As corporations are people, I advocate jail time for companies.
Jail time for a company? How would that work?

Stock price is immediately frozen and placed on a restricted trades list.
No sells, no buys for the duration of the sentence (maybe a period of time for retail traders to exit gracefully at the locked price).
A member of the IRS is now on the accounting team for the length of the sentence + 5 years.
For "safety" this IRS auditor is cycled every 6 months.
During that time, quarterly audits, and any profits go directly to the aggrieved parties and/or Fed coffers.
The plan would pay for itself on the first sentence passed down.

What if the company closes shop instead of compliance?
Easy, IRS performs a Civil Forfeiture and immediately gains control of all aspects of the business. All stock options are cancelled, C-Level and higher immediately lose all stock and bonuses. Liquidate the remains and again provide for the aggrieved and bank the rest.

I think.... they should start with ... paying the wages that got stiffed- with some steep interest. Then, the company gets fined to oblivion... and the individuals responsible for it go to jail.

An employer doesn't send you your pay cheque and after months of fighting to get the case heard, they'll eventually get told by a court to send you your pay cheque. That's about it.

But if you walked into a store, grabbed an arm full of stuff and walked out, not interacting with anyone while there (no threats, violence, or weapons, just casual); you'll definitely be fined far above the cost of what you took, while also likely being imprisoned from the moment police officers encounter you (be that outside the store, or later); for most of a day at minimum, possibly several days/weeks depending on sentencing.

I feel like.. intentional wage theft should result in

• pay all the money back
• pay a steep fine to the victim.
• added to a blacklist. No longer allowed to work in whatever role they were in where this happened.
  • repeat offenders are hanged in the public square
  • their assets are seized by the state and auctioned off or something

The ultra wealthy do not fear for their lives, and they should.

They should pay triple the wages owed plus fines. That will start making it hurt.

how is this a meme?

This is why unions put in grievance systems.

In our world, restitution is directly proportional to the wealth of the entity stolen from, not the wealth of the entity who does the stealing. It should absolutely be the latter.

As the great 90s philosopher Alan Menken said, "gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, otherwise we'd get along."

can keep the fine, but it needs to be a significant percentage, not an insignificant flat value

company has 25 employees? after payment of lost wages, fine is 2% (?) of company’s daily income for as many days as they were in violation

You don’t understand. See, corporations now enjoy all the same rights as an individual, but you can’t put a company in prison, that doesn’t even make sense. so instead we just fine them a small amount they won’t even notice in their books, and then we can call them “punished”, and still tax their ever-increasing profits. everybody who matters wins and all the losers (as judged by their wealth) lose like god intended them to.

it’s like you’ve never even heard of capitalism OR christianity. The bible spells it out: “blessed are the moneylenders, for they do not even need to inherit the earth because they already own both it and you”. Let’s not forget that Jesus kicked the meek out of the temple for not being wealthy enough to even comprehend god’s glory, amen.

Going to jail is the compromise solution.

Hey look! It's easy points puffin...

What if the employee who got stiffed gets double what they were shorted? Still jail?

"You've been stealing wages. Pay me to make the problem go away."