Wage theft flies under the radar, and the poor are missing out

Monday, 4 March 2019

OPINION: Imagine a worker reaching into a till and stealing cash.

It's a crime, right?

Consequences for the sticky fingered worker includes being fired, police and a possible conviction.

But when bosses illegally withhold holiday pay from vulnerable workers where are the police, the courts, the consequences?

We can all generally agree stealing is wrong but what about wage theft?

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Wage theft is underpayment of wages, holding back holiday pay, expecting employees to attend meetings without pay, not paying employees taxes and other breaches of the Wages Protection Act.

While illegal, wage theft is not considered criminal and victims have to hope one of New Zealand's 60 or so labour inspectors will investigate.

If the Employment Court decides in a worker's favour, there is no guarantee they will actually see the money they are owed.

It is nigh on impossible to say just how much is stolen from workers each year, however, in 2016 the Council of Trade Unions found workers had been repaid more than $35 million for payroll 'errors' that year.

A 2017 audit of the forestry industry by labour inspectors form the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment found almost 90 per cent were breaching basic employment law standards.

In 2018, the ministry released a list of 277 employers barred from hiring migrant workers due to breaches in employment practices.

Last week, wage theft in shearing sheds led to the first collective agreement in 24 years.

Sure, there are business owners who don't actually understand how the law works or who outsource to payroll companies that make errors.

However, what is striking about the numbers, complaints and few cases that make it through the employment court, is that there is a high number of employers out there knowingly and actively taking advantage of workers.

The Crimes Act defines theft as 'dishonestly and without claim of right, taking any property with intent to deprive any owner permanently of that property or of any interest in that property'.

Somehow, this doesn't apply to employers under paying or taking advantage of workers.

It's criminal for a worker to steal from their employer but not for an employer to steal from their workers.

At most, wage theft is often met with a slap on the wrist with the wet bus ticket.

To be perfectly honest, I am at a lost to understand why.

Theft is theft, is theft.

What's worse, is many of the employees tend to be part of the precariat; workers without job security and with limited education or connections to be able to move on to new positions.

Migrant workers are some of the most vulnerable to wage theft (File Photo).

These workers tend to bare the brunt of global economic swings.

They are also often migrant and seasonal workers whose dependence on the honesty of their employers is higher and their ability to take action is invariably lower.

To steal from them is to steal from people who really need that money.

It is taking advantage of the vulnerable for personal gain.

We can spend a lot of time debating whether the minimum conditions of work in New Zealand are sufficient, whether we are paying enough or doing enough for workers.

People will have a range of views on that one.

But it shouldn't be up for debate that if you steal, it is wrong.

That should go for workers who take from their jobs and employers who take from their workers.

Maybe it's time to update the Crimes Act and treat business owners the same way we treat everybody else.