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California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

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Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#251

Post by avgcorrection »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #202
FireBeyond wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. There's an adjustment needed. I have worked for and applied to healthcare startups that want you to BYO device. For working on PHI. In Production. We're not "all in this together". We all know that equity is worth nothing until proven otherwise. Stop cheaping out and expecting your employees to invest in your success w…

> If that means fewer/smaller startups, small businesses? Ultimately, so be it. This is really what it comes down to. If your business can't afford to employ people then people don't need to work for less, your business needs to cease operations. This bizarre entitlement entrepreneurs seem to experience baffles me. I don't care if the cost of labor makes your business inoperable. Tough shit. The last year or so I've…

> This is really what it comes down to. If your business can't afford to employ people then people don't need to work for less, your business needs to cease operations.

No, you’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to immediately concede when someone brings up the holy institution of the Small Businesses. :/

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#252

Post by ToucanLoucan »

chasd00 wrote: post #244
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that means fewer/smaller startups, small businesses? Ultimately, so be it. This is really what it comes down to. If your business can't afford to employ people then people don't need to work for less, your business needs to cease operations. This bizarre entitlement entrepreneurs seem to experience baffles me. I don't care if the cost of labor makes your business inoperable. Tough shit. The last year or so I've…

> The last year or so I've had to make a lot of adjustments to my life to account for everything getting more expensive keep driving people out of business then get ready for lots more "adjustments" to your life and standard of living.

Honestly my life would get notably better if a few different VC-burning silicon valley companies would hop in a deep fryer, so this really isn't the threat you think it is.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#253

Post by chasd00 »

mountainofdeath wrote: post #240
r3trohack3r wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a availability heuristic, but I closed 2 consulting contracts that were a _hard_ "no we don't hire contractors" by letting them know I don't live in California. Conversation changed as soon as they realized I was under AZ law for contracting/consulting services. I was charging $10k per week, and one contract was a total of 6 months. The total value of that contract was $240k (before my expenses and taxes). That…

Correct me if I am wrong but the only material differences between contractor and employee status are 1. Who pay's the employer side income taxes. Contractors pay both sides. 2. Not eligible for benefits, you have to go to overpriced open market. 3. The contractor can deduct reasonable expenses they incur. 4. A contract will not necessarily be renewed whereas for an employee, the assumption is the job will be there i…

I could be wrong but I think contractors show up as a different kind of expense on the balance sheet vs an employee. In same instances it's more favorable to hire contractors than employees.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#254

Post by dehrmann »

NeoTar wrote: post #79

Can I make my periodic reminder to US-Americans that two-letter state abbreviations are not universally recognized, and please to use full state names where possible. The case of California / CA is especially bad, since this is the ISO-code for Canada, so the article title is unnecessarily ambiguous.

California has more people, a larger economy, and more mindshare. It's probably safe to assume "CA" outside something obviously Canadian is California. Even Ontario CA is 50/50.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#255

Post by coffeebeqn »

valianteffort wrote: post #203
civilitty wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Californian who has lived here for a quarter century and has never threatened to leave, I’m glad the state doesn’t cater to startups who can’t afford an extra 5% for home office expenses for their remote workers. They have zero loyalty to the state and if all employees are remote there’s little benefit keeping the corp in CA. Everyone has to register to do business here and the FTB will get the bulk of its cut a…

And destroy the property values of all the people that worked their whole lives to own a home there. You're being myopic or selfish, neither is fair to your neighbors.

Now it’s immoral to deflate the housing bubble?

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#256

Post by OkayPhysicist »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #169
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah to give some context the average cost that employers pay for health insurance in the USA is $1,251 per month. For the big tech companies it's often higher due to better coverage/location. So this is nothing. Employers will not flinch at this.

I do think salaries will be adjusted a little bit in new listings but 115k vs 116k is not a huge difference and I doubt most medium or large employers will make a stink over reducing people’s pay over this

$1000 is an order of magnitude less than the negotiable range for most white collar workers' salary. It's completely rounding error.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#257

Post by PM_me_your_math »

ryandrake wrote: post #225
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that means fewer/smaller startups, small businesses? Ultimately, so be it. This is really what it comes down to. If your business can't afford to employ people then people don't need to work for less, your business needs to cease operations. This bizarre entitlement entrepreneurs seem to experience baffles me. I don't care if the cost of labor makes your business inoperable. Tough shit. The last year or so I've…

Thank you. Businesses don't have some inherent, natural, god-given right to exist. We, the people, through the state, graciously allow them to exist and regulate them so that they operate in accordance with some public good. And even then, they have to earn their existence by being a financially viable business. It's a big hurdle, deliberately so. This idea that, ohhhhh we can't regulate business because it will make…

You might want to retake your constitutional law courses. The Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8) grants the government power to regulate business. It does not grant citizens the right to do business. The right to do business and participate in commerce and trade is a natural right. You do not allow businesses to exist. You are nobody.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#258

Post by glimshe »

mempko wrote: post #126
glimshe wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your heart is in a good place, but... No more tax complexity, PLEASE. Let's stop using the tax system for encouraging/discouraging behaviors.

That's literally one of the purposes of the tax system. It's to encourage and discourage behavior.

That's literally NOT the purpose of the tax system. We tax people to pay for government expenses. Encouraging/discouraging behavior through taxes is very popular in the US, but not nearly as much in most other countries.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#259

Post by jandrese »

cryptonector wrote: post #145
AYBABTME wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a small expense for employers, and can be a real difference in costs for the employee. I don't think you're correct. If I spend 100% more on heating everyday because I work from home so need to heat 24/7, that's nothing to an employer (100-200$/m) but could be a significant deduction from a family's budget. Meanwhile the employer would have otherwise heated up an office space and paid all bills there. I've been…

But why not then demand that your employer cover your [reasonable] commuting costs, and even pay you for [reasonable] time spent commuting? That would greatly exceed your WFH costs, no doubt. It's trivial to add demands like this. Employers have more pull in the legislatures than employees, so be careful what you wish for.

I think California already requires employers to do that.

What I find surprising is that everybody thinks employers are going to jump all over these requirements and work their hardest to make sure they are 100% in compliance instead of mostly ignoring them and making only a token effort to be in compliance. "We offered to buy chairs for the workers, what more do you want?"

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#260

Post by diffeomorphism »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #99

Many young people or those cheering for employee/consumer rights do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good. For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount, not hiring in CA anymore, cutting costs in your annual raises, or some combination of the above…

Wrong way round: these "small businesses or startups" charged their employees millions of dollars of additional expenses.

So your proposal is "just pay your employer hundreds of dollars out if your own pocket".

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