others is exploitative
@@kittenpraxis2380 100$ an hour poverty??
you call it exploitation..i call it smart....like it or not the person signing the check decides what your worth...not you
Literally just this past week my employer created a new position and asked me to work in it during a "trial period" meaning....do manager work and not get paid for it. I said (obviously in corpspeak) you got the wrong dude fr. Goes to show the importance of understanding wage theft and worker's rights in general. The propaganda we have been fed since the 70s is fucking universal. It's sickening
Thank you comrade! Can't stress how important it is to check your paycheck and contest any problem you have with it!
If you take five minutes longer than scheduled for your tea break (or, in extreme cases, spend too much time on the toilet) you will be accused of "stealing" from the company - the same company that expects you to work longer hours than they pay you for and will accuse you of "Quiet Quitting" if you *_dare_* go home when your contracted work hours are up.
Anyone who accuses employees of "Quiet Quitting" is a wage thief.
Even tho I already know the labor theory of value, I would absolutely listen to you explain it in 15 minute video
Wage theft is a feature of the system...not a bug.
I like the recent production quality increase, not being dead serious all the time and spraying a bit of humor here and there. Keep it going!
It is time for all workers to get paid a living wage and have mandatory paid vacations
Gotta help the youtube algorithm. It cannot go unstated just how much your work is doing to promote these ideas, the shear size and quality of these videos will be around for a long time and will bring many people to the left for years to come
I feel there is as strong psychological reason we diiffer these: We feel more repulsed by something visibly taken away.
There is a difference when paying taxes, where you never see the money on your bank account or where you actually have to pay it to an institution. (Even if you believe that the taxes are used for good).
The exploitation at corporate level is obvious: take the money as early as possible and maybe never show workers what they are worth.
It is time for Corporate America to go to jail
This is an amazing episode. The personal vicerality of it is astounding.
Let's also not forget the stolen wages can be reinvested into things that accrue interest, and only the principle amount is only able to be calculated when filing a claim.
as a californian i dont know how many stories ive heard of people highering "illegal" immigrants to work and when it comes time to pay they just call immigration on them
I honestly went into the video thinking it was gonna be about the labor theory of value, but this is actually just blatant theft, which is even worse
Just wanted to say thanks. I don't always agree with everything you say, but I always enjoy listening and thinking about what you have to say ^^
Thanks so much! I’m glad you like the videos
Wage stagnation should be, considered in this topic. Then taking a wider look at being "priced out". Bewildering how many still defend capitalism.
I love how this guy went from simple real life lore type videos to making the most based content ever. I applaude u my dude, good shit
Wage theft is super common in chiropractic. I'm a chiropractic associate several years ago I had a boss that took money out of my check for federal holidays & PTO even though I was salaried.
Every now and then you say something like, “you probably wouldn’t sit through a 15 minute video about ____”
My friend, I’d sit through 15 minutes of any content you’re making. Love all of it!
I knew a startup software company that would use the job interview process to get loads of free work. During my time there we must have had 100+ candidates "interviewing" and we used their "work"!
@@bigsprucerabbitry6238 lol a lot of the smarter candidates would rage leave the interview. I secretly applauded. I was only there one month.
Thank you for making this video. I'm currently doing a research essay on this exact topic, and having you explain it makes it so much easier.
You are the second person I've seen on videos addressing labor struggle who was writing a paper on it this week. In over 40 years of life and being active in leftist organizations, I've never heard anyone say they were writing on this subject. It gives me hope that there is an awakening among regular working people of how long and hard the wealthy have been fucking us. It's really, _really_ good to see. Awareness is always how change in any form begins.
@@belladonna8425 It makes me happy that I'm not the only one. We need to use whatever tools we have at our disposal to raise awareness for these kinds of issues. I'm actually writing another research paper for another class on mass incarceration and how the prison industrial system continues to enslave the poor and marginalized. I'm really hoping I can manage to get my point across in a way that opens my teachers' minds on these subjects.
There is a saying that goes, "You know who controls society by who you are not allowed to criticize". As we all know this is wrong, for it isn't who you are not allowed to criticize but who you are not allowed to punish for crimes committed. Those like Madoff may be sacrificed (as publicly as possible) to give the appearance of fairness in the system. But what is missed are the hundreds of other Madoffs that get clean away.
The salary structure is the biggest form of wage theft. Employers only pay salary when they know their employees will work way more than 40 hours a week. If they expected less than 40 they'd pay hourly. Not sure it can be quantified since people on salary don't usually log their hours in any system. I don't understand how this ever became a socially acceptable norm in any society that is supposedly based on a meritocracy.
You can't tell me there's no such thing as a free lunch when so many companies are paying $0 for dozens of hours of high value producing labor a year.
"You probably wouldn't sit through a fifteen minute video on the labour theory of value"
that's where you're wrong
"If you're Wall Street, then you're a bigger crook than me" - That one dude from Baby Driver
I worked with some extreme conservatives a number of years back. One of whom was living the traditional 50's nuclear family life up until 2008. He lost the home that he had raised his kids in. He was, at the time I think around 2016, he was still renting. Lost huge swaths of his retirement savings. You know who was to blame? Anyone _except_ the banks, and capitalism. The mental gymnastics were astounding.
Having to clock out for 30 minute lunches must be the greatest form of wage theft.
Every worker should get paid for their lunches too
Well said! The symmetry of the underlying assumptions and expectations between so-called "legitimate" business and "criminal" acts is rarely teased out as well as it is in this video.
It is time for all of these companies to be held liable for their actions
All my homies hate wage theft.
Workers should be getting $25/hr minimum just off of productivity gains alone. I make over minimum wage and I’m still getting stolen from. Odds are you are too.
I absolutely love how charismatic you are in this one!
I'm really liking the slightly more comedic approach. It doesn't seem to be terribly distracting like some shows, but it does make it feel less depressing even if the overall message is still bleak.
I absolutely have and will again watch videos on the labor theory of value. Marxist Paul's Socialism 101 series is a good start, along with your associated video of why more Americans are becoming Socialists.
Agreed! Love Paul’s work
When I was in my 20s I worked at a kiosk at a mall that only paid me commission and no salary. Many days I would go to work and sell nothing make no money I'd only have $7 for a footlong subway that I would eat half for lunch and half for dinner because I'd work open to close. Some day I'd make $100/$200 in commission so I'd think that I could make it happen so I'd keep going but then go through days without selling anything and working for free. It was a nightmare I was nearly homeless if it wasn't for friends.
Any video you decide to do I will sit and watch it! It could be over 12hrs and I’ll break my neck to watch it! You have taught me sooo many things on the topics I wanted to be versed in thank you so much! Forever a supporter!
I had an employer who would constantly remind the workers of time theft, where employers waste time by socializing or not focusing on work. This employer interestingly had pay cheques bounce or stopped payment of cheques after I deposited them.
I am ultimately the villain.