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This will require laws enforcing availability of the
technology for workers to take advantage of.
Essentially there are many cases of wage theft in the
society, and the issue is that it is most likely going to
affect the working poor and vulnerable. This is since in
an
economy with high
unemployment rate, they run the risk
of becoming homeless if they stand up to their bosses
committing criminal acts of wage theft.
This is not just an issue with loss of taxable revenue for
the
government, but it is likely to depress economic recovery
of poorer areas where systematic wage theft occurs.
Since
spending power of a consumer dictates the 'prince
signals'
that incentives other corporations to direct their
economy
of scale towards. (And if done in significant amount, can
be philosophically be considered as modern day slavery
to
a certain degree).
To enforce this, all businesses must provide electronic
data
in a standardized format that can be processed by an
auditing system of the worker's preference.
The auditing system can be implemented in different
ways:
1. Central website, where workers can compare their
current payment to expected payment.
2. NFC Rfid tags with it's own logic that can be checked
at
a different location (e.g. post office with an RFID reader)
to verify correct payment in banks. (It stores it's own
timesheet, separate from the employer's computer
system)
3. Use NFC in mobile phones instead of RFID tags, which
can provide instant feedback on how much you are
expected to be paid.
----
This is all integrated to a reporting system, that workers
can optionally use to report discrepancies in payment.
For RFID card holders, they can go to the same location
for
checking their timesheet to report the issue.
For NFC phones apps users, they can report directly from
their smartphones.
It will not automatically press charges, but it will allow
the
government to algorithmically correlate any suspected
tax
evasion via wage theft. Plus if the workers does decide to press charges, then they have a ready made body
of evidence to back up their claims.
This can be made more effective by allowing workers to contact other workers anonymously that they are
seeking to press charges.
Thus ensuring better and more
equitable distribution of money to those who are
vulnerable in the lower stratum of society. Because I
really
wonder if these working poor are really as lazy as many
facebook comments I see says.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft
[not_morrison_rm, Sep 13 2014]
Wage Theft is on the Rise in America
http://www.reddit.c...he_rise_in_america/
Reddit discussion on wage theft [mofosyne, Sep 13 2014]
Graph of various property crimes from wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia...property_crimes.png
[mofosyne, Sep 13 2014]
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Annotation:
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What exactly _is_ wage theft? |
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Could you clarify what you mean by "wage theft"? For example, are you talking about employers not paying wages stipulated by contract? Or are you talking about paying below a legal minimum wage? Or are you talking about employers falsifying records of how much they've paid? If an employer overstates how much they've paid out, then surely that increases their tax liability, so they wouldn't intentionally do that. On the other hand, if the employer understates the amount (to evade tax), then ... it's just tax evasion, not theft from the employee. |
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Please explain the problem you're trying to solve here. |
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Based on wikipedia definition : |
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> Wage theft is the illegal withholding of wages or the
denial of benefits that are rightfully owed to an
employee. Wage theft, particularly from low wage legal
or illegal immigrant workers, is common in the United
States. |
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> Wage theft can be conducted through various means
such as: failure to pay overtime, minimum wage
violations, employee misclassification, illegal deductions
in pay, working off the clock, or not being paid at all. |
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Basically, according to wikipedia, and a Reddit discussion,
it appear to be relatively prevalent in USA (But I'm
betting it's rather common elsewhere as well, so should
be address globally). |
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The graph from the Wikipedia entry was pretty shocking if
true. Certainly hope that's not the case, and thus having
tools and safeguards that allows employees to more easily
monitor and report discrepancies can't hurt. |
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As for tax evasion. I'm sure withholding payment can be
tax evasion. Since tax is tied to how much the employee
should be paid, not how much they were actually paid. If
I remember, working is a creates a legal contract for the
workers to be adequately compensated for their time as
agreed upon. |
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Maybe if you make it the obverse of employee theft. A lot of places make them log into the cash register. Their employee information appears on receipts. One country lets people enter a lottery using receipts, for purposes of finding tax evasion. |
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True, but that is more for the purpose of defending the
state against tax evasion against the state, those are harder
to hide compared to theft against employees. |
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Plus implementing something like that in an ad hoc manner
is expensive. Structuring timetable/receipt data in a
standard electronic format would make it so much more
cheaper to handle. Thus ensuring better detection
radius/probability. |
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OK, so you're trying to fight against both minimum-wage violations and contract violations. Mixing the two might create technical legal issues about criminal law vs. civil law, but I suppose they could be surmounted. |
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Next question: what is the content of this //electronic data in a standardised format// ? For example, would it record "this month, employee X worked 162.5 hours, and was paid [whatever] dollars for it"? Standardising the format might force people to standardise employment contracts. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm smelling unintended consequences. More unintended consequences might arise around casual work and various kinds of self-employment |
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> Mixing the two might create technical legal issues
about criminal law vs.
civil law, but I suppose they could be surmounted. |
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If it's classified as purely civil law, then it should be
reconsidered into a
criminal offence. While it can be argued that a well off
person being paid
less is purely a tort case (but still assholish nonetheless),
to a working poor
victim... it becomes a matter of economic life or death
(via depression or
perhaps even suicide). |
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> Next question: what is the content of this //electronic
data in a standardised format// ? |
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I would imagine it be whatever is needed enough to be
able to be
calculated in a clear and concise manner on what the
employee should
expect to be paid. I think it should record the day, and
time worked, as
well as the payment structure. |
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You make a good point on how it would require
standardization of
employment contracts... this would not be possible a
decade ago. True.
This is something that I think made sense to me this year,
due to the
technological infrastructure already in place. |
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If the government can already use metadata to spy on
everyone illegally,
then why not make them do something useful and use the
power of
metadata to ensure that the vulnerable is treated fairly. |
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This is essentially metadata collection after all. But in a
more democratic
and transparent manner. After all the best cure for
corruption is sunshine. |
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Well, I've read your link, [mofosyne], and I like the way you're heading, but I'd like to hear some input from a lawyer. |
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{sketches a quick pentagram on the floor, and, more carefully, writes "[calum]" in florid uncial script across the middle} |
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{lights a few black candles} |
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