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You’re looking at it in a backwards way. I want to work from home. And while I understand warehouse workers cannot wfh, I think they should get paid regular wa

You’re looking at it in a backwards way. I want to work from home. And while I understand warehouse workers cannot wfh, I think they should get paid regular wage for their commute time. Don’t go back in time.

shagie 3y ago
Paying a person for a commute opens up many and large cans of worms. Do you trust all of the workers to accurately report when they left home? How do you handle a person who carpools and has an extra 30 minutes of diversion for that carpool drop off route? When I was in Eau Claire, one of my coworkers commuted from Minneapolis (for various reasons) - 1.5h each way. As we were not exempt workers (and I suspect that warehouse workers aren't exempt either) should he get time and a half for working 6h in a day? When we had a blizzard one day and he decided to not take a day off and ended up with a 5h trip in (and I suspect a at least 2h on the way back) should he be getting time and a half for that? Can I get fired for moving further away from the place of employment even if I show up on time for work each day? This year my commute is 30 minutes each way, and then I move another 15m further away next year... and another 15m away the next year... Alice and Bob are neighbors. Alice drives in (30 min commute) while Bob takes the bus (2h with transfers). Those crazy SF2G people commute in on bike ( https://sf2g.com https://sf2g.com ). The half moon bay route is about 4.5h... Charlie bikes to work in the summer (and drives in inclement weather). Biking to work is 2h while driving is 20 minutes. Does he get paid 2h if he shows up on a bike (and then needs to take a shower and change) vs only paid for 20 minutes if he drives? Could the employer mandate that he drives to work? David drives through McDs each day for breakfast (adding 7 minutes to the commute in). Does he get paid for that additional (unnecessary) time? Today the drive through is broken so he stops, gets out, orders in and eats breakfast in (15 min). Does he get paid for the entire "left house" to "arrived at office"? Only in the car (+7 min drive through)? Or did it reset when he got out of the car at McDs? Edward normally has a 20 minute commute. Today, his kids missed the school bus today and so he drove his kids 20 minutes in the other direction resulting in 1h total commute time. Does he get paid for 40 more minutes (turns out it pays better to drive the kids to school rather than the bus pass!) Freddie normally drives in (it's a short commute - only 10 min), but today is a nice day and the shift doesn't start until later this afternoon and decides to walk to work instead (1.5h). George lives up north and in the winter snowmobiles in to the warehouse rather than taking a car. It's another 15 min because he can't take the highway (and yes, I've seen snowmobile parking at a distribution center up north). --- I'm not going to say that it is wrong to compensate someone for commute time. I will say that compensating someone for commute time will create things that other people regard as profoundly unfair and may incentivize things that we would rather not have be the case.
- galdosdi 3y ago
  Here's an easy way to cut through the complexity: pay everyone the same commute subsidy, equal to what it would cost to commute to the nearest area where housing costs the same or less as the national average. So if the office is in a neighborhood that already costs the same or less as the national average housing cost, $0 commute subsidy for everyone. If the office is in say, manhattan, then I guess everyone gets a 2.5 hour commute subsidy, since the nearest area with reasonable housing prices is Allentown, PA. Workers can choose what to do, whether to bank the subsidy and apply it to expensive nearby rent and live near by or spend it on commuting to somewhere more reasonably priced, or any combination thereof. Really, the issue is that housing costs have gotten so extreme that there are places where a certain advertised or minimum wage is much less once you account for how far you'd have to live. But it would be nice of the minimum wage was adjusted for location, and advertised and negotiated wages had to automatically include location differentials, as it would make comparing and negotiating wages a lot easier. Another unrelated and actually much larger issue this would help a lot with is the phenomenon of low wage service hours being forced to work many small shifts, 2 hours here, 3 hours there. Office workers are used to commuting once per day, 5 days a week, for a full day's pay each time, but a Starbucks worker might be forced to have a much higher ratio of commute to paid work, and the company is getting a free ride there-- this would disincentivize that significantly, regardless of whether the worker chooses to live nearby or far.
refurb 3y ago
Paying for commute time is ridiculous. Ok, my job is in Seattle? I live in San Francisco and commute 30 hours a week. Pay me.

shagie 3y ago

Paying a person for a commute opens up many and large cans of worms. Do you trust all of the workers to accurately report when they left home? How do you handle a person who carpools and has an extra 30 minutes of diversion for that carpool drop off route? When I was in Eau Claire, one of my coworkers commuted from Minneapolis (for various reasons) - 1.5h each way. As we were not exempt workers (and I suspect that warehouse workers aren't exempt either) should he get time and a half for working 6h in a day? When we had a blizzard one day and he decided to not take a day off and ended up with a 5h trip in (and I suspect a at least 2h on the way back) should he be getting time and a half for that? Can I get fired for moving further away from the place of employment even if I show up on time for work each day? This year my commute is 30 minutes each way, and then I move another 15m further away next year... and another 15m away the next year... Alice and Bob are neighbors. Alice drives in (30 min commute) while Bob takes the bus (2h with transfers). Those crazy SF2G people commute in on bike ( https://sf2g.com https://sf2g.com ). The half moon bay route is about 4.5h... Charlie bikes to work in the summer (and drives in inclement weather). Biking to work is 2h while driving is 20 minutes. Does he get paid 2h if he shows up on a bike (and then needs to take a shower and change) vs only paid for 20 minutes if he drives? Could the employer mandate that he drives to work? David drives through McDs each day for breakfast (adding 7 minutes to the commute in). Does he get paid for that additional (unnecessary) time? Today the drive through is broken so he stops, gets out, orders in and eats breakfast in (15 min). Does he get paid for the entire "left house" to "arrived at office"? Only in the car (+7 min drive through)? Or did it reset when he got out of the car at McDs? Edward normally has a 20 minute commute. Today, his kids missed the school bus today and so he drove his kids 20 minutes in the other direction resulting in 1h total commute time. Does he get paid for 40 more minutes (turns out it pays better to drive the kids to school rather than the bus pass!) Freddie normally drives in (it's a short commute - only 10 min), but today is a nice day and the shift doesn't start until later this afternoon and decides to walk to work instead (1.5h). George lives up north and in the winter snowmobiles in to the warehouse rather than taking a car. It's another 15 min because he can't take the highway (and yes, I've seen snowmobile parking at a distribution center up north). --- I'm not going to say that it is wrong to compensate someone for commute time. I will say that compensating someone for commute time will create things that other people regard as profoundly unfair and may incentivize things that we would rather not have be the case.

galdosdi 3y ago
Here's an easy way to cut through the complexity: pay everyone the same commute subsidy, equal to what it would cost to commute to the nearest area where housing costs the same or less as the national average. So if the office is in a neighborhood that already costs the same or less as the national average housing cost, $0 commute subsidy for everyone. If the office is in say, manhattan, then I guess everyone gets a 2.5 hour commute subsidy, since the nearest area with reasonable housing prices is Allentown, PA. Workers can choose what to do, whether to bank the subsidy and apply it to expensive nearby rent and live near by or spend it on commuting to somewhere more reasonably priced, or any combination thereof. Really, the issue is that housing costs have gotten so extreme that there are places where a certain advertised or minimum wage is much less once you account for how far you'd have to live. But it would be nice of the minimum wage was adjusted for location, and advertised and negotiated wages had to automatically include location differentials, as it would make comparing and negotiating wages a lot easier. Another unrelated and actually much larger issue this would help a lot with is the phenomenon of low wage service hours being forced to work many small shifts, 2 hours here, 3 hours there. Office workers are used to commuting once per day, 5 days a week, for a full day's pay each time, but a Starbucks worker might be forced to have a much higher ratio of commute to paid work, and the company is getting a free ride there-- this would disincentivize that significantly, regardless of whether the worker chooses to live nearby or far.

refurb 3y ago

Paying for commute time is ridiculous. Ok, my job is in Seattle? I live in San Francisco and commute 30 hours a week. Pay me.