{"id":355381,"date":"2018-04-05T17:37:04","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-shiny-new-tool-to-pad-profits-stealing\/"},"modified":"2018-04-05T17:37:04","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:37:04","slug":"a-shiny-new-tool-to-pad-profits-stealing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-shiny-new-tool-to-pad-profits-stealing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Shiny New Tool to Pad Profits: Stealing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\">\n<p>Workplace exploitation is at least as old as the industrial revolution. But rather than using whips to make the assembly lines move ever faster, today\u2019s corporate exploiters use technology, devious work schedules, and lobbyists to extract more work from employees \u2014 for less pay.<\/p>\n<p>Walmart, for example, wants to provide next-day delivery for online customers by having its low-wage workforce use their own time and vehicles to drop off packages as they go home after work.<\/p>\n<p>Economists have a technical term for these corporate ploys: stealing.<\/p>\n<p>One entire group being victimized by corporate thieves are the 4.3 million Americans who make up our &#8220;tipped workforce.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mostly employed as wait staff in restaurants \u2014 from big chains like IHOP to the most exclusive dining establishments \u2014 these workers fall under a grossly unjust category of labor law that allows their employers to pay a miserly minimum wage as low as $2.13 an hour.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_24261\" style=\"width: 598px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-24261\" src=\"http:\/\/otherwords.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Inequality-Sexual-Harrassment-and-Tipped-Workers-No-Crop-Photo-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"Sexual Harrassment and Tipped Workers\" width=\"588\" height=\"392\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">No Crop Photo\/Flickr<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The rationale is that customers will subsidize this sub-poverty pay by leaving generous tips \u2014 a convenient corporate lie refuted by the fact the income of tipped workers is a third less than non-tipped workers. And tipped workers are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epi.org\/publication\/waitstaff-and-bartenders-are-less-likely-to-be-in-poverty-when-they-are-paid-the-regular-minimum-wage\/\">nearly twice as likely to live in poverty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, Trump has intervened to help. Lucky for restaurant owners, that is.<\/p>\n<p>Bowing to demands by restaurant industry lobbyists, Trump\u2019s Labor Department has proposed a new rule allowing employers to seize workers tips and use them for any purpose \u2014 including fattening their own profits. Paying $2.13 an hour already amounts to a massive wage theft, but this elevates it to legalized highway robbery!<\/p>\n<p>Even the most notorious robbers in history would be too ashamed to pull a job this wicked. Thankfully, a Democratic provision slipped into an omnibus spending bill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/explainers\/2018\/3\/21\/17101260\/trump-labor-department-tip-rule\">may have stopped it for now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Still, today&#8217;s combination of corporate greed and Trump&#8217;s ethical bankruptcy is turning blatant wickedness into business as usual.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/otherwords.org\/employers-have-a-shiny-new-tool-to-pad-profits-stealing\/\">A Shiny New Tool to Pad Profits: Stealing<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/otherwords.org\">OtherWords<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted from <a href=\"http:\/\/otherwords.org\/employers-have-a-shiny-new-tool-to-pad-profits-stealing\/\">Other Words<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Workplace exploitation is at least as old as the industrial revolution. But rather than using whips to make the assembly lines move ever faster, today\u2019s corporate exploiters use technology, devious work schedules, and lobbyists to extract more work from employees \u2014 for less pay. Walmart, for example, wants to provide next-day delivery for online customers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2523,"featured_media":355382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-355381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}