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I currently live in Zambia, and employees are frequently provided housing; either housing or a housing allowance is standard in most contracts. This is obviousl

by cmyr 13y ago

I currently live in Zambia, and employees are frequently provided housing; either housing or a housing allowance is standard in most contracts. This is obviously the extreme, but there are tons of people in the world for whom owning property is functionally if not legally impossible.

smsm42 13y ago
Why do they provide housing and not pay workers to rent the same housing? Why part of the salary must be designated "housing allowance" instead of just calling it "salary" and let the worker decide to spend it on housing? Owning property outright might be hard to a lot of people, but there's an easy solution for it - renting. What you describe is functionally renting. The question is - why is it organized this particular way?
- VLM 13y ago
  Reduce labor mobility to reduce wages. There's usually a little classist attitude going on. Labor class 27 will only be allowed to live in labor 27 class apartments, etc. No selecting your own personal lifestyle balance allowed, after all we only hire perfect replaceable cogs so it won't be an issue anyway.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    Allowed by whom? I.e. suppose I am labor 27 class employee, and I come to class 1 apartment and say "I will pay class 1 price, please rent it to me". Would I be rejected? What would be fueling this rejection? Who will be prohibiting me from selecting my own living arrangements? The parent post say housing allowance is common, who will be checking I spend my allowance on an apartment that matches my class and not instead rent a higher-class one?
- eropple 13y ago
  Why do they do it? Because it allows the easier control of workers and a direct clawback of wages to the company, while being fairly quality-inelastic. To be honest, I have a hard time believing you're asking these questions in good faith. This is basic stuff.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    Do you have some sources to back up these claims, specifically in Zambia?
- vl 13y ago
  I'm not sure why this is the case in this country, but right now in Germany some companies provide leases on the cars. It turns out it's a tax reduction and "support local industry" at the same time - if same amount of money is just paid as salary, combined taxes for company and employee are higher. And it also supports local economy since lease choices are for german cars only. And I heard that same leasing practice is common in Israel as well. As a strange quirk they also pay for gas used by these leased cars. As a result, my friend with such lease always tries to do vacation in spots reachable by driving - it's just much cheaper for him, even if he has to drive for two days to get there.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    Tax reasons are the most common source of fringe benefits. As you mentioned, in Israel, a company car is a commonplace benefit among hitech workers, while in the US it is almost unheard of - because of the differences in how this benefit (and cars in general) are taxed. Though with recent change in Israel's tax code this became less popular, but some decade ago a company-provided car was an assumed part of the standard benefits package. However, we have been talking about housing being provided by employer because there's no other means to get housing, so this is completely different case - here company cars are the function of government-introduced tax law, not of prices of the cars.

by cmyr 13y ago

smsm42 13y ago

Why do they provide housing and not pay workers to rent the same housing? Why part of the salary must be designated "housing allowance" instead of just calling it "salary" and let the worker decide to spend it on housing? Owning property outright might be hard to a lot of people, but there's an easy solution for it - renting. What you describe is functionally renting. The question is - why is it organized this particular way?

VLM 13y ago
Reduce labor mobility to reduce wages. There's usually a little classist attitude going on. Labor class 27 will only be allowed to live in labor 27 class apartments, etc. No selecting your own personal lifestyle balance allowed, after all we only hire perfect replaceable cogs so it won't be an issue anyway.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Allowed by whom? I.e. suppose I am labor 27 class employee, and I come to class 1 apartment and say "I will pay class 1 price, please rent it to me". Would I be rejected? What would be fueling this rejection? Who will be prohibiting me from selecting my own living arrangements? The parent post say housing allowance is common, who will be checking I spend my allowance on an apartment that matches my class and not instead rent a higher-class one?
eropple 13y ago
Why do they do it? Because it allows the easier control of workers and a direct clawback of wages to the company, while being fairly quality-inelastic. To be honest, I have a hard time believing you're asking these questions in good faith. This is basic stuff.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Do you have some sources to back up these claims, specifically in Zambia?
vl 13y ago
I'm not sure why this is the case in this country, but right now in Germany some companies provide leases on the cars. It turns out it's a tax reduction and "support local industry" at the same time - if same amount of money is just paid as salary, combined taxes for company and employee are higher. And it also supports local economy since lease choices are for german cars only. And I heard that same leasing practice is common in Israel as well. As a strange quirk they also pay for gas used by these leased cars. As a result, my friend with such lease always tries to do vacation in spots reachable by driving - it's just much cheaper for him, even if he has to drive for two days to get there.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Tax reasons are the most common source of fringe benefits. As you mentioned, in Israel, a company car is a commonplace benefit among hitech workers, while in the US it is almost unheard of - because of the differences in how this benefit (and cars in general) are taxed. Though with recent change in Israel's tax code this became less popular, but some decade ago a company-provided car was an assumed part of the standard benefits package. However, we have been talking about housing being provided by employer because there's no other means to get housing, so this is completely different case - here company cars are the function of government-introduced tax law, not of prices of the cars.