Shame In The United States
Sam Talbot
Contemporary Labor Issues
Professor Ed Ott
December 17, 2010
Introduction
Over the past several years, an ugly secret has been brought to light in the United States: employers steal from their employees. Not just a few unscrupulous employers, or small businesses, or in marginal, declining or unprofitable industries. To the contrary, recent studies have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that wage theft is both wide-spread and virulent, and that current enforcement of wage law is utterly inadequate.
While the full magnitude of wage theft in the U.S. is still unknown- no comprehensive assessment has been undertaken- it has been revealed to be a crime which is so pervasive that it constitutes the norm rather than the exception in …show more content…
How is it allowed to continue? The answer lies, in part, in the nature of shame itself.
Shame is the most social of all emotions. The first experiences of shame mark the transition from purely selfish being to a set of motivations tempered by rules and boundaries which- although they may not be fully understood- are nonetheless enforced and obeyed. For the very reason of its social utility, however, shame also displays a remarkable malleability, and tends to conform not only to the expressed values of society, but also to support the worst of society’s prejudices and iniquities.
An unjust system rightfully produces a feeling of shame in all those who participate in it. But ironically, the reflexive reaction to this shame is to minimize it, to hide it, to keep its secret, and thus, ultimately, to perpetuate the injustice. This urge to secrecy is felt by the victim as well as the victimizer- in fact, it is often stronger within the victim. The victimizer, after all, has already overcome their shame once- in the process of perpetrating the offence- and is therefore already rehearsed in explaining it away; while the victim has no primary experience of overcoming the shame of the injustice done to …show more content…
Unfortunately, some of these charges are legal (but on no account may reduce total pay below state minimums). More extreme cases involve extortion by means of threats, most often to “turn in” undocumented immigrants unless they pay. * Non-payment- particularly common for day laborers and contract workers. Also common is non-payment of the last check or checks, which may be particularly pernicious in the case of contractors, who often only receive two or three payments from a given job.
It should be easy to see from this list how quickly the issue of wage theft becomes difficult to assess, when there are so many different forms of wage theft. The landmark study “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers” attempts to gauge the magnitude of wage theft by identifying 6 “high risk” industry/occupational groupings in the urban centers of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and extrapolating from samples to create estimates of wage theft.
The study’s key
Contemporary Labor Issues
Professor Ed Ott
December 17, 2010
Introduction
Over the past several years, an ugly secret has been brought to light in the United States: employers steal from their employees. Not just a few unscrupulous employers, or small businesses, or in marginal, declining or unprofitable industries. To the contrary, recent studies have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that wage theft is both wide-spread and virulent, and that current enforcement of wage law is utterly inadequate.
While the full magnitude of wage theft in the U.S. is still unknown- no comprehensive assessment has been undertaken- it has been revealed to be a crime which is so pervasive that it constitutes the norm rather than the exception in …show more content…
How is it allowed to continue? The answer lies, in part, in the nature of shame itself.
Shame is the most social of all emotions. The first experiences of shame mark the transition from purely selfish being to a set of motivations tempered by rules and boundaries which- although they may not be fully understood- are nonetheless enforced and obeyed. For the very reason of its social utility, however, shame also displays a remarkable malleability, and tends to conform not only to the expressed values of society, but also to support the worst of society’s prejudices and iniquities.
An unjust system rightfully produces a feeling of shame in all those who participate in it. But ironically, the reflexive reaction to this shame is to minimize it, to hide it, to keep its secret, and thus, ultimately, to perpetuate the injustice. This urge to secrecy is felt by the victim as well as the victimizer- in fact, it is often stronger within the victim. The victimizer, after all, has already overcome their shame once- in the process of perpetrating the offence- and is therefore already rehearsed in explaining it away; while the victim has no primary experience of overcoming the shame of the injustice done to …show more content…
Unfortunately, some of these charges are legal (but on no account may reduce total pay below state minimums). More extreme cases involve extortion by means of threats, most often to “turn in” undocumented immigrants unless they pay. * Non-payment- particularly common for day laborers and contract workers. Also common is non-payment of the last check or checks, which may be particularly pernicious in the case of contractors, who often only receive two or three payments from a given job.
It should be easy to see from this list how quickly the issue of wage theft becomes difficult to assess, when there are so many different forms of wage theft. The landmark study “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers” attempts to gauge the magnitude of wage theft by identifying 6 “high risk” industry/occupational groupings in the urban centers of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and extrapolating from samples to create estimates of wage theft.
The study’s key