Why Bosses Get Away With Stealing Your Wages (with Terri Gerstein)

If you steal from your employer, you could end up in jail. But what happens when your employer steals from you?

Every year, employers steal billions of dollars from American workers through unpaid wages, overtime violations, and other illegal practices. Yet the consequences for employers are often little more than the cost of doing business.

On Election Day, we’re revisiting our 2024 conversation with labor law enforcement expert Terri Gerstein about one of the most widespread and overlooked crimes in the American economy. Why is wage theft so common? Why are employers so rarely held criminally accountable? And what would it take to change that?

Because building an economy that works for working people isn’t just about passing better laws. It’s about having a government willing to enforce them.

This episode originally aired April 9, 2024

Terri Gerstein is the director of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative and a leading expert on wage theft and workers’ rights enforcement. She previously served as Labor Bureau Chief in the New York Attorney General’s Office and Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor.

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@terrigerstein.bsky.social

@TerriGerstein