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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

#421

Post by signatoremo »

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…

Such a narrow perspective.

First of all almost all of them don’t make it. They aren’t entitled for anything, they fight for any success. And the odd is heavily stacked against them. Check with your local restaurants.

Second of all small businesses provide the majority of the jobs. Your income directly or indirectly rely on the success of small businesses. Your town is kept safe and clean thanks in no small part to the tax money they pay.

You’d want them to success, not berate them with “the horror”. They have to operate within laws and regulations of course. But there are good and bad regulations. Keep the good ones. Take the bad away.

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

#422

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

jandrese wrote: post #393
pixl97 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 having to work harder works when 1 will actually work harder... The problem is that is a failing paradigm these days and it's not uncommon to walk to up locations that say "closed, no staff". If the 'no immigration' voices get there way expect to see a rapidly declining population here in the US and these businesses that are used to abusing labor start to freak out.

"Closed, no staff" is quickly followed by "Retail space for rent". If you see that sign you can rest assured that the business is poorly managed. Beyond the low pay it is quite likely that the manager is an asshole and the reason he can't find workers is because for what he's offering there are loads of opportunities for jobs at better managed stores in the area. This is a person who was spoiled when the job market w…

It's just so puzzling to me that so many capitalists have no problem with the laws of supply and demand unless it applies to labor.

If there's a shortage of wheat, everyone expects the price of bread to go up. Everyone shrugs their shoulders and accepts it.

Shortage of oil? Gas prices go up. It sucks, but that's life.

Shortage of labor? NO, WE CAN'T INCREASE WAGES. UNACCEPTABLE. NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE!

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

#423

Post by lazide »

secabeen wrote: post #330
schmookeeg wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably PG&E territory in the bay area. We're in Alameda, who run their own utility and buys their power from PG&E and our rates are $0.15/kwh. I don't know how PG&E still exists as an entity, they were deserving of the pitchforks a long while ago.

The cost of the power itself is not the driving cost of electricity, it's the distribution and grid maintenance costs. PG&E can sell power delivered easily and in bulk to Alameda in the heart of the bay area quite cheaply. Delivering the same kWh to all of the smaller communities in the rural north third of the PG&E coverage area is where much of the costs are.

In Sunnyvale, I averaged over $.50/kwh.

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

#424

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

jandrese wrote: post #390
jstarfish wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 corporate even realized this and started talking up fully automated restaurants.

IMO, this is going to happen at some point anyways. It's only a matter of time.

In the short term, it's going to cost a LOT of money to develop, deploy, and work the bugs out. But in the long term, it means there's literally hundreds of thousands of workers they could replace. They will eventually see an RoI.

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

#425

Post by lednax »

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…

Nice try Mr(s). Corpo.

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

#426

Post by lednax »

jandrese wrote: post #393
pixl97 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 having to work harder works when 1 will actually work harder... The problem is that is a failing paradigm these days and it's not uncommon to walk to up locations that say "closed, no staff". If the 'no immigration' voices get there way expect to see a rapidly declining population here in the US and these businesses that are used to abusing labor start to freak out.

"Closed, no staff" is quickly followed by "Retail space for rent". If you see that sign you can rest assured that the business is poorly managed. Beyond the low pay it is quite likely that the manager is an asshole and the reason he can't find workers is because for what he's offering there are loads of opportunities for jobs at better managed stores in the area. This is a person who was spoiled when the job market w…

Good. If the business can’t operate, it doesn’t deserve to exist.

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

#427

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

turquoisevar wrote: post #379
nxm wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is that true? France has very strong workers rights, and its GDP growth, for example, is significantly worse than that of the US.

GDP is a poor measure of a country’s prosperity or standard of living. Based on GDP numbers Italy is barely ahead of Mississippi, even though spending 10 minutes in both will make it readily apparent that one is miles ahead in terms of prosperity than the other.

> GDP is a poor measure of a country’s prosperity or standard of living.

So much this. Even if you do "GDP per capita", it's a piss-poor measure.

I think the greater measure of a country's prosperity is wealth equality. There will always be outliers, but how are the people in the 20-80 percentile doing?

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

#428

Post by lazide »

atomicfiredoll wrote: post #286
vineyardmike wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that means fewer/smaller startups, small businesses? Ultimately, so be it. People rush to claim that XYZ will hurt businesses, glossing over the fact that the alternative hurts employees. It’d sure be better for small businesses if pay was optional and employment could be forced but that doesn’t sound like a very nice world. The government could also make no taxes, give out free money, and give every company fre…

> glossing over the fact that the alternative hurts employees. ...And, potentially, the planet. In my mind it's reasonable to expect employers to cover costs of things like equipment. But, I do wonder how much CA is considering it's own interests here. It seems like this could be abused to do things like bring people back to downtown areas impacted by COVID or lightly discourage hiring employees who don't live in sta…

The reality is no one cares about that, relative to their own wallets.

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

#429

Post by lazide »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #385
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. 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 bot…

Regulatory capture. Already a huge issue in the US.

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

#430

Post by interactivecode »

xur17 wrote: post #338
jayd16 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the admin expense? Won't it just be another line item in the paycheck? It's only an issue if the employer makes requests that exceed the that budget and get called out.

If it's just a fixed amount refunded to all employees, agreed there's no huge admin expense. If employees have different amounts (depending on their circumstances) that they get refunded, there is a lot of complexity required to set rules around what is acceptable, track receipts for these expenses, and have someone review and approve these. For example, we used expensify at a previous company, and ignoring the human…

Simple when someone gets hired they list their internet expenses.

Also isnt this basic admin just the cost of doing business?

I should probably not tell you that in europe its common to be reimbursed for traveling expenses when going to the office. Calculated per commute at 0.19 euro per kilometer. So its unique per employee. No company has gone bankrupt due to administrative weight yet.

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