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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 star

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. This law does not work in your favor.

phpisthebest 3y ago
Dont inject reality... If we pass the rights laws and elect the correct people with the correct opinion we can have a utopia... We just have to do it...
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Don't inject reality... If have no laws and let the corporations decide our rights, we can have a utopia... We just have to do it...
- sureglymop 3y ago
  Instead, let's actually just not even try because we can't reach perfection and utopia anyway.
  - nxm 3y ago
    Be careful so that your state doesn’t turn into…California
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    If government programs where judged by their results and not their intention I would have more faith in trying things via government But in reality government programs are only ever judged by their intentions, never their results, and if anyone attempts to apply some kind of ROI metric to them the inevitable retort is "we just did not spend enough tax payer money for it to be effective" or "evil rich people lobbied for a loop hole that is just close it then we would have utopia" but of course that utopia never comes
cptskippy 3y ago
Your claim is baseless right now. How does it do more harm than good?
- changoplatanero 3y ago
  Similar to how California made a law that prohibited charging for access to public restrooms. The intention was free public restrooms for everyone but the result was that most of the public restrooms closed up and it’s harder than ever to find somewhere to go. The top comment is warning people that these type of laws that attempt to mandate certain behavior often backfire
  - seanw444 3y ago
    I find it funny how California causes its own issues, makes laws to fix said issues, and then causes more issues as a result. Living in Utah which tends to be a very anti-business-mandate place, and which does not have any such law, I've never had to pay for a bathroom. In fact, places where you have to ask for a key from a clerk are quite rare as well. Watching California gradually kill itself through administrative bloat, Orwellian laws, and degeneracy has been quite entertaining.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Why are you assuming causation? Perhaps bathrooms had to be charged for due to a sufficiently significant portion of the population causing damage to them. Perhaps the California law requiring free bathrooms was a way for California leaders to shirk responsibility for providing clean bathrooms to all and foist costs onto private businesses. I always assume this is the case when government requires businesses to do provide something at a price the government sets. The politicians get all the acclaim and none of the headaches of fixing (or not really fixing) the problem, win win for them. If Utah does not have the population that causes damage to bathrooms, then its politicians would not yet have needed to come up with a law requiring free bathrooms.
      - 3y ago
AYBABTME 3y ago
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 remote for a decade now and it always struck me as odd, but I didn't care enough to push for it. But as the remote concept is being used by many employers to cut on office expenses, employees with no alternative should be compensated for the extra expense they incur. It's just common sense, like paying for your mileage when you drive for business.
- scottshamus 3y ago
  We’ll start being asked for utility bills during interviews and recruiters will screen for people with heat pumps. “Candidate must have updated insulation and new windows”
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Seems pretty dystopian, but on the bright side it does reward the ecologically responsible I guess.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - 28304283409234 3y ago
    How is this a bad thing?
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Who's going to background check every candidate's house on order to save up on like, $4000 a year for a very inefficient energy setup? The worst reality is they will estimate and then cut that expense from your offer. Still, $5000 less for the kind of work offered remote isn't a deal breaker.
  - 3y ago
mempko 3y ago
If you are using your own equipment and resources, how are you an employee and not a contractor? Businesses should compensate because the agreement is the business uses their capital and your labor to make money. But if they also use your capital in addition to your labor, then the employee needs ownership of the business because they are devoting their capital to the business.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Fails ABC test. They get to tell you what to do etc. Makes you an employee not a contractor. Already established.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Exactly. Except now you're an employee who is often expected to furnish your own workspace out of pocket, up to and including computers, sometimes. Companies want it both ways.
The_Colonel 3y ago
Remote people are/will get paid less than on-site people on average, with this in mind I don't think these (relatively small) additional costs will have a significant effect. The only issue I see is with the extra paperwork this will bring. Having said that, I still think this is a wrong measure which creates bad incentives (not trying to save money on the costs since they're partially covered by employer). This should just be a part of the compensation. Alternatively, a fixed rate for all remote workers (which would also solve the bureaucracy).
bmj 3y ago
Fully remote work has always benefited the employer more than the employee, at least financially. Before the pandemic closed my employer's local office space (we were all told just to work from home), part of the employer's budget for each employee included infrastructure costs (office space, furniture, internet access, maybe food, beverages, etc). My salary did not change when I became fully remote, so the company realized significant savings by telling one hundred to just work from home. Now, if a company has always been fully remote, then, yes, this sort of thing is ultimately going to hurt the employee because the company needs to recuperate those unplanned costs. Personally, as a fully remote employee, I don't how to feel about this. Sure, I'd love my employer to offset some of my utility costs, but I also don't want them to assume that means they can control their use (which is their right in the context of an office space).
- judge2020 3y ago
  Unless it was already a short-term lease agreement, which is not super common in CRE, chances are your company was still footing the bill for their lease on that office space. Most office space is leased on 5-10 year terms.
  - bmj 3y ago
    You are correct, but it was sublet to a new tenant. And my employer is not on the hook for paying for their food and coffee, and internet access.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
      Pretty sure the internet bill is still going up be paid.
      - red-iron-pine 3y ago
        different contracts. ISPs may or may not be tied to the building. Our bandwidth in our offices was generally on 2-year contracts. We were locked into the building for 10-years, but if we wanted to turn off the power and water and phones we could have.
teeray 3y ago
I don’t think it’s completely either-or. There are companies out there that would try to negotiate favorable bulk-rate home Internet plans. This might not have been possible in the past, but 5G home Internet and Starlink make it more possible since these companies have a BATNA with traditional providers.
solomonb 3y ago
Many young people or those cheering for minimum wage/child labor laws/workplace safety do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good... /s
FireBeyond 3y ago
> 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 without compensation. If that means fewer/smaller startups, small businesses? Ultimately, so be it.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  > 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 free office space. Just because it’d be good for small businesses doesn’t mean it’s actually good for society - which is the real metric to measure.
  - atomicfiredoll 3y ago
    > 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 state (and therefore pay sales tax.) That case could also end poorly for society (and the planet.)
    - lazide 3y ago
      The reality is no one cares about that, relative to their own wallets.
    - vineyardmike 3y ago
      It sounds like these aren’t actually new laws, and aren’t California specific, so it’s probably not the intent. This seems too conspiratorial on the part of the state. According to the article, it’s mostly driven from lawsuits from employees. The basis is that if the employer uses the employee’s internet, it has to pay for part of the bill, because otherwise it’s an unfair “windfall”. It rather seems like basic protections to prevent employers from offloading expenses onto employees.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
CA CoL is already high and layoffs happen regardless. I fail to see the downside unless you are a very new startup.
- nxm 3y ago
  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
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    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.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      That would be a lot of marginal startups such as lifestyle business running on <5% profit margins, and it's hard to see how making them fold could ever be a good thing. Plus all the previously slightly-better-than-marginal startups will now descend to being merely marginal.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
That would be true except the types of companies hiring a lot of remote workers already have a lot of remote workers in California. California has the luxury of being able to do whatever it wants and companies not really having much of a choice to say - we'll just skip the California market. It's a bigger market than Germany & Japan. This would go over less well if a state like Mississippi tried it.
- safety1st 3y ago
  This simply isn't true except when you're talking about the largest companies. The vast majority of American businesses don't have a place of business in all 50 states, or retail outlets, etc. etc. -- the majority of American businesses are small, operate in one or a handful of states, and as a result do in fact skip California. Sames goes I expect for "businesses hiring remote workers," only a Californian would have the arrogance to believe that all those businesses are somehow addicted to hiring in California. So what this kind of stuff does is crush small businesses in California, and leave only the large ones standing. By the way small businesses drive most of the growth in the US and owning one used to be a way to have control over your own destiny while making a good living, but hey I guess all that stuff's out of fashion in this brave new world where only five companies matter and they have a revolving door set up between their boards and the government.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    California does not care if some 2 person company in Ohio will be slightly less likely to hire a 3rd person remotely from California - the number of remote jobs going to California from these types of companies is close to 0. Even if you assume 100% of them go away - I'd wager voters in California would prefer to have current conditions improved than an ever so slight increase in opportunities in the future. Yes - small businesses employ the majority of workers. Do small businesses from outside of California with no current presence in California making new hires into California in a given year make up even 0.1% of total jobs? No. On the flip side - close to 20% of Californians work remote full-time. And some estimates are as high as 40% for workers that work from home at least once a week. Is this a good policy? Who knows. Is it going to be popular? I think so.
devmunchies 3y ago
This might give businesses the ammo they need to require the employees to come into the office.
- jedberg 3y ago
  This law has been in effect for years.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    It's been in effect for office work. CA is one of the few states expanding this to Remote work (according to the article).
    - jedberg 3y ago
      No, the article is pointing out that it's always applied to remote work, which was specifically clarified with additional laws in 2022.
      - xw3090 3y ago
        According to the judge which was news to Amazon. Otherwise they wouldn't have tried to dismiss.
- watwut 3y ago
  They are required to pay all the necessary expenses in the office too.
  - abalashov 3y ago
    Yes, but they have established processes, cost structures and real estate commitments to support that.
xur17 3y ago
And moreso than even the additional expenses, the expense of tracking these expenses for a small company is non-insigificant. There's the cost of the expense tracking software, setting up rules for what can be expensed, figuring out what this new law requires, and having someone approve those expenses. The simple solution for fully remote companies is to just exclude CA residents.
bee_rider 3y ago
What does age have to do with it?
Guvante 3y ago
A computer uses 150kWh/year @ $0.42/kWh that is $75/year. Certainly internet is possible at $60/month so $720/year. Say you have a generous $500/5 years for equipment plan and you are still below $1,000/year/employee. Yes there are other expenses but you should already be providing a PC etc. How are you getting to millions at a small company? Certainly a shop with 3,000 people is out a few million but... You have 3,000 people you are doing fine. Heck with 20 people $1m is what $50k/person? You wouldn't spend that leasing everyone a Mercedes at $605/month.
- 535188B17C93743 3y ago
  $0.42/kWh!??! Jesus Christ. I think I'm paying around $0.0629/kWh. Where is this?
  - syntaxing 3y ago
    I moved out of CA but it was already 0.40 a couple years ago. My friends told me it’s close to 0.60 now. I’m more curious where you are, I’m in a low(er) cost of living and I still pay 0.17.
  - mwint 3y ago
    California.
  - artursapek 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - switch007 3y ago
    $0.06?! Jesus, where is that?!
    - selectodude 3y ago
      Somewhere with real time pricing. The cheapest normal pricing is down around 12-13 cents per kWh. Granted due to the enormous nuclear base load in Chicago, I routinely pay 1-2 cents per kWh. I paid zero cents at 4am.
ryandrake 3y ago
This is the tired old Libertarian Anthem of "All regulation that helps [workers or customers] will backfire because it incentivizes businesses to [do worse behavior]." The solution is not to throw our hands up and say we cannot possibly regulate businesses because they're so crafty and will always get around it. The solution is to write more comprehensive regulation with fewer loopholes, such that the other, worse behavior is also regulated.
- chasd00 3y ago
  > The solution is to write more comprehensive regulation Government is like XML, if it's not working just use more!
r3trohack3r 3y ago
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 pool of contracting work appears to be closed to CA contractors.
- mountainofdeath 3y ago
  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 in perpetuity.
  - chasd00 3y ago
    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.
  - r3trohack3r 3y ago
    I can't speak definitively to this, I wasn't in their seat. By my understanding is that they were concerned about the liability of a consultant/contractor under CA law because you can retroactively be relabled as an employee at any point in the future causing the business to be liable for unpaid taxes and possibly benefits?
- gamblor956 3y ago
  Arizona has a similar "right to control" test for IC vs employee that California does, so the legal differences are minimal. If you would be reclassified as an employee under CA law, you're 90% likely to be classified as an employee under AZ law as well.
brightball 3y ago
One of many reasons to have a personal LLC/S-Corp in my opinion. Another comment in the thread really nailed this well. If employers didn't pay for commute costs separately, why does this become a line item? The employer does pay for gas and commute costs, as well as cost of living expenses...in a paycheck. I place a high value on my home office setup so I have things exactly as I want them. I also live in a low cost of living area thanks to my ability to work remote. A law like this is essentially there just to further incentivize the return to office policies that we've all been reading about. Now there will be an additional cost associated with going remote.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > A law like this is essentially there just to further incentivize the return to office policies that we've all been reading about. Now there will be an additional cost associated with going remote. Not an additional cost, just fewer savings for companies. I'm guessing that even having to reimburse employees for internet/power they're still saving a ton of money on those things (my last office was lit up everywhere 24/7), plus not needing to rent the office space, keep food and coffee available for employees, keep bathrooms stocked up, etc.
- detourdog 3y ago
  One weird thing I learned about one of the Scandinavian countries is that part of the reporting taxes is reporting of labor for DIY home improvement. The reasoning for this was that the economy could not be adequately measured if DIY work is not recorded. This really demonstrated to me the American mindset of freedom. I have no idea about California. I think another motivation is that they are trying make sense of what will undoubtedly be a complex tax-reimbursement situation. I have been a sole-proprietor since the 1990s. I think they are working towards normalizing that sole-proprietor lifestyle with longterm employment.
  - mrThrowaway9001 3y ago
    No, there is no such thing in "Scandinavian" countries about reporting labor when doing DIY home improvements. You can deduct the material, or bought labor, when selling the house. But no your own labor, unless you run a company and hire yourself. That might work, but then you have to spend taxes in your company for that income. Clarification: This is in Sweden, a Scandinavian country. Edit #2: If you have a specific country in mind, please mention that instead. Makes it easier to refute.
wredue 3y ago
FUD. No evidence. I reject your claims. Prove that people billing their employers for certain home workspace costs “will amount to millions of dollars” over and above my regular employment burden.
jandrese 3y ago
No chance in hell that work at home expenses are anywhere near the lease cost (or even taxes!) for office space. Not even in the same order of magnitude.
avgcorrection 3y ago
What? They save on office space. They don’t have to rent the employees home office or bedroom. Then they lose a little on administrative overhead. It seems like a net win for the employer compared to in-office. One can always complain that raising wages or anything else that benefits the employee directly will just make them fire you because the “small businesses” can’t afford it. But now we’re talking about some small administrative overhead in exchange for not having to provide office space, so this seems even less relevant.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
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".
mplewis 3y ago
An employer who cuts headcount and salaries to compensate for this, rather than taking it out of the profit margin, is crippling their own ability to hire. Best to work somewhere that isn’t so short sighted. If your company can’t pay for the resources needed to do business, they can’t afford to be in business.
jandrese 3y ago
> 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 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. In face the opposite can occur. The increase in money at the bottom is a huge stimulus to demand which increases traffic and requires even more staff.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > 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 mentality when revenues are down. That project that's 4 weeks overdue for a milestone? Time to cut it and everyone involved. When revenue is up, the opposite effect. "slack" is relative to market conditions. Job security along with it. Small companies are often lean, but it's never surprising how much leaner they will run when money gets tight. Big companies can always pare down assets and associated headcount. These are just the things I see every time revenue is down, but far from an exhaustive list.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    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.
    - 3y ago
x86x87 3y ago
nah. if you cannot afford this you cannot afford to have a business. also this is not just CA. your employer is literally stealing money from you when you are using your own resources to get the job done.
nodesocket 3y ago
Not to mention I have seen people abuse home office budgets and buy things not related to work. You are already getting paid, as a small business owner this culture of abusing companies runs rampant especially with millennials for some reason.
throw1230 3y ago
Employee rights don't benefit you, said the businessman.
clausecker 3y ago
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.
- mkii 3y ago
  Ah but that assumes legislators and politicians want to solve the housing problem.
  - clausecker 3y ago
    They may not, but pressure from large corporate interests often works wonders.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Wouldn't that lead to people just moving further and further from work so they can get paid to listen to podcasts or whatever?
orWhattian 3y ago
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fergie 3y ago
> Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by… A weak argument that can be made about any general improvement to worker pay snd conditions. Its clear that societies that encourage workers rights have the strongest economies.
- nxm 3y ago
  Where is that true? France has very strong workers rights, and its GDP growth, for example, is significantly worse than that of the US.
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    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.
    - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
      > 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?
sufimalang 3y ago
lets just call it the cost of doing business, if i am working for some one THEY should be the ones bearing the costs of the equipment required for me to work for THEM. I give them my time and they pay me. All that is needed to get the work done is employers responsibility.
xw3090 3y ago
I think in the short term, you're definitely right. It does not work in your favor if you want remote work in CA. The key issue is this, from the article: "While the determination of whether an expense is "necessary" varies depending on the circumstances of a particular case, generally speaking, California employees who work from home are likely entitled to reimbursement" Notice that necessary is in quotes, and the words generally, varies and likely, etc. Basically, none of this is hashed out and business owners have no idea what to pay and when. Expenses can be budgeted around but uncertainty makes this hard. And the risk of a significant surprise charge is real. I think it's likely many businesses are just going to want to sit this out while the details are all worked out. Once the dust settles they'll do the math and make a decision. So in the long term, it could be beneficial. In the short term, probably not.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> your employer is going to respond by... not hiring in CA anymore Ah yes, they pay 300k salary to devs in CA but paying for the monitor and chair is a dealbreaker. with this attitude, we'd neber have any rights at all
- xw3090 3y ago
  For devs they pay, and probably have a food truck drive to your house for catered lunch delivery, but not everyone is a dev.
Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
Employers are going to reduce headcount to a minimum regardless. And these millions of dollars of expenses aren't 'additional'. They are already been paid for by the employees. Employees shouldn't have to subsidize the business.
standardUser 3y ago
Explain to me how a small business can spend millions of dollars in a single year complying with this law.
turquoisevar 3y ago
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.
saghm 3y ago
> 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.
timbo1642 3y ago
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mx_02 3y ago
Companies are already doing layoffs and hiring offshore. They dont care about you or me or anybody but profits. Things will estabilize at some point and it's better for 99% of people if there are pro-workers laws in place by then.
- baggy_trough 3y ago
  It's because companies care about profits that these laws are harmful to workers.
jrflowers 3y ago
> For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. I hate it when paying a portion of my employee’s internet bills totals in the millions for my small business
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lednax 3y ago
Nice try Mr(s). Corpo.
somsak2 3y ago
Very interesting how a company run by irrational humans can be counted on to make "economically rational" decisions!
firedaemon 3y ago
The only people we should expect to benefit are existing employees for ~1 year. After that it will be priced in. What an administrative and legislative waste.
cyanydeez 3y ago
It's a shame, having to pay for a more functional and advanced society. Also, this isn't what's killing small business.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
My first thought when reading the headline is that I'm ok paying for most personal things if I get to work remote as it means I'm more likely to work remote. Obviously the company should be supplying laptop, monitors, etc, but unless I'm going through an egregious number of pens, paper, etc, I'm completely ok supplying it myself.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
Nah. Conventional wisdom says that "front loaded costs" of an employee are anywhere between 50-100% of an employees salary. These costs cover a lot of things, to include health insurance, retirement (401k, Superannuation, etc.), but also cost of things like a desk, licenses for an employees computer & software, building/rental insurance for the office, and expected costs of heating and AC for said office (which can be costed and amortized out over a number of employees per year, per floor, etc.). Most of that is built in, and the cash you save by not having to heat a giant fucking office can be turned into a $1500-on-hiring stipend for office gear and licenses. That corporations got themselves locked into terrible leases, or beholden to state and local tax incentives that drive RTO is not the worker's problem. And that's a pittance compared to the amount of cash you can save by sending the jobs out of SV or NYC to Denver, or Nashville, or Upstate NY, and paying well, well above market but still $50k less than big city rates. If I have to eat a $1500 buck remote-worker-chair-subsidy to outsource to Shasta or Redding, and save $10k in the process, then so be it.

phpisthebest 3y ago

Dont inject reality... If we pass the rights laws and elect the correct people with the correct opinion we can have a utopia... We just have to do it...

JohnBooty 3y ago
Don't inject reality... If have no laws and let the corporations decide our rights, we can have a utopia... We just have to do it...
sureglymop 3y ago
Instead, let's actually just not even try because we can't reach perfection and utopia anyway.
- nxm 3y ago
  Be careful so that your state doesn’t turn into…California
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  If government programs where judged by their results and not their intention I would have more faith in trying things via government But in reality government programs are only ever judged by their intentions, never their results, and if anyone attempts to apply some kind of ROI metric to them the inevitable retort is "we just did not spend enough tax payer money for it to be effective" or "evil rich people lobbied for a loop hole that is just close it then we would have utopia" but of course that utopia never comes

cptskippy 3y ago

Your claim is baseless right now. How does it do more harm than good?

changoplatanero 3y ago
Similar to how California made a law that prohibited charging for access to public restrooms. The intention was free public restrooms for everyone but the result was that most of the public restrooms closed up and it’s harder than ever to find somewhere to go. The top comment is warning people that these type of laws that attempt to mandate certain behavior often backfire
- seanw444 3y ago
  I find it funny how California causes its own issues, makes laws to fix said issues, and then causes more issues as a result. Living in Utah which tends to be a very anti-business-mandate place, and which does not have any such law, I've never had to pay for a bathroom. In fact, places where you have to ask for a key from a clerk are quite rare as well. Watching California gradually kill itself through administrative bloat, Orwellian laws, and degeneracy has been quite entertaining.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Why are you assuming causation? Perhaps bathrooms had to be charged for due to a sufficiently significant portion of the population causing damage to them. Perhaps the California law requiring free bathrooms was a way for California leaders to shirk responsibility for providing clean bathrooms to all and foist costs onto private businesses. I always assume this is the case when government requires businesses to do provide something at a price the government sets. The politicians get all the acclaim and none of the headaches of fixing (or not really fixing) the problem, win win for them. If Utah does not have the population that causes damage to bathrooms, then its politicians would not yet have needed to come up with a law requiring free bathrooms.
    - 3y ago

AYBABTME 3y ago

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 remote for a decade now and it always struck me as odd, but I didn't care enough to push for it. But as the remote concept is being used by many employers to cut on office expenses, employees with no alternative should be compensated for the extra expense they incur. It's just common sense, like paying for your mileage when you drive for business.

scottshamus 3y ago
We’ll start being asked for utility bills during interviews and recruiters will screen for people with heat pumps. “Candidate must have updated insulation and new windows”
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Seems pretty dystopian, but on the bright side it does reward the ecologically responsible I guess.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- 28304283409234 3y ago
  How is this a bad thing?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Who's going to background check every candidate's house on order to save up on like, $4000 a year for a very inefficient energy setup? The worst reality is they will estimate and then cut that expense from your offer. Still, $5000 less for the kind of work offered remote isn't a deal breaker.
- 3y ago

mempko 3y ago

If you are using your own equipment and resources, how are you an employee and not a contractor? Businesses should compensate because the agreement is the business uses their capital and your labor to make money. But if they also use your capital in addition to your labor, then the employee needs ownership of the business because they are devoting their capital to the business.

renewiltord 3y ago
Fails ABC test. They get to tell you what to do etc. Makes you an employee not a contractor. Already established.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  Exactly. Except now you're an employee who is often expected to furnish your own workspace out of pocket, up to and including computers, sometimes. Companies want it both ways.

The_Colonel 3y ago

Remote people are/will get paid less than on-site people on average, with this in mind I don't think these (relatively small) additional costs will have a significant effect. The only issue I see is with the extra paperwork this will bring. Having said that, I still think this is a wrong measure which creates bad incentives (not trying to save money on the costs since they're partially covered by employer). This should just be a part of the compensation. Alternatively, a fixed rate for all remote workers (which would also solve the bureaucracy).

bmj 3y ago

Fully remote work has always benefited the employer more than the employee, at least financially. Before the pandemic closed my employer's local office space (we were all told just to work from home), part of the employer's budget for each employee included infrastructure costs (office space, furniture, internet access, maybe food, beverages, etc). My salary did not change when I became fully remote, so the company realized significant savings by telling one hundred to just work from home. Now, if a company has always been fully remote, then, yes, this sort of thing is ultimately going to hurt the employee because the company needs to recuperate those unplanned costs. Personally, as a fully remote employee, I don't how to feel about this. Sure, I'd love my employer to offset some of my utility costs, but I also don't want them to assume that means they can control their use (which is their right in the context of an office space).

judge2020 3y ago
Unless it was already a short-term lease agreement, which is not super common in CRE, chances are your company was still footing the bill for their lease on that office space. Most office space is leased on 5-10 year terms.
- bmj 3y ago
  You are correct, but it was sublet to a new tenant. And my employer is not on the hook for paying for their food and coffee, and internet access.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    Pretty sure the internet bill is still going up be paid.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      different contracts. ISPs may or may not be tied to the building. Our bandwidth in our offices was generally on 2-year contracts. We were locked into the building for 10-years, but if we wanted to turn off the power and water and phones we could have.

teeray 3y ago

I don’t think it’s completely either-or. There are companies out there that would try to negotiate favorable bulk-rate home Internet plans. This might not have been possible in the past, but 5G home Internet and Starlink make it more possible since these companies have a BATNA with traditional providers.

solomonb 3y ago

Many young people or those cheering for minimum wage/child labor laws/workplace safety do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good... /s

FireBeyond 3y ago

> 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 without compensation. If that means fewer/smaller startups, small businesses? Ultimately, so be it.

vineyardmike 3y ago
> 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 free office space. Just because it’d be good for small businesses doesn’t mean it’s actually good for society - which is the real metric to measure.
- atomicfiredoll 3y ago
  > 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 state (and therefore pay sales tax.) That case could also end poorly for society (and the planet.)
  - lazide 3y ago
    The reality is no one cares about that, relative to their own wallets.
  - vineyardmike 3y ago
    It sounds like these aren’t actually new laws, and aren’t California specific, so it’s probably not the intent. This seems too conspiratorial on the part of the state. According to the article, it’s mostly driven from lawsuits from employees. The basis is that if the employer uses the employee’s internet, it has to pay for part of the bill, because otherwise it’s an unfair “windfall”. It rather seems like basic protections to prevent employers from offloading expenses onto employees.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

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

nxm 3y ago
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
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  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.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    That would be a lot of marginal startups such as lifestyle business running on <5% profit margins, and it's hard to see how making them fold could ever be a good thing. Plus all the previously slightly-better-than-marginal startups will now descend to being merely marginal.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

That would be true except the types of companies hiring a lot of remote workers already have a lot of remote workers in California. California has the luxury of being able to do whatever it wants and companies not really having much of a choice to say - we'll just skip the California market. It's a bigger market than Germany & Japan. This would go over less well if a state like Mississippi tried it.

safety1st 3y ago
This simply isn't true except when you're talking about the largest companies. The vast majority of American businesses don't have a place of business in all 50 states, or retail outlets, etc. etc. -- the majority of American businesses are small, operate in one or a handful of states, and as a result do in fact skip California. Sames goes I expect for "businesses hiring remote workers," only a Californian would have the arrogance to believe that all those businesses are somehow addicted to hiring in California. So what this kind of stuff does is crush small businesses in California, and leave only the large ones standing. By the way small businesses drive most of the growth in the US and owning one used to be a way to have control over your own destiny while making a good living, but hey I guess all that stuff's out of fashion in this brave new world where only five companies matter and they have a revolving door set up between their boards and the government.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  California does not care if some 2 person company in Ohio will be slightly less likely to hire a 3rd person remotely from California - the number of remote jobs going to California from these types of companies is close to 0. Even if you assume 100% of them go away - I'd wager voters in California would prefer to have current conditions improved than an ever so slight increase in opportunities in the future. Yes - small businesses employ the majority of workers. Do small businesses from outside of California with no current presence in California making new hires into California in a given year make up even 0.1% of total jobs? No. On the flip side - close to 20% of Californians work remote full-time. And some estimates are as high as 40% for workers that work from home at least once a week. Is this a good policy? Who knows. Is it going to be popular? I think so.

devmunchies 3y ago

This might give businesses the ammo they need to require the employees to come into the office.

jedberg 3y ago
This law has been in effect for years.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  It's been in effect for office work. CA is one of the few states expanding this to Remote work (according to the article).
  - jedberg 3y ago
    No, the article is pointing out that it's always applied to remote work, which was specifically clarified with additional laws in 2022.
    - xw3090 3y ago
      According to the judge which was news to Amazon. Otherwise they wouldn't have tried to dismiss.
watwut 3y ago
They are required to pay all the necessary expenses in the office too.
- abalashov 3y ago
  Yes, but they have established processes, cost structures and real estate commitments to support that.

xur17 3y ago

And moreso than even the additional expenses, the expense of tracking these expenses for a small company is non-insigificant. There's the cost of the expense tracking software, setting up rules for what can be expensed, figuring out what this new law requires, and having someone approve those expenses. The simple solution for fully remote companies is to just exclude CA residents.

bee_rider 3y ago

What does age have to do with it?

Guvante 3y ago

A computer uses 150kWh/year @ $0.42/kWh that is $75/year. Certainly internet is possible at $60/month so $720/year. Say you have a generous $500/5 years for equipment plan and you are still below $1,000/year/employee. Yes there are other expenses but you should already be providing a PC etc. How are you getting to millions at a small company? Certainly a shop with 3,000 people is out a few million but... You have 3,000 people you are doing fine. Heck with 20 people $1m is what $50k/person? You wouldn't spend that leasing everyone a Mercedes at $605/month.

535188B17C93743 3y ago
$0.42/kWh!??! Jesus Christ. I think I'm paying around $0.0629/kWh. Where is this?
- syntaxing 3y ago
  I moved out of CA but it was already 0.40 a couple years ago. My friends told me it’s close to 0.60 now. I’m more curious where you are, I’m in a low(er) cost of living and I still pay 0.17.
- mwint 3y ago
  California.
- artursapek 3y ago
  [flagged]
- switch007 3y ago
  $0.06?! Jesus, where is that?!
  - selectodude 3y ago
    Somewhere with real time pricing. The cheapest normal pricing is down around 12-13 cents per kWh. Granted due to the enormous nuclear base load in Chicago, I routinely pay 1-2 cents per kWh. I paid zero cents at 4am.

ryandrake 3y ago

This is the tired old Libertarian Anthem of "All regulation that helps [workers or customers] will backfire because it incentivizes businesses to [do worse behavior]." The solution is not to throw our hands up and say we cannot possibly regulate businesses because they're so crafty and will always get around it. The solution is to write more comprehensive regulation with fewer loopholes, such that the other, worse behavior is also regulated.

chasd00 3y ago
> The solution is to write more comprehensive regulation Government is like XML, if it's not working just use more!

r3trohack3r 3y ago

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 pool of contracting work appears to be closed to CA contractors.

mountainofdeath 3y ago
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 in perpetuity.
- chasd00 3y ago
  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.
- r3trohack3r 3y ago
  I can't speak definitively to this, I wasn't in their seat. By my understanding is that they were concerned about the liability of a consultant/contractor under CA law because you can retroactively be relabled as an employee at any point in the future causing the business to be liable for unpaid taxes and possibly benefits?
gamblor956 3y ago
Arizona has a similar "right to control" test for IC vs employee that California does, so the legal differences are minimal. If you would be reclassified as an employee under CA law, you're 90% likely to be classified as an employee under AZ law as well.

brightball 3y ago

One of many reasons to have a personal LLC/S-Corp in my opinion. Another comment in the thread really nailed this well. If employers didn't pay for commute costs separately, why does this become a line item? The employer does pay for gas and commute costs, as well as cost of living expenses...in a paycheck. I place a high value on my home office setup so I have things exactly as I want them. I also live in a low cost of living area thanks to my ability to work remote. A law like this is essentially there just to further incentivize the return to office policies that we've all been reading about. Now there will be an additional cost associated with going remote.

autoexec 3y ago
> A law like this is essentially there just to further incentivize the return to office policies that we've all been reading about. Now there will be an additional cost associated with going remote. Not an additional cost, just fewer savings for companies. I'm guessing that even having to reimburse employees for internet/power they're still saving a ton of money on those things (my last office was lit up everywhere 24/7), plus not needing to rent the office space, keep food and coffee available for employees, keep bathrooms stocked up, etc.
detourdog 3y ago
One weird thing I learned about one of the Scandinavian countries is that part of the reporting taxes is reporting of labor for DIY home improvement. The reasoning for this was that the economy could not be adequately measured if DIY work is not recorded. This really demonstrated to me the American mindset of freedom. I have no idea about California. I think another motivation is that they are trying make sense of what will undoubtedly be a complex tax-reimbursement situation. I have been a sole-proprietor since the 1990s. I think they are working towards normalizing that sole-proprietor lifestyle with longterm employment.
- mrThrowaway9001 3y ago
  No, there is no such thing in "Scandinavian" countries about reporting labor when doing DIY home improvements. You can deduct the material, or bought labor, when selling the house. But no your own labor, unless you run a company and hire yourself. That might work, but then you have to spend taxes in your company for that income. Clarification: This is in Sweden, a Scandinavian country. Edit #2: If you have a specific country in mind, please mention that instead. Makes it easier to refute.

wredue 3y ago

FUD. No evidence. I reject your claims. Prove that people billing their employers for certain home workspace costs “will amount to millions of dollars” over and above my regular employment burden.

jandrese 3y ago

No chance in hell that work at home expenses are anywhere near the lease cost (or even taxes!) for office space. Not even in the same order of magnitude.

avgcorrection 3y ago

What? They save on office space. They don’t have to rent the employees home office or bedroom. Then they lose a little on administrative overhead. It seems like a net win for the employer compared to in-office. One can always complain that raising wages or anything else that benefits the employee directly will just make them fire you because the “small businesses” can’t afford it. But now we’re talking about some small administrative overhead in exchange for not having to provide office space, so this seems even less relevant.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

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".

mplewis 3y ago

An employer who cuts headcount and salaries to compensate for this, rather than taking it out of the profit margin, is crippling their own ability to hire. Best to work somewhere that isn’t so short sighted. If your company can’t pay for the resources needed to do business, they can’t afford to be in business.

jandrese 3y ago

> 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 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. In face the opposite can occur. The increase in money at the bottom is a huge stimulus to demand which increases traffic and requires even more staff.

Supermancho 3y ago
> 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 mentality when revenues are down. That project that's 4 weeks overdue for a milestone? Time to cut it and everyone involved. When revenue is up, the opposite effect. "slack" is relative to market conditions. Job security along with it. Small companies are often lean, but it's never surprising how much leaner they will run when money gets tight. Big companies can always pare down assets and associated headcount. These are just the things I see every time revenue is down, but far from an exhaustive list.
- pixl97 3y ago
  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.
  - 3y ago

x86x87 3y ago

nah. if you cannot afford this you cannot afford to have a business. also this is not just CA. your employer is literally stealing money from you when you are using your own resources to get the job done.

nodesocket 3y ago

Not to mention I have seen people abuse home office budgets and buy things not related to work. You are already getting paid, as a small business owner this culture of abusing companies runs rampant especially with millennials for some reason.

throw1230 3y ago

Employee rights don't benefit you, said the businessman.

clausecker 3y ago

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.

mkii 3y ago
Ah but that assumes legislators and politicians want to solve the housing problem.
- clausecker 3y ago
  They may not, but pressure from large corporate interests often works wonders.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
Wouldn't that lead to people just moving further and further from work so they can get paid to listen to podcasts or whatever?

orWhattian 3y ago

[dead]

fergie 3y ago

> Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by… A weak argument that can be made about any general improvement to worker pay snd conditions. Its clear that societies that encourage workers rights have the strongest economies.

nxm 3y ago
Where is that true? France has very strong workers rights, and its GDP growth, for example, is significantly worse than that of the US.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  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.
  - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
    > 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?

sufimalang 3y ago

lets just call it the cost of doing business, if i am working for some one THEY should be the ones bearing the costs of the equipment required for me to work for THEM. I give them my time and they pay me. All that is needed to get the work done is employers responsibility.

xw3090 3y ago

I think in the short term, you're definitely right. It does not work in your favor if you want remote work in CA. The key issue is this, from the article: "While the determination of whether an expense is "necessary" varies depending on the circumstances of a particular case, generally speaking, California employees who work from home are likely entitled to reimbursement" Notice that necessary is in quotes, and the words generally, varies and likely, etc. Basically, none of this is hashed out and business owners have no idea what to pay and when. Expenses can be budgeted around but uncertainty makes this hard. And the risk of a significant surprise charge is real. I think it's likely many businesses are just going to want to sit this out while the details are all worked out. Once the dust settles they'll do the math and make a decision. So in the long term, it could be beneficial. In the short term, probably not.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> your employer is going to respond by... not hiring in CA anymore Ah yes, they pay 300k salary to devs in CA but paying for the monitor and chair is a dealbreaker. with this attitude, we'd neber have any rights at all

xw3090 3y ago
For devs they pay, and probably have a food truck drive to your house for catered lunch delivery, but not everyone is a dev.

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago

Employers are going to reduce headcount to a minimum regardless. And these millions of dollars of expenses aren't 'additional'. They are already been paid for by the employees. Employees shouldn't have to subsidize the business.

standardUser 3y ago

Explain to me how a small business can spend millions of dollars in a single year complying with this law.

turquoisevar 3y ago

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.

saghm 3y ago

> 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.

timbo1642 3y ago

[dead]

mx_02 3y ago

Companies are already doing layoffs and hiring offshore. They dont care about you or me or anybody but profits. Things will estabilize at some point and it's better for 99% of people if there are pro-workers laws in place by then.

baggy_trough 3y ago
It's because companies care about profits that these laws are harmful to workers.

jrflowers 3y ago

> For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. I hate it when paying a portion of my employee’s internet bills totals in the millions for my small business

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lednax 3y ago

Nice try Mr(s). Corpo.

somsak2 3y ago

Very interesting how a company run by irrational humans can be counted on to make "economically rational" decisions!

firedaemon 3y ago

The only people we should expect to benefit are existing employees for ~1 year. After that it will be priced in. What an administrative and legislative waste.

cyanydeez 3y ago

It's a shame, having to pay for a more functional and advanced society. Also, this isn't what's killing small business.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

My first thought when reading the headline is that I'm ok paying for most personal things if I get to work remote as it means I'm more likely to work remote. Obviously the company should be supplying laptop, monitors, etc, but unless I'm going through an egregious number of pens, paper, etc, I'm completely ok supplying it myself.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

Nah. Conventional wisdom says that "front loaded costs" of an employee are anywhere between 50-100% of an employees salary. These costs cover a lot of things, to include health insurance, retirement (401k, Superannuation, etc.), but also cost of things like a desk, licenses for an employees computer & software, building/rental insurance for the office, and expected costs of heating and AC for said office (which can be costed and amortized out over a number of employees per year, per floor, etc.). Most of that is built in, and the cash you save by not having to heat a giant fucking office can be turned into a $1500-on-hiring stipend for office gear and licenses. That corporations got themselves locked into terrible leases, or beholden to state and local tax incentives that drive RTO is not the worker's problem. And that's a pittance compared to the amount of cash you can save by sending the jobs out of SV or NYC to Denver, or Nashville, or Upstate NY, and paying well, well above market but still $50k less than big city rates. If I have to eat a $1500 buck remote-worker-chair-subsidy to outsource to Shasta or Redding, and save $10k in the process, then so be it.