You also typically can’t be punished for not completing work unless it is proven to have caused damages. If a plumber decides not to complete plumbing work and it causes your project to be delayed or your home to be damaged because you couldn’t hire a different plumber then yes, but if you just don’t pay them and hire a different plumber it’s not a big deal and courts treat it as such.

For the vast majority of an employees time at an employer they are actually OWED WAGES from the employer instead of owing the employer work. In North America and anywhere I have worked it is always a pay period ending in a paycheque and not a paycheque followed by me completing the work. On the second day of my pay period my employer owes me for the first day I worked but has not yet paid me for that time yet, I do not owe them work but they do owe me wages if that makes sense. It’s a wild way to look at you owing your employer work when they carefully structure almost all aspects of the job market to never make that true so they never have to go through the awkward process of forcing someone to work against their will or attempting to recoup money they paid for work in advance.