In the article, the business owners keep suggesting that it was bad performance, or a bad attitude, or something like that, that justifies this behavior. But, factually, both as a matter of law and custom, nothing justifies this.
If a fellow works for you on an agreed rate, you are obliged to pay him. If you are not, ultimately, happy with an employee, that doesn't mean you get to keep his last paycheck.
That still suggests a circumstance (the fellow not in fact working) where you could withhold the paycheck, but I don't think such a withholding is generally possible.
2. hours worked, and "working," have legal meaning, which, again, is not disputed by either party
in america, if you contract with a fellow to work, and you find the work unsuitable, you can discharge him quite easily. but you still owe him his wages!
You have invented a villain who does not exist.
There are a number of reasons rents paid to landlords are treated somewhat differently from wages paid to workers! Those are deeply political and important, and not super relevant here
In the narrowly relevant question: No one would ever accept a spite-filled "rent" paid to a landlord in the form of oil-covered pennies, provided only as a means of spiting the creditor