Whoever wrote that does not know what is theft. Theft is when someone forcibly takes away your wealth irrespective of what the law says. Taxation for example is undoubtedly a theft but legalized one and something that most of us don't mind in principle though we might disagree about rates.
> This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to can be called wage theft;
That is totally dumb. If a legal entitlement is denied it is a violation of law but not necessarily violation of a person's private property. I have happily worked more than 8 hours for my employer so many times and done unpaid internships happily even though the employer likely broke several labor laws. I think I gained from it.
Even more importantly those people who think they are getting a raw deal can leave immediately or sue the employer.
Theft is when someone forcibly takes away your wealth irrespective of what the law says.
I think he's choosing to go by a different definition -- namely where "theft" is when you're deprived of what's justly yours by whatever unethical means; not simply when the law proscribes it as such. Or in other word: based more on an intuitive sense of fairness (or "natural law"), rather than what's on the books.
Granted, it's a fuzzier definition, and you may not particularly like it. But I'm just saying, it's a different one.
I don't think like gender words too should be treated as some sort of rainbow and treated in an arbitrary fashion. There is a good reason why we humans think of "theft" as a bad thing. The author uses a "different definition" yet while trying to benefit from the negative connotation of the word's commonly understood meaning.
This is the same trick that advertisers use (Police don't like this new insurance rule) or politicians deploy (calling a person sexual offender when he was merely peeing in open) but I think journalists should show far more sense.
That wasn't my take from the article. If anything, it sounds like he's calling out employers for profiting (significantly) from the same kind of word-bending you're describing: by telling low-wage earners, when they show up for work the first day, "Oh BTW, you're not getting paid for setting up and tearing down your workspace each day. Because you know, that's not really work."
BTW it may be more accurate to describe the authors as policy researchers, rather than journalists.
Inside warehouse, worker hides pallet of expensive goods by surrounding it with cheaper goods. Boss cannot find the expensive pallet. Worker has stolen the goods, even though none have left the warehouse. He has converted them from his boss's possession to his own constructive possession. Just like a boss that withholds wages, worker cannot suddenly make the pallet appear once the cops show up. The theft has occurred even if the thief later returns the goods.
> This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to can be called wage theft;
That is totally dumb. If a legal entitlement is denied it is a violation of law but not necessarily violation of a person's private property. I have happily worked more than 8 hours for my employer so many times and done unpaid internships happily even though the employer likely broke several labor laws. I think I gained from it.
Even more importantly those people who think they are getting a raw deal can leave immediately or sue the employer.