Voice, Symbolic power and Wage Theft in U.S. Retail and Restaurant Firms

• In Event: Roundtable: Crime

Abstract

Wage and hour laws in the United States are commonly violated. According to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute these violations can add up to as much as $50 billion each year. To better understand the interactional dynamics of (non)compliance with wage and hour laws I interviewed 42 hourly workers and frontline managers at retail and restaurant firms. Voice rights, the right to speak within an organization and contribute to the ‘definition of the situation,’ (Zuckerman 2010) emerged as an important protective feature in guarding against violations. Analysis of interview data and case comparisons revealed that when voice rights were more evenly distributed throughout the organization, and when managers actively sought impressions and feedback from their subordinates, there was less risk for violations of wage and hour laws. In cases where voice rights go unshared and voice is discouraged, participants were more likely to discuss witnessing, experiencing, or committing violations. Exceptions existed where voice was highly shared in the organizations were situations where violations emerged from quid pro quo exchanges between employees and managers, where wage laws may have been violated, but employees were compensated in some way. I discuss implications for theoretical generalizability to different contexts and compliance environments.

Author

• Nicholas J. Membrez-Weiler, North Carolina State University