A debt for wages is not like any other debt
Our Parasha (Shemos 7:19) relates that the plague of blood affected all the waters of Egypt: “its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water that they may turn to blood; there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt – even in vessels of wood and stone.”
The Midrash (Shemos Rabba 9:10) adds that the Israelite water did not turn into blood. Yet, if an Egyptian drank from the water of a Jew, it would turn into blood unless the Egyptian paid for the water! Hence, this plague enriched the Jewish people.
The event recalls Hashem’s promise to Avraham: He informed Avraham that a foreign nation would subjugate and oppress his descendants, but subsequently that nation would be judged and Avraham’s descendants would emerge from that country with great riches (Bereshis 15:13-14). The Torah mentions the property requested from our Egyptian neighbors as we left, but Chazal tell us that several plagues also helped the Jews obtain the promised wealth.
Emes leYaakov suggests that the two sides of Hashem’s promise are connected: The Jews were entitled to great riches precisely because they were subjugated and oppressed, and did not receive their due wages. He points out that the Gemara (Sanhedrin 91a) relates that Alexander the Great was persuaded that the spoils that we took from Egypt are rightfully ours as wages for our forced labor.
It is apt that the Egyptians who didn’t pay ended up specifically with blood. Chazal (Bava Kama 119a) liken depriving someone of his property to bloodshed; they refer specifically to Egypt’s extortion of the Jewish bondsmen: “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the extortion of the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land” (Yoel 4:19). The Pasuk here considers extortion to be as sinful as the shedding of innocent blood. Elsewhere (Bava Metzia 112a), withholding wages is singled out as likened to bloodshed.
Formally, a debt for wages is just like any other debt, such as a loan repayment or payment for merchandise. However, the Torah, and subsequently Chazal, treat wage debts with distinct gravity. Over and above the universal obligation to repay debts, the Torah commands in two places specifically to pay the worker and to pay on time (Vayikra 19:13; Devarim 24:14-15). A delay transgresses both a positive and a negative mitzvah (Bava Metzia 112a, SA, CM 339:2). Another example: in the case of a disagreement with the employer, Chazal instituted that the employee may take an oath to collect his pay (Mishnah, Bava Metzia 9:12; Gemara 111a; SA, CM 89:3).
Looking for Money under the Floor Tiles
The formal halachic status of these mitzvos in our time is rather modest. Most people work for a monthly salary paid, by agreement, the following month; in this case, the prohibition on delaying payment does not apply even to the agreed day of payment (Bava Metzia 111a; SA, CM 339:9.) The mitzvah would mainly apply to babysitters and workmen such as plumbers; and the latter often have a fixed policy to accept delayed payment.
If the employer doesn’t have money at hand, he is exempt. The halacha does not even formally require the employer to be sure in advance that there will be money handy when payment is due. However, taking this mitzvah seriously obligates us to go out of our way to pay workers promptly. The Chinuch (588) writes: “[I]f he is not able to pay him on the same day unless he loses much of his [property], the verse did not apparently obligate him to do so. Nonetheless, it is fitting that the money be in the hand of any astute person before he hires workers.” The Chafetz Chaim in Ahavas Chesed (10:12) emphasizes the same point.
I was once present when the head of a school phoned Rav Neuwirth ZTZ”L distraught, explaining that he looked for money even “under the floor tiles” and still didn’t have enough to pay his teachers. Rav Neuwirth’s recommendation: Pry open a few more floor tiles. I never found out if the manager found the money somehow; he was under no formal halachic obligation to do so. Either way, his commitment to the mitzvah was displayed by his agitated state of mind and his understanding that this situation cannot be taken lightly and requires a shailah.
By contrast, I once received a query from another educational institution. Someone completed a short project shortly before his army service and managed to send a bill only a few years later. The shailah: “Do we have to pay?” The very desire to find a heter to deprive someone of his hard-earned pay displays a cavalier attitude towards this mitzvah.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that I’ve found no basis for a leniency for not informing workers that in all likelyhood they will never receive their full salary. A common example would be a high-tech startup which has run out of “burn” money, without any clear source of new funding on the horizon. All the leniencies I found for paying workers late involve delays and impediments, such as a customer paying late, but not cases where payment is unlikely.
