This compulsion to threaten a lawsuit is such a quintessentially so American. For an American service worker, it also isn't realistic to carry out a lawsuit given that most are working paycheck to paycheck.
Unfortunately, wage theft dwarfs petty theft in the United States due to economic inequality and the inaccessibility of the mostly pay2win American legal system, for the average worker. Millions of workers lose billions in stolen wages every year—nearly as much as all other property theft. [1]
https://www.gq.com/story/wage-theft [1]