Thanks to the #MeToo movement, the discussion about abuse and its manifestations has increased in all media, as well as between individuals. The various types of abuse that can occur and their manifestations are:
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Psychological abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Economic abuse
The discussion that has risen from the #MeToo movement has been based on abuse in relationships, but abuse exists in more settings.
In Icelandic laws, article 3 regulation 1009/2015 on actions against bullying, sexual harassment, gender-based harassment and abuse in the workplace, abuse is defined as “any behavior that leads, or could lead, to physical or psychological harm or suffering to the victim, including threat of such, coercion or deprivation of liberty.”
According to this definition, the regulation covers most types of abuse; physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional. But not economic abuse.
When looking over the reasons for why individuals get stuck in abusive relationships, and their difficulties in getting out of said relationships, it is often said that the key to a quick escape for the victim is financial independence from their abuser.
Then why is there not more talk about economic abuse in the labor market?
Discussion on economic abuse in the labor market is often characterized by describing the violations as economic loss for the victim, theft, or as a breach of contract. The economic abuse is thus classified with other offenses related to property, but not to harm to the individual themselves. The abuse is thus reduced from being behavior that leads to harm to an individual, the threat of such, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of freedom, to being a loss of funds that is easy to pay back.
It should be noted that a distinction is made here between what is called “wage theft” and “economic abuse”:
- Wage theft: An employer seeks to reduce expenses on wages and salary-related expenses by avoiding paying employees entitlements, or omitting the payment of salary-related charges.
- Economic abuse: One or more individuals in a position of influence within an employer uses their position to inflict economic damage or suffering on an employee, threatens to do so, uses coercion or arbitrary deprivation of freedom during the act.
The difference of the two is the intent of the employer. Intent for economic abuse can often be seen in the fact that the employer’s behavior is specifically directed at one or more targets, whereas other employees are not affected.
Signs of both wage theft, as well as economic abuse can be found with the same employer.
The manifestations of economic abuse in the labor market are diverse, for example:
- The employer refuses to pay for overtime the employee has worked.
- The employer registers time worked on the employee, rather than mandatory minimum callout pay.
- The employer denies the employee extra shifts, thus preventing the employee from earning a higher salary.
- The employer threatens to withhold the employee’s wages.
- The employer registers the wrong wage rate for the employee.
- The employer refuses, or stalls, to adjust wages when errors in payroll are pointed out.
- The employer registers too high a personal tax discount on the employee, thus building up debt to the state for the employee.
- The employer pays out too high a salary and demands a refund from the employee without giving the employee a view of how the employer calculated the refund demand.
- The employer forces the employee to sign an agreement or statement in which the employee waives their collective bargaining rights. This is often accompanied by threats, or deprivation of liberty until the employee signs.
Countless examples can be given of how economic abuse manifests itself in the labor market, but it doesn’t take many examples to see why the crimes as such are always reduced to economic crimes:
- Perpetrators of economic abuse cannot be frontline workers, or simple staff with no responsibility.
- The perpetrators of economic abuse are managers and supervisors, and/or the person/s in charge of the payroll.
- The perpetrators of economic abuse are always those who have the power to handle money without anyone second guessing them.
Although economic abuse always involves money in some form, it is not an economic crime. Targets of economic abuse express great distress at dealing with a manager who progressively misrepresents their wages, denies them opportunities to earn additional income, and/or simply refuses to correct wage misstatements.
Unfortunately, unions have not come far when it comes to tackling economic abuse. Employees’ stories of deprivation of liberty, or coercion to sign contracts and declarations to lower wages are often reduced to the signed paper and its contents. Employees then need to hear their ordeals discussed from a economic point of view, and not the psychological and emotional distress that the sequence of the events has caused.
The purpose of minimizing abuse against employees is only to reduce their demands on their employer, if the issue is raised in general. This acts as a disincentive for employees, who see little point in pursuing their rights as only the economic loss will be considered, while the employee has to go through emotional and psychological distress again during the process, and face possible retaliation from their employer for having reported the situation.
Just as the #MeToo movement has opened the discussion about abuse in relationships, it is time to open the discussion about Employee Abuse further, and especially economic abuse.
The discussion has to start somewhere.
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This opinion-article first appeared in Icelandic on visir.is 31st of January 2023, and picked up by DV.is 31st of January 2023.