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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

#381

Post by carlosjobim »

Supermancho wrote: post #333
jandrese wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount If they have enough slack to reduce headcount they're going to do it anyway. Companies strive to hire enough people to get the job done and no more. They may not always get it right, but minor changes to expenses aren't going to affect headcount unless the company was already overstaffed and looking for an excuse to cut employees. This is the same mistaken thi…

> If they have enough slack to reduce headcount they're going to do it anyway. This is so incorrect that it's hard to take seriously. When revenues go down (for any reason), companies cut costs. Most employees are a cost. Why have 2 people when 1 will just have to work harder? A company rather cut and see what happens, when push comes to shove. Many company initiatives are also re-evaluated with a bottom-line mentali…

When revenues go up (for any reason), companies cut costs. Why have 2 people when 1 will have to work harder?

Your argument is completely wrong, yet you start by berating the other poster. Companies will always cut costs and try to whip their employees as much as they can, regardless of if they're making a profit or a loss. That is business.

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

#382

Post by tinco »

ghaff wrote: post #276
BetaDeltaAlpha wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of anyone in the US having an employer cover their gas in a non-company owned vehicle.

To be clear, it's common for IRS mileage reimbursement rates to apply for driving for other than commutes (e.g. to drive to the airport or a customer site)--but not for a daily commute.

I can't edit my original comment anymore, but I was wrong. It's not government mandated, just regulated in the sense that there's an income tax break for any travel compensation up to 21ct per km. Most unionized (CAO) employers follow this exactly, and even non-union employers like my own follow this as far as I know.

Fun thing is that it's the same amount regardless of the mode of travel, so if you take your bike to work it's an extra $4/hr tax free income ;)

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

#383

Post by turquoisevar »

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…

The good old “the sky will come crashing down” FUD is still in full swing, I see.

Meanwhile, requirements like this have been commonplace in the EU. As well as employers having to pay mileage or the cost of public transport for their daily commute.

Similarly, laying off people is strictly limited. Instead of the US style under hiring or barely hiring enough people to cover the job at hand, which leads to animosity when people take their PTO, most companies there hire enough to account for employees not being present despite the high statutory PTO days.

Are those companies all going under? No. The only downside is that they can't reach trillion-dollar market caps, big whoop.

The companies and investors simply adjust their expectations, and the sky is still where it always has been.

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

#384

Post by saghm »

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…

> 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. This law does not work in your favor.

OTOH, like any "economically rational entity", even if the company could afford to pay expenses for its employees without needing to cut costs elsewhere, they wouldn't unless forced to by the law, whereas companies that actually have the optimal number of employees aren't going to just sabotage their business to try and fail to maintain unmaintainable profits. And if they could already take all of those measures you mention without harming their business, then not having already done them would make them irrational. The situation you describe isn't a rational business being harmed, it's an irrational one being subsidized by its employees.

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

#385

Post by RamblingCTO »

FireBeyond wrote: post #157
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…

> 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.

Think this through. What happens? What happens, when it's harder and harder to build and scale small businesses? You only have big players owning everything. I am struggling with that every week here in the EU and I'm very glad I don't produce anything, as it would be even harder. So this is a fine line, where we should be cautious of both extremes. There's a word for big enterprises calling for regulation to prevent competition and hinder small companies.

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

#386

Post by Rebelgecko »

clausecker wrote: post #310
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…

They should do it the other way round: employer has to reimburse you for your commute and pay commute time as work time. Guess how quickly companies will put pressure on legislation to solve the housing problem.

Wouldn't that lead to people just moving further and further from work so they can get paid to listen to podcasts or whatever?

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

#387

Post by johnnyanmac »

nxm wrote: post #367
johnnyanmac wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA CoL is already high and layoffs happen regardless. I fail to see the downside unless you are a very new startup.

So no new startups? That ultimately hurts wages and offsets any cost savings from employers paying for your home internet which you’d already be paying for anyways

If a very new startup of 5-10 people can't buck an extra (being very pessimistic) $40k a year in employee expenses in a state that already has high CoL and labor that regularly expects 200k salaries: No, I guess not. That can be something to negotiate at offer time, or to consider relocating the startup for.

>That ultimately hurts wages and offsets any cost savings from employers paying for your home internet

overtime, maybe. It's a win-win for those already employed and not a signifigant damper of salary for those employed in the future. But it's not like salaries will be droppinig 20-30k from this decision alone.

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

#388

Post by foobiekr »

MilStdJunkie wrote: post #68

My personal red line is when the employer insists a camera has to always be on in the working area. That's when I tell 'em, as nicely as possible, with an "aw shucks I'm terribly sorry", that they're gonna have to pay rent.

Are there employers that insist on an always on camera in the working area? Who?

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

#389

Post by timbo1642 »

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…

[dead]

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

#390

Post by jandrese »

jstarfish wrote: post #380
jandrese wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount If they have enough slack to reduce headcount they're going to do it anyway. Companies strive to hire enough people to get the job done and no more. They may not always get it right, but minor changes to expenses aren't going to affect headcount unless the company was already overstaffed and looking for an excuse to cut employees. This is the same mistaken thi…

> This is the same mistaken thinking you see from people who oppose minimum wage increases. The McDonalds down the street isn't going to cut staff because the wages went up, they need those staff to serve customers. Shenanigans. You've never worked in retail. Even if you come back claiming otherwise, I'm still going to accuse you of lying about it because you could only be more out of touch with reality if you claime…

I've worked retail. Employers try shenanigans like that, but it backfires because the lines get long and people start looking at alternatives. Business suffers, and then either they hire the people back or they go out of business.

There is always the threat of laying off staff instead of paying more, but only a relatively minor portion of management is enough of a maniac to actually go through with it. I worked at a McDonalds during a minimum wage hike (you can tell this was a long time ago), and while everybody said it would result in cut staff few went through with the threat. Sure you could find examples here and there, but at the end of the day they were already operating with the minimum amount of staff they could get away with. There was no slack in the system.

McDonalds corporate even realized this and started talking up fully automated restaurants. I think they even built a pilot store somewhere. They dust it off anytime people start talking about minimum wage hikes, even though it makes no sense economically even if we were to double the minimum wage overnight.

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