While true and something that needs fixing immediately, this is uncommon and therefore, cannot be used to describe the relationship as "exploitative".

If you read the link, you'd learn that in the 10 most populous US states, 2.4 million minimum wage workers are victims of wage theft annually. This loss averages $3,300 per (full time, year round) worker per year, and just under $8 billion in total per year.

And that's only minimum wage workers, in a subset of the US.

Was there a particular reason you were under the impression that wage theft was uncommon?