[sampleinajar]

For most of my adult life, I worked hourly jobs in low pay positions and "wage theft" always meant me, the employee, stealing from the company by not working every single second I was there. Interesting to see it defined the other way, "employers’ failure to pay workers money they are legally entitled to".

[ska]

I think the usage here is the common one, and your idiosyncratic. "wage theft" has been consistently talked about this way for several decades at least among policy types etc.

[sampleinajar]

Thanks for the comment. A sibling comment points out "time theft" which I have also heard regarding an employee not working, so to speak. I can honestly say I did not read economic policy pieces until quite recently in my life, so I had not, as far as I can recall, heard it used this way. I can also anecdotally say that most management in lower paying positions in the parts of the US I have worked are rather infamous for malapropisms.

edit:typo

[walshemj]

Its a well known hr/ir labor law term.

[Spooky23]

I worked at a place (public company, retail) in college where the general managers task on Wednesday night was to “trim” the payroll by editing out fractional hours or reducing spiffs. The managers got a bonus if their labor spend was between 98.5% and 99.25% of budget.

[qw3rty01]

This is timecard fraud, not wage theft.

[sampleinajar]

I have not heard "timecard fraud" before, but it does seem a more accurate term.

[maxbendick]

I think another term for that is "time theft"

[walshemj]

Fraud and Gross Misconduct are the terms that would be used