Starting off with the World Cup.
In today's knockout games, Portugal
absolutely obliterated Switzerland, 6 goals to 1.
Yeah, and after this match, now I
guess we see why Switzerland doesn't get involved in wars.
[laughter]
But the major World Cup news of today
is how the North African nation of Morocco
pulled an absolutely stunning upset of--
[cheering]
--against football powerhouse Spain.
And I know this won't make up for the fact
that Spain once colonized a part of Morocco.
But it goes a long way.
It really does.
Oh, in international news, the government of Indonesia
has just officially banned all sex outside of marriage.
Yes, with a penalty of up to one year in prison.
That's going to make for some weird conversation
in Indonesian prisons.
You know?
Guys be like, I'm here for murder.
What are you in for?
A mediocre night with Jason.
[laughter]
Oh, and in some major legal news,
the Trump organization has been found guilty
of 17 counts of tax fraud--
[cheering]
--and other financial crimes.
And you know what that means.
Donald Trump is going to prison--
[cheering]
--to visit all the lower-ranking people
who did this without his knowledge or his permission.
Yeah, because we all know that's how that
works in the world, right?
All the successes in Trump's organization,
they are due to the genius of Donald Trump.
All the crimes, he had no idea.
It's like, (IMITATING TRUMP) that's right, folks.
I have zero control over the things I run,
which is why you should vote for me to run the country.
So I can run it like one of my companies,
which I don't even run.
I don't even run.
But speaking of crime--
[cheering]
Speaking of crime, let's move on to our main story.
In the run up to the midterms, one
of the major issues for voters across the land was crime.
In fact, any time you turned on the news,
you were bound to see stories like this.
Business owners across the country
are stepping up security as they
report brazen shoplifting.
We've all seen the videos.
Shoplifting at supermarkets across the USA
is out of control.
REPORTER: Handbag haul, the brazen bandit who cops say
walked out with all these stolen handbags.
REPORTER: The shoplifting epidemic
highlighted by this viral video at a Walgreens last week.
REPORTER: Shoplifting is up 300%
as video of brazen thieves leaving with their arms
laden with stolen merchandise continue
to shock all Americans.
REPORTER: Shoplifting has gotten so bad this year.
Rite Aid is considering literally putting
everything behind showcases.
Yeah you hear that?
Shoplifting has gotten so bad that they're locking
everything behind showcases.
Oh, and the person who unlocks the showcase,
they're locked behind the showcase too.
Yeah, now you're screwed.
What are you going to do?
But, yes almost every day, every day in the news,
we've seen these horrible stories, you know,
about people blatantly breaking the law
and stealing what doesn't belong to them.
And I don't care what anyone says.
There is zero excuse for shoplifting-- zero excuse,
even in the instances where you find yourself waiting in line
forever, and there's six open registers,
but the store only decided to hire one cashier, which makes
you feel like they're taunting you,
showing you how fast it could be,
but they just don't want it to be, you know?
So then you think, oh, you're just going to go
and use the self-checkout.
But then there's an error because you didn't put
the item in the bagging area or because you put
it in too early or too late.
And now you have to wait for the supervisor
to come over and ask, oh, are you trying to buy this?
No, I just enjoy holding shampoo.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing here.
Yes, I'm trying to buy this.
Yes, I'm trying to buy it.
And then instead of just, like, helping you out,
they give you that look.
They give you that look like, oh, and then
they wave the magical, little key fob.
And then even in that instance, it is not justified.
Even when it's justified, it is not justified to steal.
But what if I told you-- what if I told
you that the biggest theft isn't people
stealing from companies?
What if I told you the biggest theft
is companies stealing from people?
Well, you might ask, how or why?
Well, let's find out in another installment of If You
Don't Know, Now You Know.
[music playing]
[cheering]
When you take a job, you're making a simple agreement
with your employer, right? You do the work.
They give you pay.
That's the very foundation that jobs are built on.
And yet all over the country, all over the world,
in fact, employers aren't holding
up their end of the deal.
Imagine working and never getting paid.
It's a growing problem called wage theft.
REPORTER: Wage theft occurs when a worker is paid
less than they're legally entitled to,
such as when they're denied pay for working overtime
or work off the clock without getting paid
or are denied legal meal breaks.
REPORTER: 67 letter carriers say their paychecks were
changed to make it look like they worked less
hours than they actually did.
REPORTER: Workers at Hardee's and Carl's, Jr. have filed
dozens of state and federal complaints,
including allegations of wage theft, manipulated overtime,
and unfair labor practices.
REPORTER: About 10,000 people are saying
Chipotle forced them to work off the clock
to boost the bottom line.
REPORTER: Wage theft is the costliest crime
in the country, robbing US workers of $15 billion
per year, more than car thefts, burglaries,
and other larcenies combined.
Yeah, that's right.
The costliest crime in the United States
is actually being committed by corporations.
So I guess instead of following Black people around the store,
security guards should be hovering
over CEOs at their desk.
Yeah.
They should be looking over there--
[cheering]
--and being like, I'm going to need
you to go ahead and put that person's salary back
where it belongs.
It's like, oh, sorry.
[laughs] I didn't see that I had that.
Yeah, I bet you didn't.
And I think we can all agree, nobody--
nobody should be doing work that they're
not getting paid for.
Because, I mean, then that's not a job.
Now you're volunteering at a fast food restaurant,
and who would do that? Huh?
Who's there like, oh, me, I--
I'm not in it for the money.
I'm in it for the love of childhood obesity.
[laughs]
And, by the way-- by the way, wage theft
isn't just when companies don't pay employees for the work
that they've done.
In some instances, employers find
really shitty ways to actually make their employees pay them.
For example, there was a restaurant owner
who confiscated his employees' tips at the end of their shift
and called it--
I swear to god--
a cleaning fee.
Yeah.
The NFL Oakland Raiders would dock
their cheerleaders' pay for shit
like wearing the wrong color nail polish.
Yeah, but this example of creative wage theft
might be my favorite of all.
REPORTER: This is Fantasy Gentleman's Club in Grand
Junction, and this is the 24-page class
action lawsuit claiming--
Fantasy Gentleman's Club has been exploiting
these workers for years.
REPORTER: Among other charges, dancers
accused the club of cutting into their take-home pay
with excessive fines.
REPORTER: $50 if dancers don't share tips
with the DJ and security, a hundred bucks
to change the schedule.
There's even a fine for complaining to customers
about their personal lives.
I'm sorry, what?
This is the biggest bullshit of all.
You can't fine strippers for complaining to customers
about their personal lives, all right?
First of all, how can you even tell
that they're complaining and not
just singing along to the Drake song that's playing?
You don't know.
And second of all, if strippers couldn't complain
about their lives, then how would they
be able to convince customers into spending
more than they plan to help save them from this life?
So what you're saying is if we go to the champagne room,
then you can move with me to Chicago.
Is that it?
And there's a lot of reasons businesses are
able to get away with this.
First of all, wage theft tends to target people
with the least ability to fight back like hourly workers
and undocumented immigrants.
Making matters worse, the government agencies
who are supposed to be the watchdogs against wage theft
are understaffed and underfunded.
Oh, and when companies do get caught stealing,
here's what happens to them.
REPORTER: McDonald's has agreed to pay $26 million
to settle accusations of wage theft.
It follows a long-running, class-action lawsuit
at corporate-run locations in California.
REPORTER: The US Labor Department
says Walmart will pay $4.8 million
in back wages and damages to more than 4,500 employees.
REPORTER: Amazon agreed to pay $8.2 million
to settle a wage-theft lawsuit.
And Krispy Kreme was ordered to pay workers more than $1.1
million after investigators found
widespread and systematic failure to pay
workers what they were owed.
Huh, that's so strange.
All of this theft occurred, but there was no mention
of anyone going to jail.
But then how will they learn their lesson?
Oh, and before you say, but, Trevor,
you can't put a corporation in jail.
Says who? Says who?
They always say corporations are people,
so why doesn't America treat them like American
people, huh?
Why not?
[cheering]
Every time-- every single time a company
gets busted stealing their workers' wages,
you know what they should do?
They should say that the company headquarters
should be taken to prison.
Yeah, that's what they should do.
Just take the actual headquarters,
put it in prison.
Yeah, you hear that, Amazon?
Same-day delivery is going to be
a lot harder when have to smuggle that air
fryer in your butthole.
[laughter]
But just because it's all too easy for companies
to steal from their workers, that doesn't
mean workers are powerless.
Wage theft has been one of the issues driving
an increase in unionization.
And California has just passed a law
saying that for the first time anywhere in the country wages
and payment rules for all fast food
workers will be set not by employers
but by a council of experts appointed by the state.
Yes, a council--
[applause]
--of fast food experts.
So, finally, a government job that Trump
is actually qualified for.
[laughter]
But for some workers, waiting for the bureaucracy
of the courts or the government to intervene
just takes too long, which is why one construction
worker in England expressed his anger in a more physical way.
REPORTER: A row over 600 pounds that will end up costing
so much more to put right.
This construction worker was so angry at allegedly not being
paid that he took drastic action, driving
a mini excavator into the newly-finished hotel
that he'd helped build.
[applause]
OK, OK.
I know this seems bad, but is it?
No, because the guy did the work, didn't get paid,
and then he undid the work, right?
Seems like a fair deal to me.
And it reminds me--
[applause]
It reminds me of a very wise thing my grandfather
used to tell me.
He would say, (SOUTH AFRICAN ACCENT) remember,
Trevor, if you want to screw someone over,
make sure they don't own a bulldozer first.
[laughter]
And, yes, my grandfather was Nelson Mandela.
[laughter]
He was, indeed.
So the next time you turn the TV on and see all the news
about people shoplifting from drug stores,
before assuming there is a crime, maybe, just
for a moment, think that they could
just be getting their wages back a totally different way.
And if you don't know, now you know.
Before we go to a break, it's time
to check in on the weather forecast with our very own
Desi Lydic, everybody!
[cheering]
Desi, what's happening in the weather?
I don't know.
My Wi-Fi's down, so my weather app doesn't work.
You know, Trevor, it's interesting.
You're going on and on about the epidemic of wage theft,
meanwhile ignoring the wage theft going
on right in front of you.
Whoa, whoa. No, no.
Desi, what are you talking about?
You're getting paid.
Well, sure, maybe for doing the weather.
Well, actually, you never actually do the weather.
But there is a ton of other stuff
that I do that I'm not compensated for.
Like, I spend hours of the workday selling
my bathtub kombucha on Etsy.
And I haven't seen a dime from this show.
But, Desi, that's not wage theft.
We're not paying you to do that.
Exactly, you're not paying me to do that.
And it's how I spend most of my time in the office at work.
TREVOR NOAH: What?
But it's fine. Don't worry.
You'll read all about it in the lawsuit.
Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait.
You're suing me?
Oh, yeah, no, it's been a long time
coming because I work very, very hard at this show.
Do you know that I have never once been paid overtime
for organizing the office supplies
and putting them neatly in boxes
and taking them home to my apartment?
[laughter]
You've been stealing office supplies?
Well, not to mention all the hours
that I spent taking the laser out of the laser printer.
Desi, that's not even how a laser printer works.
Well, I know that now.
But I'm not getting that time back.
TREVOR NOAH: OK, Desi, none of this is actually wage theft.
You realize that.
I'm sorry.
Who made you Judge Judy?
OK. - You know what?
I don't want to do this, but--
like, I didn't want to do this.
I don't think you're going to win a wage theft lawsuit
with us because I have a solid year of video evidence of you
never actually doing the weather,
which is your actual job.
[laughter]
Oh, OK, OK.
Is that how it's going to be? - Just saying.
You want to play hardball, huh?
Fine, I get it.
I get it.
Yeah, Desi, look, I'm sorry that you feel that way.
All right?
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
I'm just saying, if anything, it
sounds like you are the person who's stealing from the place
that pays your wages.
You know?
So I don't think taking this case to the court
is the right idea.
It's just like, it's one of those things--
[motor running]
Wait, Desi?
Desi, what are the-- Desi, what are you doing?
Desi?
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
[cheering]
That's right.
You had your chance, Trevor.
Now it's time for bulldozer justice.
And, by the way, I'm charging extra for this.
TREVOR NOAH: No, no, don't do it, Desi.
No. No, Desi!
No!
All right, we're going to take a quick break while everyone
evacuates the studio.
Desi Lydic, everybody.