This phenomena is pretty widespread in the service industry and I would venture to say that a significant minority of businesses participate in some version of wage theft.
For example, one of my jobs right out of high school was waiting tables at a local restaurant. If you were opening, the expectation from owners and management was you'd get in early to help open but would wait 15 minutes before service started before clocking in. So on those days you'd do 30-45 minutes of fully unpaid labor. There was well understood that if you complained about this not only would they fire you but they'd call up all their industry buddies and you'd basically be on every other restaurants no-hire list. At the time I was pretty naive and didn't think much of it, just figured that's the way the world worked. Doing the math, because I always made more than the tipped minimum wage, I think it only ended up costing me $7/week in wages - but if I stole $7 out of the till each week for a year in a half I'd be charged with a felony.
For example, one of my jobs right out of high school was waiting tables at a local restaurant. If you were opening, the expectation from owners and management was you'd get in early to help open but would wait 15 minutes before service started before clocking in. So on those days you'd do 30-45 minutes of fully unpaid labor. There was well understood that if you complained about this not only would they fire you but they'd call up all their industry buddies and you'd basically be on every other restaurants no-hire list. At the time I was pretty naive and didn't think much of it, just figured that's the way the world worked. Doing the math, because I always made more than the tipped minimum wage, I think it only ended up costing me $7/week in wages - but if I stole $7 out of the till each week for a year in a half I'd be charged with a felony.