If Eduardo were a legalized citizen, could they still get away with that?

i think it depends on how stressed you are about employment.

and the scheme that the employer uses to keep wages from you.

generally takes wage theft seriously. So if you are willing to file a claim and have pay stubs to prove what you were paid and it differs from actual hours worked they will go back and try to get your money. I know my brother as a teenager worked in a Chinese restaurant one summer and they didn't pay him overtime when he worked either more than 40 hours or shifts longer than 8 hours and the BOL went back and got him the money due. They could have easily ignored a kid back in those days but they considered it a violation of law.

being robbed here. My helper told me about a neighbour's helper who was given $20US as a tip for extra washing by her employer's visiting relative. The employer opened the helper's bag when she was in the laundry room and took the money and told her that she needed it more than the helper. Even now i shake my head - it would never cross my mind to open our helper's bag let alone to rob her of a tip.

Of course the helper left the job.

Unfortunately it won't be in the "corporations are people" era.

Back in the mid 70's I worked at a BBQ place as a short order cook and the bosses had people work more than 40 hour weeks routinely. They paid the regular wage but no overtime. After a while I decided that that was enough. I called the state revenue folks and told them the facts.

The state came down on them because of all the "taxes" that these people were avoiding- like unemployment insurance, etc.

Boy, were they pissed. They had the come up with years of back pay for people and fines. They didn't know who turned them in so when they gave us our backpay they did it by taking us individually into a room with them(3 of them) and the manager and tried to the make the case that what they did was okay and that we had tacitly agreed to the no overtime thing since we didn't ask for it.

On top of that, they asked for each of us to give it back to them. Can you imagine? I don't think they were just wanting their money back but trying to find out who turned them in. I said- nope- I'm keeping what's mine. They appeared shocked but I didn't get the boot. I was one of their best workers I guess. They then tried to skirt the overtime thing by claiming that we were no longer hourly workers but salaried (exempt vs non-exempt). I gave notice. Amazing what jerks these type of people could be.