Employment & Employee Rights

One who withholds the wages of a hired laborer, it is as though he takes his soul from him. Rav Huna and Rav Ḥisda disagreed over the meaning of this statement. One says it is referring to the soul of the robber, meaning that one who steals from a hired laborer by delaying payment of his wages causes Heaven to remove his own soul, and one says that he takes the soul of the robbery victim, meaning that one who steals from a hired worker causes the death of the worker.

(1) If one hired laborers and told them to work early or to work late, he has no right to compel them to do so where the custom is not to work early or not to work late. In a place where the custom is to give them their food he should give it to them, and where the custom is to provide them with sweet food, he must give it to them. Everything should follow local custom.

Rava responded: But doesn’t Rav say that a laborer may reconsider and quit his job, even at midday... as it is written: “For to Me the children of Israel are slaves; they are My slaves whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 25:55), which indicates: They are My slaves, and not slaves of slaves, i.e., of other Jews. Consequently, a Jew can never be enslaved to another Jew with a contract from which he cannot release himself whenever he wishes.