Am I the ONLY one noticing that they are stealing more than the meager fucking wages we're legally owed?
Let's break down my personal worse case of this. I want to be clear, this has happened to me & others in multiple workplaces. I'm far from alone.
I worked at a venue as a dishwasher, the going rate was $17.25, ~15 after tax. Bi-Weekly pay. They even said I could switch to cooking or baking after a while. Pretty stellar given my age & experience, I thought I found something nice. Well, there were several events in October & I clocked in 50 hours every week until the months end. I wanted the money.
Not a single check exceeded $1K. Not one. I was paid around ~$1,800 for a 200 hour month. It wasn't adding up, so I emailed HR. They sent a paystub & insisted that I was paid what I was owed. I try to open the file they sent & it tells me it cannot be opened unless I'm on an Apple device. I have never gotten a pop up on anything in my life saying I needed an iPhone to open a file.
I felt so sick going back into that place I just stopped going. Every minute I was asking myself, “am I even getting paid for this?” I gave 200 hours in a month to this company & they can't even give me the scraps I need?
And before anyone asks why I didn't follow up on the paystubs or something. I don't believe there is anything I could've done. When you confidently short an employee over $1K you have lost the fucking plot. The fact that I didn't gaslight myself into thinking I was just running the numbers wrong & still tried to confront them is a lot for me. What am I supposed to do? Pursue legal action? That's a lovely thought but every major employer in retail or fast food does the same thing regularly.
I don't have a choice. I don't have a say.