Mitigating wage theft through unionized collection agencies
Illustrative example of the problem:
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Many freelancers—and esp. freelancing journos—have similar or much worse stories. This is, essentially, a form of wage theft, and it has a harmful impact on victims—both economical as well as psychological (and probably physical).
Wage theft is a multi-billion-dollar problem in the US, but different types of wage theft—in different sectors—might require different solutions. It doesn't seem reasonable to hope for legislative measures—after all, if that were likely, it would've already happened long ago. So I've been thinking about alternative solutions.
One way to address wage theft from freelancers might be for large freelancer unions to incorporate unemployment insurance and a collection agency. When someone who has a contract with a member is delinquent on their payment, the union can pay the member the amount owed, purchasing the debt owed to them—and then collect on that debt from the delinquent employer, with interest. Membership dues and interest would help cover the upfront payment costs.
Has this already been tried? Has anyone made something like this work? Is it impossible or impractical?
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