October 12-18 is the International Workers' Association Week Against Unpaid Wages. The fight against unpaid wages is a permanent campaign of the IWA and the week is when we encourage the unions and other organizations to make some noise about this topic.

We point out that unpaid wages can take various forms:

- complete lack of payment for work performed
- underpayment of different kinds including forcing people to work overtime without extra payment, paying less than the agreed rate, paying less than the legal rate or less than required by a collective agreement, etc.
- forcing people to work on the wrong kind of contract so they are ineligible for statutory benefits, such as paid vacation or sick leave
- unjustified deductions from the salary
- illegal unpaid probationary periods, training periods and internships

… just to name a few of the ways that bosses rob the workers of the money they have earned.

You can participate in this Week in different ways – ranging from republishing our articles, to writing one of your own, from taking direct against a business where problems have occured to contacting workers in such a place and encouraging them to take action.

And, if you haven't read this yet, we recommend an article written by comrades from South Korea which talks about some of the issues with unpaid wages in that country. https://iwa-ait.org/content/iwa-campaign-against-wage-theft-korea We suppose a lot of people around the world will see that what they talk about occurs in many places. Our issues may sometimes differ in some details, but our problems with capitalist exploitation are very much the same.

Let's fight to create an international movement and encourage workers' direct action!