I am amazed at how many people think that “being paid what you are contractually owed” and “being paid what you deserve” are entirely different. I feel like in many instances even if there is breach of contractual obligations (such as not paying at all or enough for overtime etc), the amount of money employers steal by not paying people what they deserve (based on profits and what not) is orders of magnitude higher than what they fail to pay contractually.
I am amazed at how many people think that “being paid what you are contractually owed” and “being paid what you deserve” are entirely different
…what? Yes, the writing on the contract is different from whatever set of ethics you happen to ascribe to. You can make philosophical arguments that they should be the same, but expressing disbelief at two clearly different things being different is… well, it’s insane.
If you want to discuss definition in the formal sense, it suffices to say “that is not the definition of wage theft here it is bla bla”. Instead when you say “Wait, what? they are entirely different you insane lunatic” most reasonable people will think that you are completely against even using the two concepts in the same sentence. As an example someone says “Donald Trump is a champion of democracy” and I say “Wait, what? Are you insane? Donald trump and democracy are entirely unrelated”.
