Bosses and workers still can’t agree on whether the commute is part of the work day, and it’s creating a $578 billion productivity problem
Bosses and workers still can’t agree on whether the commute is part of the work day, and it’s creating a $578 billion productivity problem
It's creating a $578 billion productivity problem
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Oh it’s simple. Would you be commuting if you didn’t have the job? No? Then it’s work related and should be compensated.
If you have a two hour daily commute you should be paid for those two hours. Hell the company should probably pay for the cost of commuting and a tax for offsetting the emissions.
They would just not hire people that live two hours away.
And this is a problem because...?
Because that just limits people’s ability to find employment.
I’ve had jobs where I lived 10 minutes away, and took a different job with a further commute because it paid significantly more.
Should an employee have to up and move their house every time they change employers, or should employees be able to decide if a long commute is worth it to them based on the offer?
If everyone commuted two hours daily, we’d fuck our climate even faster, so…
Greater Toronto Area what's up
Because that just limits people’s ability to find employment.
Not really? In cities with actual functional public transit, you can go way further than you can with a car. In cities with reasonable density, the stuff you need, including job opportunities, aren't 2 hours away to begin with. The problem isn't incentivizing short commutes.
Even in my city with mediocre transit, and that's got way more sprawl than necessary for the population, I can cross the city, a distance of 20 miles/31km, using transit, in 1.5hrs. The problem isn't incentivizing short commutes.
I’ve had jobs where I lived 10 minutes away, and took a different job with a further commute because it paid significantly more.
How much further? 30 mins? 2 hours? Let me guess, you used a car because transit and density is bad?
Should an employee have to up and move their house every time they change employers, or should employees be able to decide if a long commute is worth it to them based on the offer?
That's a loaded question, a strawman, and a black or white fallacy. It isn't an either/or, and you're reaching for the absolute most unreasonable scenario that's unlikely to happen to begin with. That's called arguing in bad faith.
The people who live closer than 2 hours away can afford to work for a better company
That doesn’t even make sense.
Let’s say I have a job right now that I live 10 minutes from. I interview for a different job in the next city over, or across town, because it’s offering 50% more than my current job, but my commute would end up being an hour and a half.
How does that mean that by living closer to my current job I can afford to work for the company an hour and a half away?
But the pool of people living close enough is really small.
I would move as far as possible from the job site. 2 hours one way on a train watching Netflix, 4 hours work, 2 hours relax on the train. That would be nice.
…and you just wouldn’t get hired, because the guy who lives next to their office is a more attractive option, even if he’s only 80% as productive as you.
And that’s arguably why it makes some sense; companies would be more likely to hire more locally and be more flexible about remote work - both of which save precious planetary resources ánd people’s time.
Companies would also then be incentivized to invest in and lobby for better affordable housing in the communities their offices are located in/around so that employees at all pay scales have affordable options within a few miles of the office.
They could even set up close by company shops, where you could pay with company issued tokens, along with clinics, amenities, and private security for the urbanization...
Which is why I also advocate for laws keeping corporations/business out of residential property ownership altogether.
I would just move temporarily, and after probation period move far away. Surely they can't fire me because my living situation changed and had to move...
In this hypothetical scenario this gets implemented it would certainly be standard to have a clause to protect employers against exactly that.
Seems kinda shitty that you basically can't move without employer's approval.
Also poorer people living farther away would get discriminated.
It’d be fair to just keep paying the same compensation you received before moving; you could still move, but you’d have to pay the price.
And yeah, there are still a lot of problems with this approach as long as housing is left to market forces. But those problems are inherent to free markets, not to this possible solution to another problem.
They very much can, will, and do for much less. Welcome to an "at-will" employer. The only thing that's illegal is discrimination
What about "living distance discrimination"... /s
okay but when do chores happen? i can barely keep up on dishes and laundry with a 45 minute commute each way. sleep, too...
Currently you work 8 hours + 1.5 hours commute. With this you'd work 6.5 hours + 1.5 hour commute, so you'd have 1.5 extra hour for chores or whatever.
If you use train/bus for commuting, you can even sleep there :-)
i didn't realize the commute was implicitly a part of the 8 hours in your scenario. that makes a little more sense.
You're highlighting that it's not a great solution, but at least a 2 hours of flat payment per office call would be an acknowledgement of my time considering it's an hour each way for the majority of people.
There should be a reasonable limit of one hour in normal traffic for the commute each way though. Basing it on time would encourage companies to be flexible on start/end times to avoid needing to pay for people to sit in traffic, and there should be some kind of high but not crazy limit on commute time.
Yes I should only have to kiss and lick one boot a day each way maximum.
In the US, commutes aren’t covered and that’s part of law. However, the FLSA was passed in the 30s and the Portal-to-Portal Act was passed in the 40s so it’s arguably time to reevaluate.
As pro labor as I am, I do think it’s reasonable to put some cap on commute times so that commuters can’t abuse it. The hard part is coming up with a good one. You can’t give a max time without some idea of things like housing, public transportation, commute costs, etc. because then employers could abuse it by setting up offices away from everything or setting the radius too low.
A completely different problem for paid commutes is that suddenly it becomes work time. When I had a shit job doing pool inspections, the city controlled my time in the car from the office to the pools and back. The city did not control my time commuting. If the company is paying me for my commute, I’m on the clock, which means they can reasonably ask me to do things like not listen to my podcasts or take specific routes. If I’m on public transport, they can reasonably ask me to do work because I’m being paid. My solution here is working from home.
I think this conversation is more about office workers than site workers. You need to get on site to do the work but office workers don't need to actually go in, they are being told they have to come in and the time needed to adhere to an enforced policy should be included in the work day.
Everything I said applies to office work.
As a manager with a limited budget that I want to stretch as much as possible, I need to limit the amount of it I spend paying for commutes. At the same time, I need to make sure my team is protected from the company abusing a commute cap.
Similarly, if I’m paying for an employee’s commute, I’d like to get some value out of that. That’s money out of my budget I’m spending for no appreciable gains unless they’re producing. I can build work that’s doable on a train or a bus.
Of course, all of this is solved by WFH as I said at the end of my previous post.
if I’m paying for an employee’s commute, I’d like to get some value out of that. That’s money out of my budget I’m spending for no appreciable gains unless they’re producing.
So, like bathrooms. Do you require employees to "produce" while in the bathroom, or do you write it off as part of general expenses along with chairs, lighting, and office cleaning?
Commuting is an expense linked to the production, and should be billed accordingly. The gains, are preparing the employee to produce; just like starting a production line, it doesn't happen instantly.
Strictly speaking, even WFH employees should be paid a "getting up" rate for the time it takes them to get up to working speed.
If I’m actually onsite, my employer has tremendous control over that. They can play the music they want and ban headphones. They can put a bunch of informational literature all over the bathrooms (this is a thing Google does/did). If I start getting paid for the commute, suddenly my employer has the ability to start controlling that.
You and I agree that commute should be paid. What I think you’re lacking right now is my point about the commute being controlled. If it’s paid, it can be controlled, and that’s something I’m personally not comfortable with.
If the company is paying me for my commute, I’m on the clock, which means they can reasonably ask me to do things like not listen to my podcasts or take specific routes. If I’m on public transport, they can reasonably ask me to do work because I’m being paid.
You do work: you commute.
If the company wants you to do some other kind of work in that time, they can offer an office space in your car or public transport... or have you stay at your home office, it's up to them.