294
wage theft (quokk.au)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/mop/p/931202/wage-theft

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[–] 5 points 5 months ago* (7 children)

Without a job you have zero support system and you have to be worried about other jobs not hiring you. It’s why strict rights and laws from a government need to be there, so that everyone has them and companies can’t just ignore the people who actually fight back.

I have a friend who had to deal with this here in Canada. He has plenty of money saved up and could actually afford to go after them, especially as he could use the time to relax and basically have a vacation. He could only do it because he has mkney, and we can only expect it to get worse under Carney and the Liberals as their now entirely unchecked conservatism is just rolling through our rights.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Without a job you have zero support system

    Civilized countries have a social net. Or at least SHOULD have. Also you could sue WHILE still working there. If they owe you money, they owe you money.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    You can sue while working there, and then they magically find some other reason to let you go.

    I’m in Canada. They fired me for “restructuring” but it was really because the fragile people in charge couldn’t handle my absurdly gentle requests for improving our standards or asking for slightly more money. They got really mad when I told a senior engineer that I can’t continue working on his project until he updates his paper building code from the 2012 version to the ammended 2023 version. I sent them to the professional engineers association for that one, after I had left, and they got officially chewed out for it, but that didn’t help me keep my job.

    The world is not the ideal “should” that it needs to be. I scream and yell for it and I will never say we should just take it, or that it needs to be that way forever, but at this exact moment it’s still what it is. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight right now, before it gets even worse, either, but it’s still not an easy thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Kudos to you to for not submitting to inferior building codes. But Canada does not have a social net? You get fired and end up without any income? That is so very US-american :(

    the world surely is no ideal "should". But it should. It's so fucking simple. I always treated employees as equals. Sure, I had a slight bit more income, but it was also my risk alone, so that's just fair. But everyone got their salary directly tied to the profits. Only up of course, not below the agreed upon basis. Also everyone could come and go as they please, as long as the agreed upon work was somehow done. Local or at home, whatever. Who cares. Everyone, janitors included (although their from-home was a bit...hard to do lol). I had much less income, but everyone was a) happy b) actually motivated to do good work. Because everyone profited from it.

    How could people enjoy their life with maximum profits, knowing every other employee's life suck? The world is so stupid.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    There’s employment insurance, but it’s only 55% of your most recent salary and only up to a certain number, as well as the amount of time it lasts is related to the level of unemployment up to a maximum of around 6 months, I believe. But getting a job is hard as hell right now, especially with how all these companies are behaving.

    It’s not a net, it’s a parachute with some holes in it. Not there to catch you, just there to slow the eventual crash.

    I’m glad to hear you aren’t a piece of shit, though. Each business owner who acts right is a real-world example of what we could have.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    It's so easy actually. But it mostly fails at people insatiable greed. I never really got it. Is enough not enough? Sure it can't hurt to have more than one needs, but to elevate your living standards by X for every X you earn more is....silly.

    Thanks. IMHO that's the best buisiness-model. At least for privately owned companies. Sucks for publicly listed. They only exist to blow shareholder-dicks and would prefer machines or slaves over people.

    And OK, your parachute instead of a net...fitting, yet a tad cynical. Here it's close to yours. 1 year at 60% (I think...) And bare minimum after that. Devastating if you lived large. But still better than nothing. Though it should be more fair and tied to income. 100% for lower incomes and 5% for higher or such.

    But unless one had very little or lived exactly as large as one could, it's still a lot of time to comfortably get another job. I hope. Never actually had to search for one.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    People are in a cycle built by “rugged individualism” which leads many to attack others instead of lifting them up. They contribute to, and reinforce, the system which makes them so scared to lose their job.

    Searching for a job right now is horrific. We have spmething like 8% unemployment in Canada and so many job posts aren’t even real, just there for the companies to get people’s information and see what the market looks like. You could be qualified and apply a hundred times and not even get ine interview. Then you have to ask yourself if you should switch careers, but that comes with the very valid fear that the new career will be just as difficult except now you have to start from scratch. It’s a huge mess out there.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Meh this blows. We (germany) are at 6% i think. But as far as I've heard, it's the absolute same here with those fake-jobs that just test the market. Disgusting way to do that, but sadly efficient. Also it probably helps to kill the spirit and hence...the salary. Switching is probably not the wisest anyway, except you already hate your current. Plus you probably would have to explain that.

    And sad to hear that this "rugged individualism" is the same in CA. We even have a saying for that that goes like "lick the boots above, kick the heads below". Which basically is the mentality of the, let's say, intellectually more challenged people. But capitalism breeds this, it's an intended feature.

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