Businesses, especially the boots-on-the-ground variety like food service and retail, are in the midst of an employment crisis. Many are being forced to scale back hours or days to deal with the availability of staff.

It’s a problem that was kicked off by the coronavirus pandemic and its layoffs amid 2020 shutdowns. However, as businesses opened back up, it became obvious that the workers were not flooding back into the workforce.

While some people blamed the extension and expansion of unemployment benefits, even since those pandemic steps were stopped, the need has been as clear as a “help wanted” sign. That has led to questions about how employees are treated and how that might change going forward.

The case of a Rostraver couple and their gas stations illustrates some of the problems.

Om Shiva Enterprises Inc. is owned by Durlabhju and Bhartiben Ukani. The company owns stations in Beaver Falls, Charleroi, Cranberry, Duquesne, Finleyville, Millvale, New Stanton, Pittsburgh and Washington.

They recently agreed to a consent decree regarding unpaid wages owed to husband-and-wife employees who operated another station for them in Center Township, Beaver County.

Between them, they were owed $281,029 in back pay over 30 months. That seems almost impossible for people working in a convenience store, but break it down by the hours and it shows just how much the couple worked. The wife was almost entirely unpaid but putting in about 70 hours a week. The husband put in 40 hours that were paid and then more hours without overtime, the U.S. Department of Labor found.

That six-figure settlement is based on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Many similar businesses are now paying as high as $13 to $15 an hour to fill positions. In the end, the two each were owed more than $1,000 a week.

Workers do not deserve to be treated like inanimate objects without feelings or needs. They need to be acknowledged as people and treated as the valuable assets that they are to a business.

Obviously, the Om Shiva case is not specific to the pandemic. Those 30 months date to long before the workforce and economy were thrown into chaos. But that is what needs to be examined. What needed to be fixed about employment before the pandemic?

Not every employer is resorting to de facto slave labor to keep the doors open. But now is a good time for all businesses to think about ways to better respect and support their workers if they want to attract and keep them.

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