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Surprisingly bosses are not offering to pay more to offset the cost and duration of commutes. When I was doing contract field engineering work, I would charge

Surprisingly bosses are not offering to pay more to offset the cost and duration of commutes. When I was doing contract field engineering work, I would charge 50% of my hourly rate for any travel in excess of 30 minutes. Surprisingly I actually received a greater share of clients at remote locations and ended up earning quite a bit for the drive times.

kjkjadksj 4y ago
People need to itemize all the costs (time, fuel, wear and tear) of a commute and just bill their employer. You do this already when you have to e.g. use your private vehicle to go to a work conference. The commute should follow that same logic if its required travel using your own equipment.
- ganoushoreilly 4y ago
  When you take on a job it's up to you to determine if your commute is acceptable. Your employer is not required to pay you for travel to and from your primary place of employment. If there is special travel and or needs thats one thing, but to your daily job that's just not going to happen. If you took a job that was remote 100% and they changed the job to in person, it's your right to decline and accept employment elsewhere.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Yeah but we want more. There's no morally correct answer to how much I should try to squeeze out of my employer, just what I can get away with.
    - gruez 4y ago
      Right, but even if you agree that workers deserve more, surely there are better ways of distributing that excess than basing it on commute length?
      - ElevenLathe 4y ago
        Why? Anything we don't want to do, we should get paid for. Commuting sucks, they should pay us for it. We should get more to work in an open plan office, for dealing with a shitty boss, or for a miserly vacation policy too. Unless there is a cost, they'll keep doing it.
        gruez 4y ago
        >Commuting sucks, they should pay us for it. At the end of the day, the amount of money that can be allocated to workers is finite, so we have to choose some way of distributing that money. Doing that by how much you "worked" (ie. commuted) might seem superficially fair, but comes with other issues like encouraging people to live far away because they no longer bear the costs. I don't think most people are on board with subsidizing commutes. >We should get more to work in an open plan office, for dealing with a shitty boss, or for a miserly vacation policy too. Unless there is a cost, they'll keep doing it. You're free to do that by voting with your feet, and companies pay by having less applicants. If they're not "paying for it" (via higher wages or poorer quality candidates), then that probably indicates it's not a big factor for the average employee (ie. they might complain about it, but they won't give up a $300k job for it).
        ElevenLathe 4y ago
        >At the end of the day, the amount of money that can be allocated to workers is finite, so we have to choose some way of distributing that money. Agreed, and this method has been chosen in advance for us: employers squeeze as hard as they can, while we squeeze back as hard as we can. If billing for our commute is a strategy that will allow us to extract more wealth from ownership, we should do it. If not, we shouldn't. It has nothing to do with what makes more "sense" or what is "fair." There is no policy decision to make here. I'm just describing reality.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    I guess, but these are all just statements about the way things are. You could also say "Sure, if you'll compensate me for my time and subsidize a means to get there, or increase my salary by such an amount that I'm able to live within 10 minutes walking distance and net the same" and they have the right to turn you down. If my employer required me to move to the city the company is mainly based out of, I'd ask for visa support and moving expenses, and if the living expenses were higher, a compensatory increase. If the terms aren't reasonable, then ya they can get fucked. Upon hire though, yes that's part of the negotiation I suppose. If what they're offering to pay is only persuasive if you had no or a free commute, then you should ask for sufficiently more to make it worthwhile.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      > You could also say "Sure, if you'll compensate me for my time and subsidize a means to get there, And Silicon Valley giants are famous for offering this. Proving that companies will provide if people want it enough.
  - jowdones 4y ago
    I commuted 2 hours each way. Now I work 2 jobs from home and it's obvious that commuting was not only not paid but preventing me from making a decent income, keeping me poor and trapped in a crappy suburb.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
balderdash 4y ago
So that means that for employees that were hired fill-time in-office that are now remote should get a pay cut? Or that someone that chooses to pay less in rent and commute longer should be paid more than someone who pays more in rent and commute less?
- antihero 4y ago
  No they should pay the same, just make the commute expensable. For everyone.
  - balderdash 4y ago
    That doesn’t address part two of my question, and if the answer is make the commute amount the same for everyone, than, all you are asking for is an across the board pay raise for everyone
- bearmode 4y ago
  No, because commuting costs were never taken into account before :)
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Commute costs were always taken into account, and always will be, either implicitly or explicitly. Highly in demand labor sellers have even gotten weekly flights paid for. The only difference is most people are not that in demand, or do not produce work that make it economical to pay them that extra commuting premium.
- dlmilli 4y ago

kjkjadksj 4y ago

People need to itemize all the costs (time, fuel, wear and tear) of a commute and just bill their employer. You do this already when you have to e.g. use your private vehicle to go to a work conference. The commute should follow that same logic if its required travel using your own equipment.

ganoushoreilly 4y ago
When you take on a job it's up to you to determine if your commute is acceptable. Your employer is not required to pay you for travel to and from your primary place of employment. If there is special travel and or needs thats one thing, but to your daily job that's just not going to happen. If you took a job that was remote 100% and they changed the job to in person, it's your right to decline and accept employment elsewhere.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Yeah but we want more. There's no morally correct answer to how much I should try to squeeze out of my employer, just what I can get away with.
  - gruez 4y ago
    Right, but even if you agree that workers deserve more, surely there are better ways of distributing that excess than basing it on commute length?
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      Why? Anything we don't want to do, we should get paid for. Commuting sucks, they should pay us for it. We should get more to work in an open plan office, for dealing with a shitty boss, or for a miserly vacation policy too. Unless there is a cost, they'll keep doing it.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >Commuting sucks, they should pay us for it. At the end of the day, the amount of money that can be allocated to workers is finite, so we have to choose some way of distributing that money. Doing that by how much you "worked" (ie. commuted) might seem superficially fair, but comes with other issues like encouraging people to live far away because they no longer bear the costs. I don't think most people are on board with subsidizing commutes. >We should get more to work in an open plan office, for dealing with a shitty boss, or for a miserly vacation policy too. Unless there is a cost, they'll keep doing it. You're free to do that by voting with your feet, and companies pay by having less applicants. If they're not "paying for it" (via higher wages or poorer quality candidates), then that probably indicates it's not a big factor for the average employee (ie. they might complain about it, but they won't give up a $300k job for it).
        ElevenLathe 4y ago
        >At the end of the day, the amount of money that can be allocated to workers is finite, so we have to choose some way of distributing that money. Agreed, and this method has been chosen in advance for us: employers squeeze as hard as they can, while we squeeze back as hard as we can. If billing for our commute is a strategy that will allow us to extract more wealth from ownership, we should do it. If not, we shouldn't. It has nothing to do with what makes more "sense" or what is "fair." There is no policy decision to make here. I'm just describing reality.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  I guess, but these are all just statements about the way things are. You could also say "Sure, if you'll compensate me for my time and subsidize a means to get there, or increase my salary by such an amount that I'm able to live within 10 minutes walking distance and net the same" and they have the right to turn you down. If my employer required me to move to the city the company is mainly based out of, I'd ask for visa support and moving expenses, and if the living expenses were higher, a compensatory increase. If the terms aren't reasonable, then ya they can get fucked. Upon hire though, yes that's part of the negotiation I suppose. If what they're offering to pay is only persuasive if you had no or a free commute, then you should ask for sufficiently more to make it worthwhile.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    > You could also say "Sure, if you'll compensate me for my time and subsidize a means to get there, And Silicon Valley giants are famous for offering this. Proving that companies will provide if people want it enough.
- jowdones 4y ago
  I commuted 2 hours each way. Now I work 2 jobs from home and it's obvious that commuting was not only not paid but preventing me from making a decent income, keeping me poor and trapped in a crappy suburb.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

balderdash 4y ago

So that means that for employees that were hired fill-time in-office that are now remote should get a pay cut? Or that someone that chooses to pay less in rent and commute longer should be paid more than someone who pays more in rent and commute less?

antihero 4y ago
No they should pay the same, just make the commute expensable. For everyone.
- balderdash 4y ago
  That doesn’t address part two of my question, and if the answer is make the commute amount the same for everyone, than, all you are asking for is an across the board pay raise for everyone
bearmode 4y ago
No, because commuting costs were never taken into account before :)
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Commute costs were always taken into account, and always will be, either implicitly or explicitly. Highly in demand labor sellers have even gotten weekly flights paid for. The only difference is most people are not that in demand, or do not produce work that make it economical to pay them that extra commuting premium.
dlmilli 4y ago